Tickets are selling fast for Bridport Literary Festival - with even more events sold out in the past week.

More than any other technology, petrol or diesel-driven cars have transformed our culture, creating vast wealth as well as dreams of freedom and mobility.

They have transformed our sense of distance and made the world infinitely more available to our eyes and our imaginations, inspiring cinema, music and literature.

Appleyard, who was appointed a CBE in 2019 for services to the arts and journalism, will be in conversation with Boris Starling at Bridport Literary Festival on Friday 11th November at 4:30pm.

The award-winning journalist and feature writer takes us on a story celebrating the immense drama and beauty of the car, of the genius embodied in the Ford Model T, of the glory of the brilliant red Mercedes Benz S-Class made by workers for Nelson Mandela on his release from prison, of Kanye West's 'chopped' Maybach, of the salvation of the Volkswagen Beetle by Major Ivan Hirst, of Elvis Presley's 100 Cadillacs, of the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost and the BMC Mini and that harbinger of the end – the Tesla Model S and its creator Elon Musk.

As the age of the car as we know it comes to an end, Appleyard's insightful book tells the story of the rise and fall of the incredible machine that made the modern world what it is today.

A former Foreign Secretary, Lord Owen, has written new chapters for his book, Riddle, Mystery and Enigma: Two Hundred Years of British-Russian Relations, to bring the reader bang up to date with the war in Ukraine.

Britain's relationship with Russia is surprisingly under-explored. When the two countries formed a pragmatic alliance at Navarino in 1827, relations then fell apart with the Crimean War. Not until the 1917 Revolution did Winston Churchill – opposed to Bolshevism – advocate diplomacy with Russia which necessitated allying with the Soviets against Nazi Germany in WWII. Bringing us into the 21st century, Lord Owen chronicles how both countries have responded to their geopolitical decline.

He'll be in conversation with military historian and retired career soldier John Dean on Saturday 12th November at 4pm.

There's a new event on Sunday 6th November to replace broadcaster Justin Webb, who has had to pull out of the festival because he will be covering the US mid-term elections for the BBC.

Sir Howard Davies, chairman of the NatWest Group who was the first chairman of the UK's Financial Services Authority, director of the LSE and served as deputy governor of the Bank of England and CBI director general, will be talking about his new book, The Chancellors: Steering the British Economy in Crisis Times.

In a fascinating and often gossipy insider account, based on in-depth interviews with the Chancellors and key senior officials, Davies shows how the past 25 years have been a roller coast ride for the Treasury.

Heavily criticised for its response to global financial crises, and for the rigours of the austerity programme, it has been criticised for its role in the Scottish referendum and the Brexit debate. 

Now more than ever, the role of Chancellor is key to the United Kingdom's economic future.

Howard Davies will be at Bridport Electric Palace at 2:30pm.

Nick Pitt, a former sports editor at The Sunday Times who lives locally, assisted sporting impresario Barry Hearn with his best-selling autobiography, My Journey: Knockouts, Snooker Bullseyes. 

Ghostwriters have become ubiquitous in fiction and non-fiction – some visible and acknowledged, some key invisible, and legally gagged, in the pretence that their book was written by a celebrity. Pitt spills the beans on publishing's benign collaborations and shameful secrets in an enthralling talk on Thursday 10 November at 5pm.

Local author Nikki May has written a darkly comic and subversive take on love, race and family, Wahala. She'll be in conversation with writer Olivia Glazebrook on Monday 7th November at 6:30pm

Born in Bristol and raised in Lagos, May is Nigerian-British. At 20, she dropped out of medical school, moved to London, and began a career in advertising, going on to run a successful agency.

May says of Wahala: 'This is a novel about the power of friendship and the stories we inherit. The inspiration for Wahala came from a long (and loud) lunch with very good friends in a Nigerian restaurant. I wanted to read a book that had people like me in it. The first scene was drafted on the train journey home. The characters became flesh and wouldn't let me go.'

According to top thriller writer Lee Child, 'Greg Mosse writes like John Le Carre's hip grandson.' He'll be in conversation with Jason Goodwin at The Bull Ballroom on Monday 7th November at 2pm.

His debut climate fiction novel is set in an alternate near future in which global warming and pathogenic viruses have torn through the fabric of society, The Coming Darkness follows a secret operative, Alex Lamarque, trailing an eco-terrorist set on destabilising the controls placed on the global population in order to protect them from climate change. Says Antony Horowitz: 'This is exactly the sort of big, meaty, ambitious thriller that the market needs. I haven't read a book like this since I Am Pilgrim.'

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