Lucinda’s Diary

Inside Story Live at Riverstone with Lucinda: Rory Cellan-Jones

Date: 5 October 2023
Time: 12 Noon UK Time
Location: Online and live from Riverstone
Goldster Book Club
Rory Cellan-Jones portrait shot

Rory Cellan-Jones became a much-loved household name as the BBC Technology Correspondent. Since being diagnosed with Parkinson in 2019, he has pioneered a greater understanding of the disease among all of us with his articles and the illuminating and moving podcast Movers and Shakers. Fellow Parkinson colleagues such as Jeremy Paxman, Mark Mardell and Sir Nicholas Mostyn show how different personalities face up to setbacks. Rory is the best-selling author of Always On – Hope and Fear in the Smartphone Era and his new book, Ruskin Park; Sylvia, Me and the BBC, tells his own tender and troubling story. …

Inside Story with Lucinda: Ruth Leigh

Date: 13 October 2023
Time: 12 Noon UK Time
Location: Online
Goldster Book Club
A Great Deal of Ingenuity book cover

Calling all fans of Jane Austen. On 13 October, Lucinda will be interviewing Ruth Leigh, author of A Great Deal of Ingenuity: A Collection of Pride and Prejudice Stories. The pages of Pride and Prejudice sparkle with household names: proud Darcy and prejudiced Elizabeth, book-loving Mr Bennet, the snobbish Bingley sisters, predatory Mr Wickham and oily Mr Collins. But what about all the other people busy cooking, mending, flirting, walking and socialising in the background? …

Inside Story with Lucinda: Adrian Magson

Date: 19 October 2023
Time: 12 Noon UK Time
Location: Online
Goldster Book Club
Adrian Magson headshot

Adrian Magson is the author of hundreds of short stories and 29 books and an acclaimed expert in creating fictional characters. He is so prolific that he has not one, but two most recently published books, Death at the Old Asylum in which Inspector Rocco becomes enveloped in a case of cold-blooded execution and Killing Waters, a stand-alone murder investigation set on the Oxford Canal in the Midlands. …

Artistic Fields: in conversation with Victoria Panton-Bacon

Date: 4 November 2023
Time: 7:00 - 9:00pm
Location: 12 Upper Olland St, Bungay NR35 1BQ
Talks & Events
Artistic Fields poster

Talking about Dickens and Travel with fellow author Victoria Panton-Bacon. Tickets are on sale now. …

Dickens and Christmas walking tour

Date: 14 December 2023
Time: 5:30 - 7:30pm
Location: Outside Holborn Station, Kingsway exit, London WC2B 6AA
Talks & Events
Dickens and Christmas book jacket

This year marks 175 years of The Haunted Man – Dickens’s final Christmas book. Come and discover the stories that inspired his festive writing. The walking tour will be led by Dickens’s great great great granddaughter, Lucinda Hawksley, author of Dickens and Christmas and Dickens and Travel. …

Recent Events

Lizzie, Kate & Louise: Three Remarkable Women Talk

Date: 28 September 2023
Time: 7:00 - 8:30pm
Location: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum -
Talks & Events
Lizzie Kate Louise

Lizzie Siddal, Kate Perugini (née Dickens) and Princess Louise were all talented artists and celebrities of the 19th-century artistic world. Their lives and careers reveal a very fascinatingly different story from our usual preconceptions about Victorian women. Lucinda Hawksley has written biographies of all of these remarkable women, and in this talk she will share their stories, revealing their secrets, their ambitions, and the scandals that surrounded them.

Come along on 28 September to discover the lives of unconventional people living in a very conventional time. …

Inside Story with Lucinda: JD Kirk

Date: 22 September 2023
Time: 12:00 Noon UK Time
Location: Online
Goldster Book Club
A Dead Man Walking by JD Kirk book cover

On 22 September, join Lucinda Hawksley as she speaks to a man who isn’t there… JD Kirk is the author of the multi-million bestselling DCI Jack Logan crime fiction series, set in the Highlands of Scotland. He also does not exist. Instead, JD is the pen name of former children’s author and screenwriter, Barry Hutchison, who was born and raised in Fort William. …

Talk at Smithdown Litfest: Dickens and Travel

Date: 22 September 2023
Time: 7:00pm - 8:30pm
Location: St Barnabas Penny Lane Church, Smithdown Place Liverpool L18 1LZ
Talks & Events
Dickens and Travel

From childhood, Charles Dickens was fascinated by tales from other countries and other cultures, and he longed to see the world. Lucinda Hawksley talks about her latest book, Dickens and Travel, which looks at the journeys made by the author, and how they influenced his writing and enriched his life.

There will be the opportunity to buy Lucinda’s book and have it signed during the event. …

Inside Story with Lucinda: Julie Summers

Date: 21 September 2023
Time: 12:00 Noon UK Time
Location: Online
Goldster Book Club
Jambusters book cover

Julie Summers is a bestselling writer, researcher and historian. Her books include Fearless on Everest: The Quest for Sandy Irvine; a biography of her grandfather, the man who built the ‘real’ bridge over the River Kwai, The Colonel of TamarkanStranger in the House and When the Children Came Home, a social history of servicemen returning to their families from the Second World War. On 3 February, Julie returns to Goldster to talk about Jambusters, the story of the Women’s Institute in WW2. …

Inside Story with Lucinda: Sarah Bax Horton

Date: 14 September 2023
Time: 12 Noon UK Time
Location: Online
Goldster Book Club
One-Armed Jack: Uncovering the real Jack the Ripper cover

Author of One-Armed Jack: Uncovering the real Jack the Ripper.

Inside Story with Lucinda: Dr Nicholas Cambridge

Date: 18 August 2023
Time: 12:00 Noon UK Time
Location: Online
Goldster Book Club
Bleak Health book cover

Dr Nicholas Cambridge is an honorary research fellow in humanities and medical history at the University of Buckingham. Previously he worked as a GP for 25 years. He is a member of the Dickens Fellowship and has published several papers and given many lectures on Charles Dickens in relation to medicine. …

Inside Story with Lucinda: Jarod Chapman

Date: 17 August 2023
Time: 12:00 Noon UK Time
Location: Online
Goldster Book Club
Power of Yoga for Men book jacket

Jarod Chapman is a breath work and meditation teacher, a fitness coach, sports masseur, and co author of The power of Yoga For Men. He was Tina Turner’s Personal Wellness Coach on her final world tour in 2008-09. …

Inside Story with Lucinda: Sean Wensley

Date: 11 August 2023
Time: 12:00 Noon UK Time
Location: Online
Goldster Book Club
Through a Vet's Eyes book cover

Our lives are intrinsically linked to those of animals – whether that’s the animals we farm for food, those living in the wild, those we use for sport or the ones we choose to keep as pets. We all have a responsibility to consider our impact, and even small changes in our own lives could significantly improve the quality of theirs. …