Reviews & features: Books
- Filtered by:
- Books
Encounters series offers insight into themes running through the Edinburgh International Festival 2012
23 Aug 2012
2 for 1 deals on Encounters talks during the last week of 2012 EIF
The Fringe/Book/International Festivals are coming to their various ends, but there's no need to dissolve into a flood of fest regrets: there are still gems to be found, and we can help you locate them. Encounters is a series of lectures and talks…
Top 5: Sports novels - The Damned United, Dead Cert and more
22 Aug 2012
Chris Cleave brings Olympics-based novel Gold to Edinburgh Book Festival
As Chris Cleave brings his Olympics-based novel, Gold, to the Book Festival Brian Donaldson kicks off the search for some sporty fiction
Richard Milward on karma and a girl called Kimberly
19 Aug 2012
The writer reads from latest book at the Faber Social Unbound event in Charlotte Square
‘One of the best books I’ve ever read about being young, working class and British,’ said Irvine Welsh of Richard Milward’s 2007 debut, Apples. The 27-year-old followed it with Ten Storey Love Song (2009), a riotous tale of tower-block living written in…
Robert MacFarlane at Edinburgh Book Festival with The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot
19 Aug 2012
Finding a calling in nature writing
A new generation of authors is bringing an incredible range of skills to nature writing: literary style, social observation, memoir, geology, cartography and psychology amongst them. All of which can be found in Robert Macfarlane’s remarkable third…
John Gordon Sinclair on taking the plunge into crime fiction
19 Aug 2012
Actor discusses debut novel Seventy Times Seven at Edinburgh Book Festival
On approaching your first novel after decades spent working in another industry, it stands to reason that your job will influence the writing. It makes sense then that John Gordon Sinclair’s debut, Seventy Times Seven, has a cinematic quality to it…
Award-winning journalist James Meek to speak at Edinburgh Book Festival
19 Aug 2012
Meek will speak on his upcoming novel and the importance of book festivals
James Meek’s upcoming novel, The Heart Broke In, is billed as ‘a seductive drama full of scandal, dilemmas, love and sacrifice’. Coupled with his previous form, the acclaimed The People’s Act of Love and We Are Now Beginning Our Descent, the Charlotte…
Husband and wife graphic novel team Bryan and Mary M Talbot - interview
19 Aug 2012
The pair collaborated on Dotter of Her Father's Eyes
‘I think we’re living in the golden age of the graphic novel,’ explains veteran comics artist and writer Bryan Talbot, whose art has graced the pages of 2000AD, Batman and Sandman. ‘Every major literary festival has something on graphic novels these…
Lavinia Greenlaw set for Edinburgh International Book Festival date
19 Aug 2012
Poetry collection The Casual Perfect addresses getting older
At 49, Lavinia Greenlaw is hardly ancient, but her thoughts turn to the experience of getting older in her most recent collection of poetry, The Casual Perfect. ‘I wondered for years, thinking, if the casual perfect were a tense, what would it be? Then…
Interview: Stuart MacBride - author of Birthdays for the Dead
19 Aug 2012
Author at Edinburgh International Book Festival with a serial killer book
Give us five words to describe Birthdays for the Dead? Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark, and Dark. Seriously, it’s a very dark book in the classical noir tradition, rather than the ‘Tartan Noir’ marketing sense. Which author should be more famous than they…
Russell Kane talks pop music, Indian food and bad hair - interview
11 Aug 2012
The comic and author answers our questions ahead of his appearances at Book Festival and Fringe
First record you ever bought ‘I Should Be So Lucky.’ Last extravagant purchase you made My new Prius. First film you saw that really moved you Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. Last lie you told It won’t hurt, I promise. First…
2012 Edinburgh Book Festival reflects on 1962 Edinburgh World Writers' Conference
10 Aug 2012
50 years on from landmark event featuring Burroughs, Mailer, MacDiarmid and Trocchi
In 1962, the Edinburgh World Writers Conference caused a literary stir as the likes of Burroughs, Mailer and Trocchi came to town. Fifty years on, the Book Festival marks that vibrant occasion with a new set of talks and speakers. We talk to some of…
Interview: Yiyun Li answers questions ahead of 2012 Edinburgh Fringe
10 Aug 2012
The Chinese American author will unveil new short story collection Elsewhere and chat to Hari Kunzru
First record you ever bought I don’t remember Last extravagant purchase you made An 1894 edition of Turgenev’s Sketches from a Hunter’s Album. First film you saw that really moved you Casablanca. Last lie you told I can’t remember. First…
Edinburgh International Book Festival: Highlights
10 Aug 2012
Seamus Heaney, Michael Morpurgo, Irvine Welsh, Nile Rodgers and more
