ARTS PREVIEW: Something to Read in the Bath ; LITERATURE Britain's Leading Novelists Dip a Toe into History at the City's 11th Literature Festival

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"THERE ARE more literary festivals in the world than there are people," according to Ian McEwan. "Sometimes you have to say no." But McEwan, one of our most in-demand novelists, has failed to resist the charms of this year's Bath Literature Festival, where he heads an impressive fiction line-up that includes Kazuo Ishiguro, Andrea Levy, Andrew Miller, David Mitchell, Jasper Fforde and Hilary Mantel.

The festival's theme is "hidden histories", with a raft of historians, scientists, social thinkers and novelists reviewing the past and considering its resonances in today's world. Among them are the naval historian Andrew Lambert, who marks the bicentenary of the Battle of …