Birmingham Book Festival is Jordan-free

Sep 20 2009 by Lorne Jackson, Sunday Mercury

THERE are many excellent reasons for visiting this year’s Birmingham Book Festival.

A mouth-watering selection of local and internationally recognised authors will be attending, including Nick Hornby, Brian Keenan and Lindsey Davis.

There will also be numerous discussion between book lovers, and courses to advise word-worshipers on how to break into publishing.

But perhaps the best reason for going is that the event, which runs from October 6 to 29, is a Jordan-free zone.

Katie Price may be one of the most successful names in the book trade at the moment, having hit the bestseller list with her seemingly endless output of revelatory biographies.

She has even invaded the children’s book market.

But Jordan’s jubbly-bits and jaw-dropping sexual revelations won’t be welcome at Birmingham Book Festival.

Artistic director Jonathan Davidson says: “There are so many fabulous writers out there at the moment, we don’t need to be promoting the career of some mindless celebrity.

“Jordan is not on our short list – or even our very long list.

“Instead, what Birmingham Book Festival sets out to do is promote good writing and interesting thinkers. The sad truth is that no-one goes to political meetings any more, so deep ideas aren’t discussed in public that often.