Literature Festival at Sea 2025

Enjoy a daily dose of news from Times journalists. Lose yourself in thought-provoking conversation at Q&A sessions. Meet your favourite writers at intimate book signings. Listen as literary greats dissect everything from art and film to history and politics. You could fill every day on board with all kinds of literature-based activities and experiences.

And that’s on top of exploring the range of signature Cunard experiences you can already look forward to when you holiday with us. Spend your week at sea embracing a world of intellect and indulgence, thanks to round-the-clock room service, relaxing spa treatments, and a cocktail menu that begs to be explored.

Author book signings
Feeling inspired by one of our speakers? Take their words home with you. Browse for their books at the shops on board and get them signed by the authors throughout the week.

The Times and Sunday Times
You'll find yourself mingling with and listening to some incredible Times journalists. Why not join some of them, along with authors, to delve into the day's headlines and the news stories behind them?

In conversation with...
Chaired by one of our speakers, these sessions take a deep dive into an author's life and career. Learn all about their time before writing, find out what brought them to this path, their road to getting published, and what they're working on now.

Workshops and more
Fanatical wordsmiths and aspiring writers will be delighted to find multiple workshops*, designed to get you up close and personal with authors and help you hone your craft.

*The workshops are bookable on board with a small additional charge.

Cunard has been in partnership with The Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival since 2018, developing the Literature Festival at Sea on board Queen Mary 2’s Transatlantic Crossing.

On land, we are delighted to support a series of special Author events at the world’s oldest literary festival that takes place in October every year, alongside the VIP Lounge in partnership with Cunard.

Journalist and BBC News presenter, who has fronted many of the BBC’s big events programmes, including the Queen’s funeral, Royal Weddings, the World War One centenary, and the London Olympics.

Writer, broadcaster and an Anglican priest, who co-presented Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4 for 11 years and appears, from time to time, on QI, Have I Got News For You, and Would I Lie To You? He writes regularly for the Sunday Times, and is the author of half a dozen books.

Screenwriter, columnist and the author of four Sunday Times Bestselling books. Her 2018 memoir, Everything I Know About Love won The National Book Awards Autobiography of The Year and was nominated for Waterstones Book of The Year Award and a British Book Award. It was adapted into a seven-part TV series for The BBC and Peacock. Her 2020 novel Ghosts was nominated for The Everyman Wodehouse Prize and a British Book Award. She has written a column for The Sunday Times Style since 2015. A collection of her advice columns, Dear Dolly, was published in 2022. She hosted and co-hosted chart-topping podcasts Love Stories, The High Low and Sentimental in The City.

Editor-at-large of the London Review of Books and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Andrew has been nominated for the Booker Prize three times, was voted one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2003 and won the E. M. Forster Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Professor of Global History at Oxford University, where he is Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research and a senior research fellow at Worcester College in Oxford. He is also a Professor of Silk Roads Studies and a bye-fellow at King's College, Cambridge.

11 - 16 December 2024, Queen Elizabeth
Find yourself captivated by award-winning authors, writers, and more, on this inaugural Australian Literature Voyage at Sea, curated in partnership with Dymocks.