Ebury will have a strong presence at Latitude Festival once again this year, with the return of the haven of literary tranquility which is the Ebury Library and Bookshop, with shelves packed with books for festival goers to browse and buy and a programme of practical workshops delivered by Ebury authors.

Visitors to the stand can unwind by taking part in our Yoga and Relaxation workshops delivered by Ebury’s Lucy Edge and Virgin’s Tony Wrighton respectively; enjoy Foraging Workshops with Miles Irving and take part in daily Travellers’ Tales storytelling sessions hosted by Emma Kennedy, Stuart Maconie, Henry Worsley and Tony Wrighton.

We’re celebrating Ebury Press’s 50th anniversary in style with an old-school birthday party led by the doyenne of organised fun, Josie Curran, complete with musical statues, pass the parcel and pin the tail on the donkey. We’ll also be holding a games tournament in honour of Dave Gorman vs. The Rest of the World.

Additionally, we have an impressive line-up of authors appearing in the Literary Arena and on the Sunday Times Stage: Stuart Maconie, Rory McGrath, Louise Wener, Arianne Cohen, Henry Worsley, Mark Thomas and Ben Okri.

Are you going to be at Latitude? Let us know in the comments!

O that abstract garden of being
Tells me to be brave, and clear,
In the fire of living,
And in the journey through the year.
So I will grow me like an oak tree
And make life’s honey like a bee.
Each day I will walk an interesting mile
And with the sun I’ll share a smile.
I will play again like a child,
And celebrate what’s wild.
I will swim in every sea or river,
And reflect the light of the sublime giver.
I will be at ease with opposition,
And will cultivate intuition.
I will walk the surprising streets,
And dance to life’s unexpected beats.
I will notice all the phases of the moon
And try not to act too late or too soon.
I will write something new every day
And look at paintings in an alternative way.
I’ll not dream the same way twice;
But I’ll not be shy to repeat what’s nice.
I’ll have the courage, when needed, to change;
And I won’t forget that life is strange.
And so I’ll learn to love the simple things
As well as the complexity that life brings.

Good or bad I’ll learn to treat the same
And I’ll not forget that it’s all a mysterious game.
I’ll not let that general fear of death run my life
And I’ll make magic even out of strife.
Into the higher realms I will enter
And make my corner the centre.
O that abstract garden, make me clear,
Make me brave, without fear.
I intend to love this rich new year.

By Ben Okri, author of the upcoming Time for New Dreams

(Copyright, Ben Okri, December 2010. All Rights Reserved.)

Over the many years that I have been a professional animal healer and animal communicator, I have given thousands of consultations for animals – including horses, dogs, cats and other pets – and every single session has been completely different. This is because each animal is unique, just like we all are. And this is also what makes my work so interesting and so much fun.

Today, I have been working with two horses, a dog and a cat. The first horse, Zeus, has had a really tough life as he was formerly a riding-school horse. For years, he was in pain but no one bothered about it. His saddle did not fit, his bridle was too small and his feet were in bad shape. The poor horse had been so overworked and become so shut down that it took me nearly an hour of channelling deep healing to him before he began to relax. When the healing eventually took hold at a deep level, I watched as Zeus began to yawn as he started to let go of his human-created demons. Fortunately, his new owner is making it her mission to help poor Zeus lead a happy healthy life with her herd, and has gathered a team of experts to help her achieve this. Healing from me was an essential starting point so that other therapies can work efficiently for him in the future.

My visit to Henry, a little dog, was much sadder by comparison and I had to draw upon my extensive professional experience to help overcome a difficult situation. Henry was in the advanced stages of liver cancer and when I arrived at the house it was clear he was distressed. I talked to the owner at length, counselling her that it was Henry’s time to leave earth, and that he needed urgent help to achieve this. However, his upset owner was finding it difficult to let go and make the decision, and so I talked to her about the fact that in reality there is no death – just a shift in consciousness. Joining Henry and the woman together in a healing circle, I offered the dog pain relief and both of them peace. Henry told me that he was ready to go, and later the woman took him to the vet for his journey to heaven. It was a difficult case but rewarding to be able to help both dog and human.

