Books, Issue 636

Xiaolu Guo

Creating political parables out of flying saucers

After her reading at the Book Festival last year, Chinese author Xiaolu Guo spent a lot of her Q&A session chatting about the literary headaches, not to mention boredom, created by translating from her first language, Chinese, into English. She had gone…

Suhayl Saadi

Spanning the Scottish Highlands and the wilds of Pakistan, his new novel is a weighty affair

‘Epic’ and ‘ambitious’ are adjectives often bandied about in the description of novels that in fact display very little of either. That’s not an accusation you could level at Joseph’s Box, the sprawling, expansive, strange and moving new novel by…

Chika Unigwe

Learning how much shame there is in luxury

The depiction of prostitutes in fiction can be a one-dimensional affair, but not in Chika Unigwe’s poignant and moving novel On Black Sisters’ Street. Unigwe was raised in Nigeria, but has spent the last decade in Belgium, and it was a culture shock…

James Kelman

Striking deep into the Scottish soul

There can be few Scottish writers as lauded as James Kelman, and rightly so. The Glasgow-born author has spent a career carving out a place as the authentic voice of his generation, his use of stream-of-consciousness prose and vernacular Scots…

Top 20 Festival Shows

Emmanuel Jal There are few people who could even imagine the terrors of being a child made to fight in a war-torn homeland. This guy has lived it and come through the other side. Jen Hadfield In a year of poetry shocks, this Shetlands-based…

The Amazing Spider-Man 600

Dan Slott, John Romita Jr & Various

The 600th issue of any title is cause for celebration, particularly as iconic a character as Marvel’s mascot Spider-Man. The lead story from Dan Slott, with art by John Romita Jr, re-introduces arch villain Doctor Octopus (plus another big return, but…

Maria Tecce – Viva!

You could probably throw a Liza Minnelli biography down the High Street and you’d hit someone who’s starred in a Broadway show – such are the numbers of Yank showtune belters here, fighting for an audience to bellow at in August. Thankfully the cream…

Aleksandar Hemon: Love and Obstacles

Too tightly weaved together for your average collection of short stories, but containing sections too complete to be mere chapters in a standard novel, Love and Obstacles is a staggering achievement for this Bosnian American writer. His fourth literary…

Alistair Morgan: Sleeper’s Wake

This is a breathtaking debut novel from a young South African writer which asks deep questions about grief, pain, love and life, and does so in a story that is almost unbearably tense and fraught with unspoken, complicated emotions, yet is also…

Book Festival day planner

Our guide on the festival's must-see events

As with most of the festivals, the Book Festival is a scary prospect at first glance. Here, Lizzie Mitchell maps out a plan which should make the minefield a little easier to negotiate. All events are based in Charlotte Square Gardens.

Mio Matsumoto

Sketching a spiky ode to recovery

Never before has cancer looked so cute. But then, it’s the gift of artists to transform the brute chaos and fear of everyday life into objects of delight. This is what Japanese graphic artist Mio Matsumoto does with My Diary. On the surface it’s a…

Chris Longmuir - Dead Wood

This debut Scottish crime novel deals with some hard-hitting subject matter – serial killing, prostitution, drugs, organised crime – which makes its lacklustre nature all the more frustrating. Set in Dundee, we follow single mum and part-time hooker…

Anne Tyler - Noah’s Compass

Baltimore story-maker Anne Tyler delivers book number 18 here, about a retired teacher suffering from amnesia. Sixty-year-old Liam Pennywell likes keeping things simple. Jam sandwiches for lunch, generic French bistro posters decorating his bland, boxy…

Garrison Keillor

For a man so hometown America he bleeds apple pie, Keillor is cited less often as an incisive wit and social commentator. His treacly, mid-western baritone might not be the acerbic voice of political dissent but in his books and his celebrated…

Book Festival Hitlist

Janice Galloway, Emmanuel Jal, Jen Hadfield, Dave Gorman, Mio Matsumoto, David Aaronovitch, Denise Mina

Top 5 food events at the Edinburgh Book Festival

There’s nothing like a book event to get your tummy rumbling

Tom Kitchin The Michelin-starred, all-too aptly-named chef must feel like the cat who nabbed the cream as he launches his first cookbook From Nature to Plate. 17 Aug, 2.30pm, £9 (£7) Sue Lawrence The 1991 victor of Masterchef has produced a…

Tariq Ali

Merging a passion for politics with love of literature

Protocols of the Elders of Sodom was published recently, and reads like a ‘best of’ of Tariq Ali’s musings on a few giants of world literature. Taken from articles and essays written over the past 30 years for Time Out and The Guardian among others, the…

Neil Gaiman

Weaver of dreams on the collaborative process

Neil Gaiman has firsthand experience of the writing game at all levels. First he made his name in underground comics before graduating to the huge success of Sandman, then moving to novels, alongside children’s literature, TV and now film: he co-wrote…

Ben Moor

Magical realist storytelling from Festival veteran

‘It’s good to do it again after four years, in front of a live audience,’ says writer/comedian Ben Moor, as he prepares to perform from More Trees to Climb, his recent collection of short stories. Adapted from three of his one-man shows, Moor emphasises…

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…

Kate Summerscale

Hunting for clues and endings

It can be a bit of a hunt to find The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. Some bookshops call it history, others true crime, while author Kate Summerscale has consciously used some of the techniques of detective novels to hook in her readers. The book looks at a…

Denise Mina

How real events inspired crime fiction

Denise Mina has been busy. In the last couple of years she has shown real versatility by branching out into drama, with her plays Ida Tamson and A Drunk Woman Looks at the Thistle being successfully produced at Glasgow’s Oran Mor. She has also braved…

David Aaronovitch

How paranoid ideas shaped modern history

It’s easy to assume that conspiracy theorists are odd, simple, lonely blokes who still live with their parents and spend far too much time on the internet. But in truth, they’re usually otherwise normal, intelligent and rational people. Author…

David Bainbridge

Debunking the myths surrounding teenagers

Vilified, hated, dismissed, feared and ridiculed, with a reputation blackened beyond damage limitation by even the deftest of spin doctors. Teenagers may be the least fashionable or genial of causes to champion, but that is exactly what David Bainbridge…