Can you remember the first time you fell in love with a book?
Join Sam Leith, Literary Editor of the Spectator, as he celebrates the paperback publication of The Haunted Wood, the Sunday Times 2024 Book of the Year Winner and Blackwell's Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2024 longlisted title.
The stories we read as children matter. The best ones are indelible in our memories; reaching far beyond our childhoods, they are a window into our deepest hopes, joys and anxieties. They reveal our past—collective and individual, remembered and imagined—and invite us to dream up different futures.
In this pioneering history of the children's literary canon, Sam will reveal the magic of childhood reading, from the ancient tales of Aesop through the Victorian and Edwardian golden age to new classics. Excavating the complex lives of our most beloved writers, he will offer a humane portrait of a genre and celebrates the power of books to inspire and console entire generations.
Join us for an evening that conveys the magic of discovering the very best stories for the first time and explores the power of passing those stories down from one generation to the next. This conversation will examine what it truly means to fall in love with reading and how it enriches our lives forever.
“One of the best surveys of children’s literature I’ve read... The Haunted Wood is a marvel.” Phillip Pullman

The ‘stream and book’ package includes a unique ticket for the stream, and a copy of The Haunted Wood (RRP £12.99) deliverable to any UK address.
The event will initially be broadcast on 14 October at 6.30pm UK time. It will be available to view up to two weeks after the event has ended and can be accessed Worldwide. If you live in a time zone that does not suit the initial broadcast time you can watch it at any point after the initial showing for two weeks.
If you have any questions, please email [email protected].