About Us
The main aim of the Westbourne Book Binge is to enhance an interest and love of stories, books, their authors and reading in Bournemouth and its environs.
If you didn’t know, there are over 300 Book and Literary Festivals in Britain. Bournemouth used to have one but it ended some years ago. The Westbourne Book Binge, with its strapline of “Feast on Words”, will re-seed a love of literature in the wider town, starting small and hopefully growing in coming years.
Book and literary Festivals offer an opportunity for readers to connect with authors, to hear first-hand what inspired them, and hear the inside story of how they devised, shaped and wrote their work. It takes the pleasure of reading to a new level. And of course authors love to talk about their “babies”.
Westbourne is an attractive suburb at the western end of Bournemouth (well obviously!) that blends a real village feel with a twist of urban cool.
It has a small public library bursting with community activity, the UK’s smallest cinema (19 seats), the glory of Henry Joy’s shopping arcade built in 1885, an independent and family-owned bookshop, and a vibrant food and restaurant scene that prides itself on its local reputation as the place to eat in Bournemouth.
Westbourne also has a unique literary history. It is where Robert Louis Stevenson lived for three years from 1884-1887 and wrote The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, one of the most compelling horror stories of the Victorian age. He also wrote the classic adventure story Kidnapped, whilst living here and was visited by a number of famous authors and artists including Henry James and John Singer Sargent.
Another Westbourne claim to literary fame is the French poet Paul Verlaine (1844–1896), whose poem Chanson d’automne was broadcast to the French Resistance as a signal to launch their pre-D-Day sabotage missions, and who described his own time of living in Westbourne as: “The long fir wood winds downwards to the shore, The narrow wood of firs, of laurels and of pines.”
Dr Susan England and Paul Kelly have extensive expertise in writing, publishing, festival organisation and arts and event management. We want to help Bournemouth build on its outstanding reputation as a leading tourism destination by growing the town’s cultural offer.
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Westbourne
Bournemouth
Dorset
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