FORMER South Bank Show presenter Melvyn Bragg will be at York Minster on Thursday evening to talk about the best selling book in the English-speaking world: the King James Bible.

The King James is 400 this year. And Lord Bragg has written his own bestseller to mark the occasion – The Book of Books: The Radical Impact of the King James Bible.

Bragg’s book aims to trace the huge impact the King James Bible has had on politics, language and religion over the last four centuries. Reviewers have been raving about it.

“From the religious and political upheavals of Medieval and Renaissance Europe and the confusions of the Tudor and Stuart reigns, through to the abolition of slavery, the rise of Christian socialism in 1830s Britain and the American civil rights movement a century later, Bragg’s account of the people and ideas inspired by what he argues is the most pivotal book ever written is both vivid and accessible,” wrote Mary Crockett in The Scotsman.

Bragg has also been doing a national cathedral tour talking about significance of the King James; he arrives at The Minster at 7.30pm on Thursday.

For those interested in what has been described as “one of the most influential books in the history of the world”, it promises to be an event not to miss.

Tickets for Melvyn Bragg’s talk on The Book of Books at York Minster are available, priced £8, from the Minster Box Office on 0844 939 0015, or on the door on the night.