Finally, the last call of the day was to see a black cat who had suffered from a stroke a while back. I have seen the cat on several occasions since and against all the odds she has made an amazing recovery. As the little cat lay in my arms purring, I thought to myself what a wonderful job I have, and how much I love my work.

Margrit Coates, author of Angel Pets

It was what my mother used to call a dog day – one of those steamy, cloudy, still days of August when nothing much changes. I was walking to the copse at the end of Clapham Common and, when I entered it, could see it hadn’t altered much since I was last there. Two men with bicycles were waiting patiently for their lovers, one beside a bench and the other near a battered sign. Further on was a blunt looking Scotty dog, busy and alert amongst the undergrowth. There was nothing else remarkable except for the stillness of the foliage, all noise of the surrounding roads dimmed by the moist atmosphere and lack of breeze. I stood quite still, concentrated and enchanted, flashing back down the years to my childhood.

Occasionally, during a quiet school holiday, my mother would say, ‘Let’s go out in the car…’ She and I would set off, full of expectation and enthusiasm, and after meandering around for a while, often seemed to end up down a deep track in a wood. There, she’d turn off the engine, we’d wind down the windows, and go very quiet, smelling the bracken, listening to the invisible birds high up in the trees, watching the sunlight change amongst the undergrowth. It was always a magical moment, filled with joy. Eventually, she’d sigh and say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful? It’s so primitive…’

What she meant, I think, was the way you can sometimes feel fully alive when you go quiet and really focus on where you are - often helped by being completely still, in a place of natural beauty.

This is all in my mind at the moment because of the recent visit to London by Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh. He gave a speech at the Hammersmith Apollo a couple of weeks ago, and some of us went to hear him from the office. He was as inspiring and as extraordinary as ever, demonstrating what real concentration is all about in the way he picked up a glass of water to drink, in the way he spoke for an hour without notes (though he is in his eighties), and in the clarity of mind he used in answering the questions, his face alight. But what I haven’t been able to forget was the way, when he finished speaking, he just left. Whilst others around him on the stage began to move and reorganise for the next part of the evening, Thich Nhat Hanh simply stood up, turned to face the backdrop, and slipped away. There was no bow to the audience, no pause for applause. Nothing. The contrast between him and all the rock bands, mediums, orators and dancers who have filled Hammersmith Apollo before him, was enormous.

That evening I started re-reading his seminal book, The Miracle of Mindfulness. I hadn’t forgotten how practical and helpful is his advice about performing everyday tasks with mindfulness. He makes it all seem so simple. Perhaps it really is. But I had forgotten how very profound are his instructions ‘so we can live each minute of life’. At some point he says: ‘If we’re really engaged in mindfulness…then we will consider each step we take as an infinite wonder, and a joy will open our hearts like a flower, enabling us to enter the world of reality.’

Perhaps that’s what my mother and I were really doing, deep inside that wood, without realising it – getting a dose of reality by fully focusing on where we were. And what I caught a glimpse of once again on Clapham Common last Saturday.

Judith Kendra - Rider Publishing Director

Read an extract of The Miracle of Mindfulness

The 21 speeches explored in this book are moments in time – points in history used to illustrate the development of the ways we see the world today. These world views did not appear in isolation: they grew out of the events, ideas, politics and people of the last one hundred years or so.

I reviewed over a hundred transcripts in the process of choosing which speeches to focus on, and decided to limit the final number to 21 to represent the current century. The chosen speeches all spoke to me in a powerful way and captured the essence of the ideas that I was exploring: they reflected one of two principal outlooks which currently dominate global thinking and which might be characterised – albeit simplistically – as ‘idealist’ and ‘realist’ positions.

