Tom Jones to launch autiobiography at Southbank

Southbank Centre's London Literature Festival is pleased to welcome the award-winning Sir Tom Jones for an intimate evening of conversation and music to launch his first ever autobiography, Over the Top and Back (11 Oct).

In a career that has spanned six decades, Sir Tom Jones recorded an expansive body of work and performed with almost every major artist, from Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis and Sinatra, to Robbie Williams, Van Morrison and Ed Sheeran, and across every imaginable genre, from rock and pop to country, blues and soul. On 8 October Sir Tom will publish his first ever full autobiography via Penguin Books and will undertake a very special four date run of the UK, including Southbank Centre's London Literature Festival, that will see him in conversation with music aficionado and BBC 6 Music presenter Matt Everitt.

Inspired by the release of his first ever biography, Over the Top and Back – The Autobiography, audiences will be witness to Sir Tom and Matt Everitt revisiting his past, exploring the twists of fate that took a boy from wartime Pontypridd to global renown. He reveals the stories behind the hits as well as the ups and downs of his remarkable life and career, while charting the nature of success – from his early heydays to the subsequent fallow years the 1980s to his later period of his artistic renaissance.

Accompanying this discussion will be a very special performance of songs of significance to Sir Tom, including a number of tracks from the accompanying soundtrack album to the book, Long Lost Suitcase.

Further highlight events of this year's London Literature Festival will include the world premiere of a collaborative book, The Hollow of the Hand, by Grammy Award and Mercury Prize winning PJ Harvey and celebrated photographer Seamus Murphy (9 & 10 October) and Monty Python's Terry GIlliam who will discuss his life and career following the launch of his latest memoir, Gilliamesque: A Pre-Posthumous Memoir, in an event presented by Intelligence Squared and Southbank Centre (7 Oct). Award-winning comedians Tim Key, Mark Watson and Sara Pascoe will host an evening of comedic literary entertainment (5 Oct) and members of the public are invited to read alongside special guests in a four-day live reading of Herman Melville's Moby Dick, presented by The Special Relationship and Southbank Centre (1-4 Oct).

Tickets can be booked via southbankcentre.co.uk/londonlitfest
or via the box office on 0844 875 0073