How can a writer best capture a sense of place? That question, which is one of the preoccupations of Deskbound Traveller, will be addressed by both travel writers and novelists in a session at the first Daunt Books Festival, to be held by the London bookseller at the end of next month. On the panel will be Colin Thubron, who has written half a dozen novels but is probably best known for travel books including Among the Russians and To a Mountain in Tibet; Barnaby Rogerson, a travel writer himself and publisher at Eland Books, home of travel classics; Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with a Pearl Earring, that conjuring of 17th-century Delft; and Mahesh Rao, who lives in Mysore, India, setting for his debut novel The Smoke is Rising, which Daunt Books is due to publish in March.

The festival will be held on March 27 (Thursday) and March 28 at Daunt’s Marylebone branch, a lovely place in itself with its oak galleries and stained-glass windows. Tickets for the “Capturing a sense of place” session, from 8.30 to 9.30pm on March 28, cost £5 including a glass of wine. For details and other festival highlights, see the Daunt Books website.