Gardens have been a source of enchantment from the dawn of time. Today’s speakers illuminate why gardening can be as vital an expression of the creative impulse as reading, writing or praying, and why designing, planting, tending, sharing produce, or simply looking, are so rewarding. In literature gardens can be oases or jungles, magical places where supernatural events happen and passions are aroused.

Penelope Lively was born in Cairo, where she spent most of her childhood, coming to England at the age of twelve. She has written many prize-winning novels and been twice shortisted the Booker Prize for The Road to Lichfield and According to Mark, winning it in 1987 for Moon Tiger. She also writes short stories, autobiographical works in the form of both memoir and fiction, and is a popular writer for children, winning both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award. She was appointed CBE in 2001 and DBE in 2012.

Jonathan Wittenberg is the Senior Rabbi of Masorti Judaism UK and a leading writer and thinker on Judaism. He is Rabbi of the New North London Synagogue and the author of several books. Formerly closely involved in the North London Hospice, he is currently a member of the chaplaincy team at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. Deeply engaged in interfaith dialogue, he has also initiated a project to create a multi-faith secondary school, launching the vision at the House of Lords. He is also a keen gardener and animal-lover.

Charlotte Mendelson has written four novels, one book of non-fiction, Rhapsody in Green, much literary criticism and work for radio. She writes an occasional diary for the FT and is the Gardening Correspondent for The New Yorker.

This event is not included in the multi-buy discount.