Reviews & features: Books, Brian Donaldson

Gerald Scarfe

He’s been like a massive pin sticking holes in the authority’s swollen balloons for five decades now, and Gerald Scarfe’s political cartoons show little sign of having the edge taken away from them. He studied with Ralph Steadman and counts Pink Floyd…

Kids' Events

Trains and tweens dominate the first week

Trains and tweens dominate the first week The good, the naughty and the hungry are all in evidence in the opening salvo of the kids programme, with the whole shebang kicked off in boisterous style by queen of tween Cathy Cassidy (9 Aug) who presents…

Top 5 books and their authors coming to 2012 Edinburgh International Book Festival

Michael Palin, Simon Callow, Paddy Ashdown, Gordon Brown and more

Michael Palin It’s a whole quarter of a century since the former Python took his place at the Book Festival, but you have to say he’s seen quite a lot of the world in the interim period. His next book and TV travel show is about Brazil, but he’s here…

Edinburgh International Book Festival 2011 line up highlights

Grant Morrison, Will Self and Jo Nesbø among highlights

A selection of international authors, a bunch of Scottish novelists, an array of top non-fiction scribes, a host of children’s writers and a series of exciting innovations: yes, it’s just another Edinburgh International Book Festival programme. A cliché…

Top 5 kids shows at Edinburgh Book Festival 2010

The festival’s last lap features some iconic characters, authors and places

Julia Donaldson Along with Gruffalo illustrator Axel Scheffler, JD’s first event contains an impressive amount of songs, stories and drawings, while event number two is a solo affair in which she will regale the nippers and their guardians with a tale…

Tom Chatfield talk on hidden educational power of video games

Pat Kane chairs Edinburgh Book Festival talk

By the end of 2008, the annual sales figure for video games was $40billion, outstripping the movie business by some way. Here’s another stat: 99% of teenage boys and 94% of teenage girls have played a video game. Tom Chatfield’s Fun Inc takes apart the…

Emily Mackie

Delving into some dark places

One of the most talked-about British debuts of 2010 was Emily Mackie’s And This is True. It featured a 15-year-old boy Nevis and his author dad Marshall who carried on their passive existence living in and out of a white Ford Transit van. Since his…

How American journalist Heather Brooke became a threat to UK democracy

Five year investigation uncovers parliamentary expenses scandal

In the introduction to her book, The Silent State, Heather Brooke describes herself as a ‘nosey parker’. Whereas some people can’t walk past a curtain without needing to twitch it, Brooke has a yearning to poke around into the lives of those authority…

Kids Events

When Miranda Richardson so memorably played the child-like Queen Elizabeth I in Blackadder, a career in entertaining kids seemed to be in the offing. With Horrid Henry (16 Aug) she appears to have finally grasped that opportunity by voicing the little…

Kid loves - Children's books round-up

Edinburgh International Book Festival

Harry Potter may have played his last game of Quidditch and Lemony Snicket’s series of events have unfortunately ceased to be, but there are still plenty of iconic figures hanging around in children’s literature. Brian Donaldson finds ten of them…

Kids' events

The last few days of the kids programme takes a walk on the dark side with scary-sounding events such as Night of the Living Horror (25 Aug, 6pm) which opens up a world of gothic terror for those aged ten plus, though Justin Somper and his Vampirates…

Top 5: Sports novels - The Damned United, Dead Cert and more

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

Edinburgh International Book Festival: Top 5 Kids events

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

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…

Irvine Welsh comes to 2012 Edinburgh Book Festival with Trainspotting prequel Skagboys

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…

Edinburgh Book Festival 2012 day planner

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.

Q&A: Geoff Dyer on new book Zona at 2012 Edinburgh International Book Festival

Dyer sets out to unlock Andrew Takovsky's Stalker in new book

Give us five words to describe Zona? My thoughts on Tarkovsky’s film Stalker [Ed: OK, that’s six, but we’ll let Geoff off]. Which author should be more famous than they are now? John Jeremiah Sullivan who wrote Pulphead. He is a great stylist and…

Sarah Hall talks of new book Beautiful Indifference at 2012 Edinburgh International Book Festival

Cultured finesse in Booker shortlisted authoress' new work

The Scottish writer Douglas Dunn once gave Sarah Hall a crucial piece of advice while she studied Creative Writing under him at St Andrews: ‘Sarah, why don’t you try writing in sentences?’ Dunn must be very proud of her now given the quality of…

Barry Fantoni’s Top 5 Detectives

The crime author lists his favourite fictional crime-solvers

Philip Marlowe Marlowe is everything the genre demands.The Bay City PI is sardonic, laidback and self-deprecating. His creator, Raymond Chandler, is, in my book, not only the greatest crime writer of all, he is one of the greatest writers, period. A…

Denise Mina reads from Gods and Beasts in Edinburgh

The Scottish crime maestro will read from new Glasgow-based thriller

When Denise Mina arrived on the literary scene back in 1998, she already had a pretty varied CV behind her. Having worked in a meat factory, as a barmaid and in auxiliary nursing for terminally ill patients, she eventually studied law and taught…

2012 Edinburgh Festival of Politics highlights

Talks on George Wyllie, the music industry, Canongate and Scotland's wood cabins

Singin’ I’m No a Billy, He’s a Tim. The difficulties of overcoming ignorance associated with the issue of sectarianism in Scotland were perfectly highlighted last season when one football radio pundit accused Des Dillon’s play of actually promoting…

EIBF 2011: five lengthy literary works

featuring Adam Levin, Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace, Stephen King and Tolstoy

The Instructions The story of a megalomaniac 10-year-old boy who may or may not be the messiah takes place over the course of just four frenetic days, but Levin’s massive book takes in Israel’s battle for existence and an entire religion’s search for…

Rebecca Hunt

The author of Mr Chartwell creates a credible and empathetic vision of illness

One of the most intriguing and delectably-crafted debut novels of the past year is Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt. The black dog of Winston Churchill’s legendary deep depression is brought vividly to life through the eponymous mutt (also known as Black…

EIBF 2011: five book-to-screen adaptations

Featuring Joe Dunthorne, Val McDermid, Michel Faber, Alan Hollinghurst and Alexander McCall Smith

Joe Dunthorne With his debut, Submarine, the Welsh poet and author captured the peculiar, rainy-day awkwardness of adolescence, and Richard Ayoade’s film, with Dunthorne’s assistance, did a fair old stab at bringing it further to life. 19 Aug…

Edinburgh International Book Fest 2011: 5 poetry picks

Featuring Michael Longley, Robin Robertson, Czeslaw Milosz, Wendy Cope and John Burnside

Michael Longley One of the most decorated verse-conjurors at this year’s festival, the Belfast-born writer has the TS Eliot Poetry Prize, a Whitbread and the Hawthornden Prize under his belt as well as being the proud recipient of the 2001 Queen’s…