It was also essential that the final selection had some female and non-Western voices (unlike in too many other books). To that end there are speeches by Emmeline Pankhurst, Margaret Beckett, Margaret Thatcher and Marie Fatayi-Williams, as well as by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Osama bin Laden, Salvador Allende and Mohandas Gandhi. The book features politicians, soldiers, activists and ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Many of these people brought about tremendous change, or at least came to represent that change. Whether you think they shaped the zeitgeist or grew from it depends on whether you believe in the pre-eminence of the individual or society as a whole. Examples pointing to both are included in 21 Speeches that Shaped Our World.

Speeches come in many forms and in selecting those for inclusion in this book I used a broad definition of what constitutes a speech, so there is also a written last statement, a video message, a radio broadcast and a televised address. There may be surprise at some of the other speeches that have been included: George Bush is not known as the world’s greatest orator and bin Laden – while a powerful speaker – is not usually considered to have delivered some of the modern world’s most influential speeches, though he has. If, on the other hand, the book is missing some famous speeches, it is because it isn’t intended to be a collection of the ‘greatest’ speeches – some excellent anthologies already exist. Even if you have come across some, or all, of these speeches before, they warrant re-reading – and I hope to add the understanding of how they have shaped the world we live in.

In writing this book, I also wished to introduce a new generation of readers to some of the most important words ever spoken. Many will recognise lines such as ‘we will fight on the beaches’ or ‘I have a dream’ but may have little understanding of their significance or perhaps not even know who spoke them or, more importantly, why. I have tried to address this, and therefore each speech is preceded by an introduction exploring the context and wider impact of that moment and the background of the speaker.

Despite the modern desire for sound bites, the best speeches can remind us of Shakespeare: eloquent language and novel phrases are used to impart a message about the human condition that can be understood by almost everyone. They are akin to poetry and, in fact, utilise many of the poet’s techniques, from rhythm to repetition. Like the sophist teachers of philosophy and rhetoric in ancient Greece, however, speakers can also use ambiguous language and rhetorical sleight-of-hand to promote weak or false arguments or obscure the truth. A great speaker can use their verbal skills to manipulate our emotions and deceive our thinking. In this way, speeches have the power not only to inspire others to great achievement but also to lead them to great harm (some devastating examples of which are included in this book).

In the end, though, this book is about hope: hope for a safer, more equal world, where our differences are not settled by wars and where we are able to work together to overcome the huge social and environmental challenges humanity will face over the course of this century.

Chris Abbott, author of 21 Speeches that Changed Our World: The People and Ideas That Changed the Way We Think

In 1992 I read in a British newspaper that Phoolan Devi was standing in a by-election for the Indian parliament. I had never heard of her before. She was doing this, the article said, to draw attention to her plight and that of the poor in India, particularly that of women. There was a description of her turbulent past and of her life as a bandit. She had surrendered under a deal where she would spend a maximum of eight years in jail, but this had not been honoured. The article said that, while in Gwalior jail, she had learnt to read and write.

Her plight struck a chord with me. That year, I had been to India for the first time. The poverty and the gap between rich and poor had shocked me. I had lived in Africa for several years but conditions in India seemed even worse. It was clear to me that the poor of India needed voices to plead their case. I also felt that Phoolan had been cruelly treated by fate. On an impulse, I wrote a letter to her- not a thing I’d ever done before, and am unlikely to do again. I wished her luck in the election and offering to give some help with her legal expenses. I’m not sure I even thought she would receive my letter, let alone reply.

Reply she did and we wrote many letters to each other over the next two years. Or rather, Phoolan dictated replies to letters that were read out to her. It turned out that she was completely illiterate and only capable of affixing her signature. She worried that she might be hung, and I reassured her that it could never happen; she vomited blood, and I sent her advice from my doctor brother.

*** ***

By coincidence Phoolan was released from jail the very same week that I arrived back in India. I went to see her in the fortified house in north Delhi that she had moved into. Armed policemen sent from Uttar Pradesh by Mulayam Singh protected the approach to the house. Inside, the Delhi police, under instructions from the Supreme Court, guarded her. Phoolan’s lawyer, Kamini Jaiswal, had telephoned to arrange my entry. Even so I was carefully interrogated and searched.

