Unlocking minds at the Cambridge Festival
This year, at the Cambridge Festival, we hosted a series of engaging and educational events featuring renowned authors and experts in mental health, literature, and neuroscience.
What is mental illness? What can we actively do to improve our brain health? And what does Jane Austen have to do with it all anyway? With a diverse roster, this year's - Cambridge Festival events answered big questions and fostered meaningful discussions on contemporary topics. Here's a glimpse into our insightful conversations with world-leading authors, who offered a lively debate alongside their research at the festival.
Our author events
Brain Boost
Everyone wants to enjoy life to the fullest and feel motivated and energised to reach their potential in their jobs and personal lives. But improving our mental health and wellbeing is sometimes low on our lists.
At the Cambridge Festival, Professor Barbara Sahakian and Dr Christelle Langley from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge joined us for a discussion on how healthy lifestyle habits, like exercise, nutrition, social connections, and acts of kindness, profoundly impact brain health, cognition and emotional well-being.
Together, they discussed practical strategies from their book, Brain Boost: Healthy Habits for a Happier Life - including science-backed tips to sharpen cognition, enhance mood, reduce stress and foster resilience, helping you lead a happier, healthier life.
"The authors have brilliantly distilled this complex science into easily achievable methods, for the best possible brain health."
“In this gentle, witty, semi-memoir, Janet Todd shows us why the novels of Jane Austen should matter to all of us now.”
Living with Jane Austen
2025 marked the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth. At the Cambridge Festival, we celebrated the bicentenary with author, Janet Todd as she discussed her book, Living with Jane Austen.
Part-memoir-part-criticism, Todd shared her 50-year engagement with Austen, touched on cultural changes and her personal journey. ‘Nerves’ was a buzzword in late 18th-century England and, like other women of her time and class, Jane Austen used the idea of them to contemplate the shifting interaction of mental and physical states. Todd also delved into Austen’s attitude towards psychosomatic illness and her ‘nervous’ letters. The event offered a unique perspective on one of literature’s most beloved authors.
All in her mind, women’s mental health
One in five women in the UK experience mental health problems such as anxiety or depression. But what really is mental illness, and what does it look like day-to-day, at home, and in the workplace? Why are so many women still struggling with their mental health? And why is it so hard for women to find the kind of help they need?
At the Cambridge Festival, authors, Linda Gask and Rebecca Lawerence, took part in a compelling webinar hosted by Dr Kate Womersley. Bringing a wealth of experience from the field of Psychiatry, the panel discussed the myths and misinformation about women's mental health. Tackling mental health stigma, along with the author's lived experience of mental illness (and recovery), it's one not to miss. Watch the full discussion below.
Read more about Dr Linda Gask and her book Out of Her Mind: How We are Failing Women's Mental Health and What Must Change.
Read more about Dr Rebecca Lawrence and her book, An Improbable Psychiatrist.
“Gask guides us through the many subjects facing women and girls today, showing us where feminism has failed us by getting ‘stuck’ on single-issue divisive topics. Instead, Gask asks for a much wider approach – one that requires more listening, knowledge and understanding.”
Cambridge University Press events are part of the Cambridge Festival’s mission to bring accessible and educational experiences to the public. The events aim to encourage people to see things in new ways and provoke conversation.
For more information visit the Cambridge Festival website.
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