Reviews & features: Edinburgh International Book Festival

How to visit the Edinburgh Festival

A guide to getting the best from the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe

The phrase 'planned itinerary' might might be at odds with the spirit of chaos and wild abandon you associated with your visit to the Edinburgh Festival. The brutal truth is that shows do sell out, so book tickets to things you definitely want to see.

Scotrail announce expanded Edinburgh Festival 2012 train timetable

Additional night services to Glasgow, Dundee, Perth and North Berwick

New late-night train services to and from Edinburgh will make it easier for those outside the city to visit the 2012 festival. In Glasgow, there will be a Fringe box office at Queen Street station from July 27. Tickets bought online in advance can be…

Interview: Ali Smith - There but for the

Scottish writer appears at 2011 Edinburgh Book Festival

There can be few more anxious experiences for an author than turning to the literary section of a newspaper as the book they have slogged over for possibly years is taken apart by a faceless critic. One national paper gave Ali Smith the fright of her…

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…

Award-winning journalist James Meek to speak at Edinburgh Book Festival

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…

Frank Cottrell Boyce discusses his winged Fleming sequel at Edinburgh Book Festival

The author talks of new novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again

Liverpudlian writer Frank Cottrell Boyce has a career which can only be described as enviable. When we spoke he was in the midst of working on the Olympic Games opening ceremony, as one of director Danny Boyle’s hand-picked creative advisors. He’s…

Five Edinburgh Book Festival guests you'll know from TV

Lucy Worsley, Bettany Hughes, Alexei Sayle, Kirsty Wark and Peter Taylor

Lucy Worsley Delving into the intimate history of old homes and buildings is Worsley’s prime passion and her BBC Four series and book If Walls Could Talk pretty much sums it up. During her years of research, she has uncovered the fact that bedrooms…

Leanne Shapton

Crafting a wholly original literary conceit

Title aside, Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry is one of the most intriguing US publications from the last 12 months. The story of a couple’s…

Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap touched a few raw nerves

He tells us how he tackled this multi-story tale.

Judge me once you’ve walked a mile in my shoes, the old saying goes. Well in his latest book, The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas hands us the literary equivalent of eight pairs of walking boots. Set in suburban Melbourne, the novel opens with a chapter devoted…

Richard Milward on karma and a girl called Kimberly

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…

Edinburgh International Book Festival 2012 highlights

David Walliams, Jeremy Paxman and Alistair Darling among guests

Funnyman David Walliams, interviewer Jeremy Paxman and former Chancellor Alistair Darling are just some of the well known names set to headline this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival. The capital’s annual literary bonanza will welcome…

Horror Stories for Kids at 2011 Edinburgh Book Festival

Darren Shan, Barry Hutchison & Alexander Gordon Smith talk horror

As far as groundings in the horror business go, young adult writer Barry Hutchison knew exactly what fear was from an early age. ‘I lived in a perpetual state of terror when I was a kid,’ says the Fort William-based creator of the Invisible Fiends…

Vidal Sassoon

The style icon talks to Claire Sawers about his life and book

At the height of his celebrity, in the peak of his playboy yachts-and-champagne years, Vidal Sassoon was aboard a boat in Capri, where he was spending the summer. Bobbing in the bay, surrounded by friends, Sassoon looked over at an English boy who was a…

Amy Sackville

Retreating into imagined worlds of the past

Amy Sackville’s debut novel, The Still Point, is an Arctic love story which has already drawn comparisons with Virginia Woolf. Set in modern England, Julia is the great-grand-niece of an explorer whose story fascinates her and she often dreams about the…

John Harris at the Book Festival

Hail Hail Rock'N'Roll: expect full audio-visual support

‘I will talk about rock moustaches, Elvis’ jumpsuits and James Blunt’s lyrics,’ proclaims John Harris, author of Hail Hail Rock’N’Roll, his vintage rock, pop and counter-cultural almanac. ‘The aim is to navigate through 50-odd years of rock history…

Meg Rosoff, John Green, Tohby Riddle and Cathy Cassidy at the Edinburgh Book Festival

Writers doing it for the big kids

Meg Rosoff might be known as a successful author for young adults, but it’s not necessarily a category with which she’s comfortable. ‘Recently, I re-read To Kill a Mockingbird for its 50th anniversary,’ she says. ‘If that was published now, it would be…

Edinburgh Book Festival's Unbound invites fresh approach from DisComBoBuLate, Irregular and Gutter

Here at List Towers we love a bit of innovation, and this year’s festivals appear to be bringing it in spades. Case in point, the Book Festival’s all-new Unbound. Taking a refreshingly out-of-the-box approach, over 18s are invited to a nightly free…

Top 5 authors with three names

For some writers, a middle initial just isn’t enough to get across their need for a slightly longer name than is the norm. Here’s a quintet of triple-monikered authors: George Dawes Green Two events from the tri-titled New York chap, firstly…

Ian McMillan

Home truths from Yorkshire poet

‘Times are good,’ says Ian McMillan on the poet’s lot, with the articulate and enthusiastic Yorkshireman saying it in a voice that’s gently encouraging. ‘It’s easier than it used to be when I started. There are magazines, you can self-publish or publish…

Andrew Sean Greer

No one can stop his California dreaming

With his recent impressive run in the literary world, it’s hard to imagine Andrew Sean Greer ever feeling edgy about his work. Since the release of critically acclaimed debut The Path Of Minor Planets in 2001, the San Francisco-based scribe has come up…

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: 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

Robert MacFarlane at Edinburgh Book Festival with The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot

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

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…