Reviews & features: Books, Issue 583

Ballads of the Book

The relationship between music and literature has always been a strong and natural one, but never has that bond been tighter than with the Ballads of the Book project. Described by Chemikal Underground as a ‘meteoric creative hoopla’, it brought…

Billy Brag

Billy Bragg was described by The Times as ‘a national treasure’. That particular phrase would surely bring a wry smile to his face, not least because the topic currently vexing the lifelong political campaigner and singer-songwriter is the fundamental…

Owen Sheers

‘Sitting at a desk talking to myself’ is how poet, novelist, playwright and journalist Owen Sheers defines writing. It seems his desk has served him well. His latest work is a radio play about WWII poet Alun Lewis; and a collaboration with composer…

Marina Lewycka

Marina Lewycka’s debut A History of Tractors in Ukrainian won over hearts and minds with a witty and largely autobiographical tale of a long settled immigrant family clashing over the encroaching senility of its obsessive and stubbornly romantic head.

Julian Baggini

Julian Baggini is certainly not afraid to engage with popular culture. He recently wrote this on BBC online: ‘Matt Groening is the true heir of Plato, Aristotle and Kant’. Although this article landed Baggini a mention in Private Eye, he talks of the…

Alan Warner

When the movie of Morvern Callar opened the Edinburgh International Film Festival back in 2002, there was much talk that this would be the first of many film adaptations of Alan Warner’s work. Frankly, the thought of anyone trying to get a script out of…

Ruth Thomas

Things to Make and Mend is a quiet, moving, wryly amusing work which explores themes of friendship, class and betrayal. Ruth Thomas highlights her themes through the turbulent relationship between two very different women, Rowena and Sally, who first…

Lavinia Greenlaw

Lavinia Greenlaw’s latest book, The Importance of Music to Girls, is a memoir recalling her girlhood rendered through music. Beginning with her first musical memory of waltzing on her father’s feet, it meanders through the musicals and recorder practice…

Mohsin Hamid

‘Write about what you know’ is perhaps the most cogent piece of advice given to aspiring authors. Pakistan-born, Harvard-educated novelist Mohsin Hamid set out to do just that with his follow-up to the critically acclaimed Moth Smoke, penning a book…

Matthew Collin

At the turn of the 21st century, uprisings against undemocratic governments in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine benefited from a prominent youth resistance, with groups using humour and satire to undermine the authorities. ‘After Otpor in Serbia, similar…

Richard Dawkins

These are combative times to be a God-denier. It’s not only loopy Christians who are trying to make us believe the world was made in a week, now certain Muslims are jumping on the creationist bandwagon. Turkey’s Adnan Oktar, writing as Harun Yahya, has…

Hitlist - the best Festival book events

Alan Warner One of our finest scribes takes part in a pair of events this Festival, one on his own in association with The List while the other has him hanging out with another totemic figure of Scottish letters, Janice Galloway. 17 Aug, 8.30pm, £8…

Nikita Lalwani

Child prodigies are fascinating. Standing out from the crowd, kids with remarkable mathematical powers are often pushed into the limelight, but do their lives pan out any better? Or does the abnormal childhood scar them? This is the subject for Nikita…

Andrew Marr

Andrew Marr has always used his vast intellect with such wit and verve that he has always come across as a political pundit real people could enjoy. It’s hard to imagine David Frost interviewing Gordon Brown on a Sunday morning, as Marr did last month…

Alex Gray

5 Questions

5 words to describe The Riverman? Taut, pacy, atmospheric, warm, believable (my editor’s words, not mine; I’m too modest). 4 authors who you think should be more famous than they are now? Alanna Knight, Deryn Lake, Lin Anderson, Suhayl…