Leave your Wellies at home and put your thinking-caps on this May, as the Bristol Festival of Ideas returns to our fair city. Now in its eighth year, this month-long event aims to stimulate your minds and passions with an inspiring programme of discussion and debate with experts from a massive range of fields.
In this post, we pick-out some of the events that the BGS Librarians are most excited to see. In most cases we have copies of the speakers’ published works in the Library so you can check them out for yourself.
At the time of publishing, all events have tickets available and can be purchased from the Bristol Festival of Ideas website.
Nate Silver
The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail - But Some Succeed
3 May 2013, 12.30-13.30, Watershed; Bristol
3 May 2013, 12.30-13.30, Watershed; Bristol
Barack Obama calls Nate Silver ‘A superstar… my rock, my foundation’. He correctly predicted the winner of all 50 states in the 2012 US Presidential election. His book, The Signal and the Noise, was a number one bestseller in 2012. Silver will explain how expert forecasters think, and what lies behind their success, across a range of areas including the stock market, the poker table, politics, sports, earthquakes, the weather and disease control. With everything from the health of the global economy to our ability to fight terrorism dependent on the quality of our forecasts, we have much to learn from Silver’s investigation into how to distinguish the true insights from the noise of useless data.
The Signal and the Noise, available at MA 519
Frances Harrison and Bidisha
11 May 2013, 15.00-16.00, Watershed; Bristol
The tropical island of Sri Lanka is a paradise for tourists, but in 2009 it became a hell for its Tamil minority, as decades of civil war between the Tamil Tiger guerrillas and the government reached its bloody climax. Caught in the crossfire were hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren, doctors, farmers, fishermen, nuns and other civilians; the government ensured through a strict media blackout that the world was unaware of their suffering. In Still Counting the Dead Frances Harrison recounts those crimes in sobering, shattering detail. She is in conversation with writer and commentator Bidisha who has spent time in recent years in the Middle East resulting in Beyond the Wall: Writing a Path Through Palestine
Still Counting the Dead available at 954.93
Still Counting the Dead available at 954.93
Beyond the Wall: Writing a Path Through Palestine available at 954.94
Alice Rawsthorn
Hello World: Where Design Meets Life11 May 2013, 18.00-19.00, Spike Island, 133 Cumberland Road; Bristol
Alice Rawsthorn is the design critic for the International Herald Tribune and her new book, Hello World: Where Design Meets Life, explores design’s influence on our lives. It describes how warlords, scientists, farmers, hackers, activists and designers have used design to different ends throughout history: from the macabre symbol invented by eighteenth century pirates to terrorise their victims into surrender, to one woman’s quest for the best possible prosthetic legs.
Hello World: Where Design Meets Life available at 745
Hello World: Where Design Meets Life available at 745
Alice Oswald
11 May 2013, 19.30-20.30, Watershed; Bristol
Alice Oswald is one of our finest poets admired widely by readers, poets and critics with work ranging from Dart – telling the story of the River Dart in Devon in verse and prose – to Memorial, her latest work, a translation of Homer’s Iliad and a brilliantly original poem. She talks about and reads from her work.
Dart and Memorial available at 821.914
Gavin Hewitt
The Lost Continent
13 May 2013, 18.15-19.15, Watershed; Bristol
13 May 2013, 18.15-19.15, Watershed; Bristol
BBC Europe Editor Gavin Hewitt tells the story of a flawed dream, a noble vision that turned dangerous, and which led Europe into its gravest crisis since World War Two – a crisis for which it was totally unprepared. A pillar of the post-war European dream was a shared currency, and with it came easy money, seducing some countries into a wild spending binge. After the financial crash in the United States, Europe caught the cold and was left with a debt crisis that came to threaten the entire European project. The Lost Continent is rich in anecdote, weaving together the stories of ordinary people with the high politics and drama of Europe in crisis to give an unparalleled and vivid portrait of a massive shift in modern history.
The Lost Continent available at 330.94
The Lost Continent available at 330.94
Michael Palin
16 May 2013, 19.45-20.45, St George’s; Bristol
Michael Palin established his reputation as a comedy performer and writer with Monty Python’s Flying Circus. As a celebrated globetrotter his television credits include the highly successful travel series Around the World in 80 Days, Pole to Pole and, most recently, Brazil. He has published two volumes of critically acclaimed diaries, which he discusses, amongst his other work with Christopher Stevens.
Pole to Pole, available at 910
Michael Palin’s Hemingway Adventure, available at 910.4
Sahara, available at 916.6
Brazil available at 918.1
Around the World in 80 Days available at 910.4
Brazil available at 918.1
Around the World in 80 Days available at 910.4
Ian Robertson
What makes a winner? Why do some succeed both in life and in business, and others fail? The ‘winner effect’ is a term used in biology to describe how an animal that has won a few fights against weak opponents is much more likely to win later bouts against stronger contenders. As Ian Robertson reveals, it applies to humans, too. Success changes the chemistry of the brain, making us more focused, smarter, more confident and more aggressive. By understanding what the mental and physical changes are that take place in the brain of a ‘winner’, how they happen, and why they affect some people more than others, Robertson answers the question of why some people attain and then handle success better than others. He explains what makes a winner – or a loser – and how we can use the answers to these questions to understand better the behaviour of our business colleagues, employees, family and friends.
The Winner Effect available at 158