Seamus Heaney The Nobel prizewinner is in town for what will be an undoubted highlight of the month (if not the year) as he chews some literary fat with Karl Miller and Andrew O’Hagan. See online feature at list.co.uk/festival. 3-18 Aug, 6.30pm, £10…
Edinburgh International Book Festival: Top 5 Kids events
10 Aug 2012
Patrick Ness, Michael Morpurgo, Louise Rennison, Doctor Who and more
Patrick Ness With A Monster Calls, Ness is cementing his already burgeoning reputation as a must-read author for the 12-16 group. When this book about a boy dealing with his mother’s battle against cancer won him the Carnegie Medal, Ness said the…
Q&A: Kirsty Gunn speaks about new book before 2012 Edinburgh Book Festival
9 Aug 2012
The New Zealand born author talks about her new novel The Big Music
In her latest novel, Kirsty Gunn writes of a dying man trying to define his life through a new musical composition. Here she takes on our Q&A Give us five words to describe The Big Music? Family. Landscape. Secrets. A world. Which author…
David Vann talks about new novel Dirt before 2012 Edinburgh Book Festival
9 Aug 2012
Writing books that are not for a mother’s eyes
‘I didn’t plan to write this book. It would’ve been better if I hadn’t written it, in fact.’ You can see David Vann’s point, but only because of his latest novel’s content, not its quality. Dirt is about a troubled young man in an incestuous and abusive…
Etgar Keret to talk at two events at 2012 Edinburgh Book Festival
9 Aug 2012
The Israeli author will host an event with writer Nathan Englander
Etgar Keret is looking forward to returning to the Edinburgh International Book Festival: ‘I’ve been to the festival once and being a spoiled brat wouldn’t have came again unless I know for a fact that I’m going to have a great time.’ He’ll be doing two…
Prolific young Nigerian author Chibundu Onuzo to talk at the 2012 Book Festival
9 Aug 2012
Looking to a future beyond books
Chibundu Onuzo’s tale is a heartening one for young writers. The Nigerian-born author began her first novel when she was just 17 and secured a two-book deal with Faber at 19, before being published at 21. Her debut, The Spider King’s Daughter, follows…
Irvine Welsh comes to 2012 Edinburgh Book Festival with Trainspotting prequel Skagboys
9 Aug 2012
The Scottish author jogs back into the past with Begbie and co
While us Scots haven’t got the best reputation for putting fitness and health at the top of our to-do lists, Irvine Welsh is doing his bit for the image of his nation in further-off climes. Now mainly based in the US, he has had to knock…
Nile Rodgers, the man who brought us disco, to talk at the 2012 Edinburgh Book Festival
9 Aug 2012
How one man helped shape a generation of pop
As the Book Festival programme announces, Nile Rodgers is ‘The Man Who Brought Us Disco’. Or, to be more accurate, he is: The Chic Frontman Who Brought Us Disco; Who Worked with Mick Jagger, Prince and Debbie Harry; Who Produced Madonna, David Bowie and…
Highlands-based writer Melanie Challenger to talk about last year's book at Edinburgh Book Festival
9 Aug 2012
Reconnecting with the natural world
Highlands-based writer and poet Melanie Challenger acknowledges that last year’s On Extinction, a weighty book which muses on humanity’s often fraught relationship with the environment, isn’t a work based in specialist knowledge. ‘It’s a personal…
Top 5 tech-related shows at the Edinburgh Festivals 2012
8 Aug 2012
Featuring Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Misha Glenny, Mark Restuccia and Through the Looking Screen
The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs A one-man theatre show detailing the working conditions in Chinese factories that manufacture the iPhone, highlighting the lengths we are willing to go to in pursuit of technological advancement. Steve…
Unbound at the Edinburgh International Book Festival
7 Aug 2012
Night-time strand of off-the-page experimentation featuring Sarah Hall and Jenni Fagan
As wonderful as the Edinburgh International Book Festival is – and believe us, it is wonderful – the leafy confines of Charlotte Square Gardens, the village fete-style white tents and the hordes of latte-sipping Guardianistas can sometimes make the…
Amanda Palmer & Neil Gaiman bring joint live show to Edinburgh Fringe
6 Aug 2012
Singing and reading from musical and literary couple
‘Amanda taught Neil to love the festival,’ speaks the Palmer/Gaiman marital unimind (in fact hallowed fantasy author Gaiman emailing on behalf of himself and his ex-Dresden Doll and Fringe mainstay spouse). ‘He used to come to Edinburgh and do the book…
Edinburgh Book Festival 2012 day planner
3 Aug 2012
Julia Donaldson, AC Grayling, AL Kennedy, Alexander McCall Smith and more
Saturday 11 Julia Donaldson The Glasgow-based Children’s Laureate kicks off the Book Festival with a performance-based show in which she brings life to stories such as The Gruffalo and Superworm. Hubbie Malcolm will be on hand to help things along.
