Hurlingham Book Fair 2018

Background: Today I went to Hurlingham's first ever book fest. One of the first people I met was my friend Chantelle who works with me at Fulham Palace, her husband helped to organise the event. I also met her daughter, the lovely Izzie, who made sure that I found the right room, since Hurlingham's not short on rooms!

I invited my history tutor John Gethin along, as he enjoys books and writing. We went to two riveting talks, from two contrasting but equally fascinating writers: The former Bishop of Oxford Lord Harries, and the BBC security corespondent Frank Gardner.

Of course both had books to promote as well. Lord Harries' talk focused more directly on the subject matter of his book "The Beauty and the Horror". The book is subtitled "Searching for God in a Suffering World", and that also sums up the theme of the talk. Lord Harries' book focuses on a famous challenge to God described by Dostoevsky in his book "The Brother's Karamazov". The challenge can be summarised as this: If this is the best possible world that God could have created, it would have been better that He created nothing at all. The former Bishop of Oxford clearly doesn't agree! I look forward to finding out why as I read my freshly signed copy of his book.

Things to mention about Frank Gardner: his talk was about his adventures in general. He talked about flying in armoured helicopters over the jungles of Columbia, and sailing around the heavily pirated seas between Somalia and the Yemen. He would have his own marine that would carry him from one ship to another.

The talk took the form of an interview, and Frank Gardner was asked about his active lifestyle. For a man in a wheel chair he certainly gets around! He enjoys activities such as skiing and scuba diving, he is an inspiration for disabled people everywhere. Frank Gardner also talked about his adventures as young man living with Bedouin tribes in Jordan, he really is a twenty first century Lawrence of Arabia.

During the Q and A session at the end, Mr Gardner fielded all kinds of questions on matters of international security, demonstrating his breadth of knowledge. No wonder the BBC rely on him for so much of the security analysis, he really knows his stuff. It was fascinating hearing him talk about when he was shot 11 bullets and unconscious for five days.