The countdown is on. From 16 to 20 September, Chelsea Arts Festival returns with five days of talks, performances and conversations across Cadogan Hall, Saatchi Gallery and beyond. And this year’s line-up comes with a serious reading list.
Whether you want to arrive word perfect or simply need an excuse to add to the pile on your bedside table, here are 10 books by this year’s festival artists, from prize-winning fiction and rock ‘n’ roll photography to poetry for every night of the year.
Best of all, you can pre-order many of these titles when you book your tickets and collect your copy at the venue on the day, ready for signing. A few are so new they won’t hit shelves until after the festival, so pre-order now and be among the first to read them.
Susie by Nick Cave and Dominique Issermann
Some books arrive with perfect timing, and this one publishes the very week of the festival. Susie Cave has lived several extraordinary lives: as one of the most photographed models of her generation, as the founder of cult fashion label The Vampire’s Wife, and as muse and wife to Nick Cave, whose words accompany the exquisite photography of Dominique Issermann in this intimate portrait. At the festival, Susie sits down with designer Bella Freud, herself no stranger to the intersection of fashion, art and iconography, for a conversation that promises to be as candid as it is stylish (16 September; tickets available now). Pre-order the book at a special price with your ticket and collect it, hot off the press, at the venue.
Hardback, £35.00
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Sky City by Jacqueline Crooks
Jacqueline Crooks announced herself as a major literary voice with Fire Rush, her electrifying debut steeped in the dub reggae underground of late-seventies London, which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Now comes Sky City, her hugely anticipated second novel, publishing just weeks before the festival. Crooks joins Bernardine Evaristo on stage at Cadogan Hall as part of An Evening with Bernardine Evaristo and Friends (17 September; tickets available now)
Hardback, £18.99
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Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
When Bernardine Evaristo won the Booker Prize in 2019, she became the first Black woman ever to do so, and Girl, Woman, Other has since become a modern classic. Twelve characters, mostly Black British women, move through a century of interconnected lives in Evaristo’s signature free-flowing style, part prose, part poetry, entirely her own. If you have somehow not read it yet, consider this your deadline: Evaristo headlines An Evening with Bernardine Evaristo and Friends, presented by the Women’s Prize, at Cadogan Hall (17 September; tickets available now). Expect an evening celebrating the power of women’s voices, with Evaristo joined on stage by a stellar line-up of writers.
Paperback, £9.99
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Maryville by Joelle Taylor
Joelle Taylor won the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2021 for C+nto & Othered Poems, a blistering elegy for the butch counterculture of eighties and nineties London, and she remains one of the most electrifying performers you will ever see at a microphone. Maryville continues her fearless excavation of queer lives and hidden histories, written with the ferocity and tenderness that have made her a legend of the spoken word scene. She joins the Women’s Prize line-up at Cadogan Hall alongside Bernardine Evaristo (17 September; tickets available now), and if you have never heard Taylor read live, clear your diary now.
Hardback, £14.99
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To Be Young, Gifted and Black by Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason
You will almost certainly know the Kanneh-Masons: seven siblings, all phenomenally gifted musicians, including cellist Sheku, who played at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and acclaimed pianist Isata. Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason is the mother who raised them, and her writing about family, race, music and belonging is every bit as compelling as her children’s playing. Her new book, whose title nods to Nina Simone’s great anthem, publishes in August, just in time for you to read it before she joins the line-up at Cadogan Hall (17 September; tickets available now).
Paperback, £10.99
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Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health by Professor Daisy Fancourt
Why does a night at the theatre lift your mood for days? Why do choirs make us healthier and museums make us calmer? Professor Daisy Fancourt of UCL is the world’s leading researcher on the relationship between the arts and our health, and Art Cure gathers decades of evidence into one fascinating, persuasive book. It is essential reading for anyone who has ever felt better after an evening of culture, which is to say, anyone coming to Chelsea Arts Festival. Hear her in conversation with Emma Gannon (18 September; tickets available now) and arrive armed with the science. Pre-order your copy with your ticket, collect it at the venue and hear the story behind it.
Hardback, £22.00
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A Creative Compass by Emma Gannon
Fresh from this summer’s presses, A Creative Compass is Gannon’s guide to navigating a creative life with intention: how to protect your ideas, your energy and your joy in a world that constantly demands more. Anyone who has followed her writing on burnout and slowing down will recognise the voice, generous, honest and quietly radical. Read it alongside Daisy Fancourt’s Art Cure and you have the perfect double bill for their event together at the festival (18 September; tickets available now). Pre-order your copy with your ticket, collect it at the venue and hear the story behind it.
Hardback, £20.00
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A Poem for Every Night of the Year by Allie Esiri
Ten years ago this September, Allie Esiri published an anthology that has since become a fixture on bedside tables across the country, a poem for every night, matched to the date, the season and the mood. To mark the anniversary, the festival brings the book to life on stage, with a cast of remarkable performers, including Sir Derek Jacobi and Tamsin Greig, reading poems aloud as they were meant to be heard (18 September; tickets available now). Whether you have owned the book for a decade or are discovering it now, this promises to be one of the festival’s most magical evenings. Pre-order your copy with your ticket, collect it at the venue.
Hardback, £18.99
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Diaries of Note: 366 Lives, One Day at a Time by Shaun Usher
Shaun Usher has made a career of rescuing extraordinary words from the archives, first with the phenomenon that is Letters of Note, and as co-creator of the live sensation Letters Live. Diaries of Note applies the same magic to journals: 366 entries, one for every day of the year, from history’s most fascinating, funny and heartbreaking diarists. At Diaries of Note Live, a brilliant cast including Elizabeth McGovern and Denise Gough brings those entries to the stage (20 September; tickets available now). Read the book first and you will spend the whole evening waiting for your favourites. Pre-order your copy with your ticket, collect it at the venue.
Hardback, £25.00
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I Still Believe in Miracles by Lucas Jones
Hot off the press this summer, Lucas Jones’s memoir is as candid as it is uplifting, a story of resilience told with warmth, humour and hard-won hope. Jones joins the cast of Diaries of Note Live at this year’s festival (20 September; tickets available now), where his own remarkable story sits alongside the diary entries of centuries of fellow travellers. Read the book before you come and you will understand exactly why he belongs on that stage.
Hardback, £16.99
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Don’t forget to pre-order
New this year: when you book your tickets, you can pre-order books by many of our festival authors and collect them at the venue on the day, ready to be signed.
Browse the full programme and book your tickets
