This post on the upcoming London Literature Festival (July 1 through 18) was provided by UK correspondent Evan Smythe.

Southbank Centre

Football, philosophy, capitalist apocalypse, comedy and adventures in science are just some of the features of this year’s festival, which brings the world’s best writers and thinkers to Southbank Centre. Experience the radical force of Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek and make a date with father of American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis. Plumb the ocean depths with explorer Sylvia Earle, hear Jeanette Winterson deliver the Southbank Centre Lecture and play ball with Brazilian footballing legend Sócrates. Experience the uncanny with a contemporary performance of The Yellow Wallpaper and stare into the eye of the beast with a new production of Moby Dick. Master the art of kissing, join our Book Club and make history by taking part in the world’s first Litweeter festival.

This year bibliophiles and booklovers of all stripes are in for a treat with an exceptional line-up of authors and poets from around the globe. World Lit is celebrated throughout the Festival with events highlighting rising literary talents from Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America.

While you are on the South Bank, be sure to visit the special exhibition being held at Lambeth Palace until July 23rd. It’s well worth a detour.

Four hundred years old in 2010, Lambeth Palace Library (part of London’s Lambeth Palace) celebrates this momentous occasion with the exhibition Treasures of Lambeth Palace Library. Featuring manuscripts, books and archives, it offers a fascinating indication of the library’s vast scale.

Among the huge array of materials found in the exhibition is the founding collection owned and used by Archbishop Bancroft as his ‘theological arsenal’ in a time of religious controversy and as a scholar and patron of learning. Treasures include a Gutenberg Bible from 1455, the first book printed in Western Europe from movable metal type; the 12th-century Lambeth Bible, regarded as one of the monuments of Romanesque art; and some unique witchcraft tracts collected by Bancroft through his interest in debates over diabolic possession and exorcism.

Lambeth Palace