I had no great expectations for our meeting. One can feel sympathetic to someone who has had troubles, but they may well turn out to be not very nice. I imagined that I would just meet her the once and that would be that.

I was somewhat taken aback when Phoolan entered the room. I knew the stories of a fearsome bandit marching fifty kilometres a day though the Chambal ravines, carrying a heavy gun and ammunition. I had imagined a powerfully built woman. But the woman across the room buried beneath a heavy maroon shawl was incredibly small. Moreover, I was expecting someone who, given the terrible humiliations she had endured and the eleven years she had spent in jail, would be bitter. Having seen some photographs taken at her surrender, I was expecting a permanent scowl. Far from it – her face was wreathed in smiles. Despite the vast difference in our backgrounds, and that we had to rely on interpreters, Phoolan and I instantly struck up a rapport.

Later that first evening I made to return to my hotel. Phoolan was appalled. She urged me to stay and would only let me go after had I promised to move back into the house the following day. That I did, although with some trepidation as the only space for me to bed down was on the ground floor of the converted shop, behind plate-glass. It did not seem to be the ideal protection should there be trouble. Trouble such as the police officer in command, who showed me from where he would fire his machine-guns, was half expecting.

There was no trouble. Occasionally a large crowd of inquisitive sightseers would have to be peacefully dispersed. Over the next days, a constant stream of people came to visit Phoolan. Apart from politicians and journalists, there were numerous delegations from the poor of the surrounding states. Although Phoolan had been depicted as being involved in a caste war, it was noticeable that many who came to pay their respects were not Hindus, but were Muslims, Christians or Buddhists. In this, as in many other ways, Phoolan did not conform to the image created by the media.

I stayed with Phoolan every year until her assassination and would see many other myths evaporate.

Roy Moxham - Author of Outlaw: India’s Bandit Queen and Me

Read an extract

This article originally appeared on the Random Reads website

For the month of January, Booker prize winning author Ben Okri tweeted a poem about time.  The poem went out bit by bit, every day for the month, and it can now be read in full below.

As clouds pass above our heads
So time passes through our lives.
Where does it go,
And when it passes,
What do we have to show?
We can plant deeds in time
As gardners plant roses.
We can plant thoughts, or good words too
Especially if they are noble and true.
Time is an act of consciousness:
One of the greatest forces
Of the material world.
We ought to use time
Like emperors of the mind:
Do magic things that the future,
Surprised, will find.
We could change our life today
And seek out a higher way.
The Buddha sat beneath a tree
And from all illusion became free.
And as we travel on this life that is a sea
We can glimpse eternity.
We can join that growing fight
To stop our world being plunged into night.
We can wake to the power of our voice
Change the world with the power of our choice.
But there is nothing we can do
If we don’t begin to think anew.
We are not much more than what we think;
In our minds we swim or sink.
If there is one secret I’d like to share
It’s that we are what we dream
Or what we fear.
So dream a good dream today
And keep it going in every way.
Let each moment of our life
Somehow help the good fight
Or help spread some light.
The wise say life is a dream;
And soon the dream is done.
But what you did in the dream
Is all that counts beneath the sun.
The dream is real, and the real is a dream
Each one of us is a powerful being.
Wake up to what you are,
You are a sun, you are a star.
Wake up to what you can be.
Search, search for a new destiny

The Modern Pagan by Brian Day

Brian Day offers age-old folk wisdom for those of us searching for a more natural way to be in today’s chaotic world.

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The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo

In this shocking book, an award-winning psychologist draws upon experiments and research to challenge our conceptions of morality, proving that we all have the capacity for evil.

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Walking in the World by Julia Cameron

One of the world’s leading teachers of creativity shows how to forge your own creative path. A must for any budding artist, fledgling musician or would-be writer.

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