There are six days of debate, discussion and eloquent cut and thrust at this year’s Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival, all taking place in the most august of settings – Christ Church, Cardinal Wolsey’s college, in the city centre.

The list of first-class writers coming to the festival, which runs from Monday, March 31 to Sunday, April 6, could fill a book of its own. On the Monday, Sebastian Faulks – the author of the next James Bond novel – talks to Sunday Times fiction editor Peter Kemp about his most recent book, Engleby.

He’s followed by Philip Pullman, who, in a world first, discusses with James Naughtie the genesis of Once Upon a Time in the North, the long-awaited new episode of His Dark Materials.

On Wednesday, it’s the turn of Fay Weldon and William Boyd to face the questions, followed on Friday and at the weekend by Stephen Poliakoff, Julian Barnes, Louis de Bernières, Hanif Kureishi, Melvyn Bragg and Tom Stoppard, among others. There are plenty of new young names on display as well – watch out in particular for debut novelist Aravind Adiga, a name that by the autumn should be on every fiction reader’s lips.

All tastes are catered for. Gardeners can join Monty Don; foodies sample talks and debates featuring Sophie Grigson and Steven Berkoff; while history-lovers will hear Max Hastings, David Kynaston and Michael Wood. Even children kicking their heels during the Easter holidays have a whole strand of the festival dedicated to them.

There are more than 230 events, from Richard Dawkins talking about the five books that have most inspired him, to the traditional Saturday night feast in the Great Hall at Christ Church, this year featuring speakers Joanne Harris and Gyles Brandreth. To find out more, visit www.sundaytimes-oxford literaryfestival.co.uk or call 01865 276152. Tickets for individual events are available from the box office of the Oxford Playhouse on Beaumont Street (0870 343 1001).

While you’re there

What to do: if you have time left over from the festival, there are plenty of absorbing ways to fill it. First, unlike Bill Clinton, get high in Oxford. Two great panoramas of the city can be experienced from St Mary’s Tower (from 9am, £2.50) and Carfax Tower (from 10am, £1.90), the remains of a medieval church. Both are on the High Street.

After a bird’s-eye view of the intriguing mazes of the colleges’ quadrangles and gardens, the most magical places in the city, you will want to visit them. Check for opening hours and prices on www.ox.ac.uk under the visitors’ section. Or you could take one of the guided tours (£7/£3.50) that leave at 11am, 1pm and 2pm from the tourist office at 15-16 Broad Street.

Try and get to Parks Road for the conjoined Natural History Museum (with its partial dodo, an inspiration for Charles Dodgson) and the marvellously arcane Pitt Rivers, a treasure house of ethnographic curiosities, used to great effect by Philip Pullman. Visit www.prm.ox.ac.uk for more details.

The imposing Ashmolean Museum (Beaumont Street; 01865 278000, www.ashmolean.org) is undergoing renovation, but many of its antiquities are still on display, including Powhatan’s Mantle, the deerskin cloak belonging to Pocahontas’s father.

Running alongside the literary festival is Oxfringe, the Oxford fringe festival, with more than 40 concerts, readings and exhibitions. For details, see www.oxfringe.com.

Finally, find time to pop into the ancient covered market (entrances on the High Street, Cornmarket and Market Street), a foodie delight.

Where to eat: there is one golden rule in Oxford when it comes to restaurants: get there early – there is no such concept as “fashionably late” in this city. Annoyingly, Quod (92-94 High Street; 01865 202505, www.quod.co.uk), one of the most popular brasseries, doesn’t even take bookings. Hence the queues. Its recent would-be rival up the road, The High Table (71-73 High Street; 01865 248695, www.thehightableoxford.co.uk), does let you book, and I had a very tasty bowl of fish soup there, but, sadly, the place is lit like a dentist’s.

If you have kids in tow, Branca (111 Walton Street; 01865 556111, www.branca-restaurants.com), up in Jericho, has a comprehensive children’s menu alongside adult pasta, pizza and salad favourites, and a few brasserie classics (lamb shank, duck breast, tuna).

On the opposite corner is the Jericho Café (112 Walton Street; 01865 310840, www.thejerichocafe.co.uk), an unpretentious licensed bistro (their word), highly recommended for breakfast (as is Georgina’s, upstairs in the covered market off the High Street) and lunch.

If you’re feeling flush, Gee’s (61a Banbury Road; 01865 553540, www.geesrestaurant.co.uk) is an atmospheric conservatory that was once a florist’s and specialises in fish. Start with the “plate” of three sherries – it’ll blunt the fact that you are looking at £5.50-£10.95 a starter and £14.50-£25.50 for a main.

Where to drink: Oxford does a nice line in pubs. Personal favourites include the Turf Tavern (4 Bath Place – walk under the Bridge of Sighs, slip left down what used to be called Hell Passage and you’ll find it), and the tin-topped bar at the Bear (6 Alfred Street), just off the High Street. There are rumblings about a decline at the Eagle and Child (49 St Giles), spiritual home of the Inklings (Tolkien, CS Lewis and cronies): yes, the music can sometimes be intrusive and the quiz machine was a dumb idea, but I still love those small snugs at the front.

The Inklings eventually decamped opposite to the Lamb & Flag (12 St Giles), which was also frequented by Thomas Hardy, Graham Greene and Inspector Morse. Morse fans should add the very fine Rose & Crown (14 North Parade Avenue) to their list, as he was most complimentary about its cask-conditioned ales. And he wasn’t easily pleased.

If they all sound a little staid, you’ll be wanting cocktails at Raoul’s (32 Walton Street), or over the road at the cavernous Freud (119 Walton Street), a converted Greek Revival church.

Where to stay: for many, the first choice would be in the magnificent surroundings of Christ Church itself. The spruced-up student digs aren’t luxurious, but the sense of history is tangible. Sunday Times readers can book exclusive two-night packages incorporating festival event tickets; for accommodation alone, it’s £53, B&B, per night: for further information, call 01865 286848 or e-mail festival@chch.ox.ac.uk.

For something more conventional, you can’t better the location of the 42-room Old Bank Hotel (01865 799599, www.oldbank-hotel.co.uk; doubles from £185, room-only), which sits on the High Street, opposite the University Church of St Mary the Virgin. Ask for room 45 (£220), with its dreamy view over the spires. The hotel has parking, too.

The Oxford branch of Malmaison (0845 365 4247, www.malmaison.com) is skilfully melded into the former prison. Rooms are sumptuous, it’s handy for the station and it has a fun subterranean brasserie and bar. “Cell” rooms from £180, excluding breakfast.

If you don’t mind being a short hop from the centre, there are two very good guesthouses up the Banbury Road, to the north of the city. The Remont (01865 311020, www.remont-oxford.co.uk; doubles from £107) is more like a small, modern boutique hotel than a traditional B&B, all flatscreens, WiFi, black leather and vibrant throws over the bed. Just down the road, Burlington House (01865 513513, www.burlington-house.co.uk) is equally contemporary and clued-up, with doubles from £95.

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