FAMOUS authors from the world of politics, journalism and acting talked about their latest work during the Althorp Literary Festival.
The event, now in its ninth year, featured a range of well known personalities including former chancellor Alistair Darling, BBC TV and radio presenter Jeremy Vine and actor John Challis.
Earl Spencer also spent an hour talking about his book Impressions of Althorp: My Spencer Heritage and Carla Buzasi from the Huffington Post led a debate on the future of digital publishing.
Despite the wet and windy weather the festival, which ran from Friday to Sunday, was well attended with the most popular authors proving to be Mr Darling, Mr Vine and Claire Tomalin, who has written a biographer of Charles Dickens.
Mr Vine said: “I think Althorp is incredible and I’m over the moon to stay the night here.
“It is great therapy to come out and talk about the book as when you are presenting you don’t get out as much as you should. But it is great to get out and see the audience.
“It took me six months to write the book and I wrote it on my phone as I have two young children. I just thought that having been at the BBC 25 years I needed to write it down before I forgot it.”
Jeannie Corby, spokeswoman for Althorp, said: “We had a really big variety of authors this year.
“Jeremy Vine was really fantastic and really popular. The event builds every year and for our 10th anniversary we are planning something really special.
“Bill Bryson has said that Althorp is his favourite literary festival as the authors are so well looked after and get to stay the night.
“The event has a very relaxed feel and all the authors have dinner together in the evening.”