Picador Classics Day, Foyles Bookshop

‘The Picador Classics Day’ is shaping up to be like the Oscars of the literary world; a heap of big names and ingenious artists all taking to a podium in celebration of their craft. Unlike the Oscars however, this is an event you can buy tickets for.

To celebrate the launch of the Picador Classics series of timeless fiction, non-fiction and poetry, Foyles bookshop has gathered some of the most distinguished writer and editors for a whole day of literary reflection. Guardian journalist Alex Clark will preside over a programme of readings, discussions and book signings, with Carol Ann Duffy and Alan Hollinghurst among the guests. The day kicks off with coffee and croissants, then comes the series of talks (each followed by a book signing) then there'll be drinks and a chance to mingle with the speakers and ruminate on the ideas raised.

Here's our guide to this day of London literary talks: 

First up, at 10.45am novelist and critic Philip Hensher (author of Booker-shortlisted The Northern Clemency), novelist Ross Raisin and Catherine Taylor, English PEN deputy director discuss Canon Fodder: What is a Classic? How has Picador chosen its new series, and just what distinguishes titles like American Psycho and The Lovely Bones?
At 12pm, John Lanchester and John Banville talk about literary predecessors. With an impressively vast list of literary accolades under his belt (including a Man Booker and Irish Book Awards Lifetime Achievement gong), Banville is also one of the favourites for this year's Nobel Prize for Literature. His dense, lyrical prose style in novels including The Untouchable and those written under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, has prompted comparisons to Nabokov, Joyce, Henry James and Proust, so it will be fascinating to hear Banville discuss the writers that have influenced him.
Scourge or superhero of many school English students, at 2pm it’s Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy’s turn to take to the stage. She’ll read from her collection The World’s Wife, a stalwart of the contemporary poetry thanks to its place on the National Curriculum, which looks at history as herstory  and gives an imaginative insight into the lives of the great women behind famous men from Shakespeare to Freud.
At 3.15pm William Fiennes discusses his novel The Snow Geese, an account of his journey following a flock of birds from Texas to the tundra. Back in 2002, Fiennes was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize for his avian-centred autobiography; perhaps 2014’s winner Helen Macdonald’s memoir H is for Hawk owes something to him.
The final talk, at 4.30pm, is from another Booker prize winner, former TLS editor and former-housemate of Andrew Motion: Alan Hollinghurst. His novel The Line of Beauty takes us back to the 1980s, circling around politics, art, class and sexuality. He will give an insight into