Why is Henry VII’s barber-surgeon, Edmund Harmans, tomb inside the Church of St John the Baptist in Burford and why are there striking profile carvings of bare-chested men in feathered headdresses on either side? Nandini Das will explain all What is the weirdest thing people do when they think nobody is looking? Alison Marsh spills the beans If you've experienced the absolute best of human nature across thousands of miles, what do you wish everyday people understood about how we treat one...

A riveting history of vampire panics across cultures and down through the millennia—and why killing the dead is better than killing the living. Killing the Dead provides the first in-depth, global account of one of the world’s most widespread yet misunderstood forms of mass hysteria—the vampire epidemic. In a spellbinding narrative, John Blair takes readers from ancient Mesopotamia to present-day Haiti to explore a macabre frontier of life and death where corpses are believed to wander or do...

Some literary festival talks feel like a pleasant hour in a busy programme. Others stay with you because they change the way you read. Kate McLoughlin’s talk at Burford Literary Festival promises the second kind. If you enjoy books that ask serious questions, writing that pays close attention to history, or conversations that make familiar subjects feel newly alive, this is a session to mark in the programme. Hear from Kate herself....... A good literary talk does not simply tell you what a...