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RBS Talks - Vicky Featherstone

Books

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Mark Waid & Jorge Molina - Captain America: Man Out of Time

Mark Waid & Jorge Molina - Captain America: Man Out of Time

Marvel's classic character needs to concentrate on plot over patriotism

(3 stars)21 Jul 2011

(Marvel UK) Another month and yet another big-screen movie adaptation. Captain America is a peculiarly old-fashioned character, the US embodied in a patriotic soldier who risked his life taking the ‘Super Soldier Serum’ to become the ultimate…

Glasgow's niche publications specialist GmbH ready to re-open its doors

Glasgow's niche publications specialist GmbH ready to re-open its doors

Owners Jamie Kenyon and Neil McKie lay out the story so far

21 Jul 2011

A long time ago... Jamie: ‘Neil and I had been friends for a while. We regularly talked, often involving beer, about doing something, or several things – there have always been a lot of ideas floating around, and the publication shop was amongst them.

Debut novels round-up: Rules of Civility, Queen of Kings, Spartan, The Submission and America Pacifica

Rules of Civility, Queen of Kings, Spartan, The Submission and America Pacifica

Debut novels round-up

21 Jul 2011

Described by David Nicholls as ‘a smart, witty, charming Dry Martini of a novel’, Rules of Civility (Sceptre) veers from a photographic exhibit in 1966 to a jazz bar on the last night of 1937. In this fizzing debut by Amor Towles (pictured), both places…

Stefan Merrill Block - The Storm at the Door

Stefan Merrill Block - The Storm at the Door

Fictional biography of Block's grandparents' struggles with mental illness and institutionalisation

(4 stars)21 Jul 2011

(Faber) Based on the true story of Stefan Merrill Block’s grandparents, Katharine and Frederick, The Storm at the Door is the fictionalised account of the trauma which lay deep in the heart of their relationship. A veteran of World War II…

Jonathan Trigell - Genus

Jonathan Trigell - Genus

A dystopian thriller that falls short in its attempts to become something more literary

(3 stars)21 Jul 2011

(Corsair) After dealing with child murder in Boy A and a rapist in Cham, for his third novel Jonathan Trigell expands the violence to a massive scale. Set in a dystopian future London, society is segregated along genetic lines: the biologically…

Jason and Fabien Vehlmann - Isle of 100,000 Graves

Jason and Fabien Vehlmann - Isle of 100,000 Graves

Daft and deadpan humour make for hilarious read

(4 stars)20 Jul 2011

(Fantagraphics) Norway-born, South of France-based cartoonist Jason’s absurdist mix of daft and deadpan humour (a Nordic speciality perhaps) once again makes for hilarious reading in this tale of skulduggery in the South Seas. The discovery of a…

Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden & Ben Stenbeck - Baltimore: The Plague Ships

Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden & Ben Stenbeck - Baltimore: The Plague Ships

Disappointing supernatural horror from Hellboy creator Mike Mignola

(2 stars)20 Jul 2011

(Dark Horse) Hellboy creator Mike Mignola continues to expand his universe of supernatural horror inspired by 19th and 20th century pulp fictions with this his latest creation, Lord Henry Baltimore, vampire hunter. This first story arc, the first…

The Poetry Takeaway in residence at 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe

The Poetry Takeaway in residence at 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Made-to-order poems and rotating cast of the UK’s best performance poets

20 Jul 2011

The Poetry Takeaway is the world’s first purpose-built mobile poetry emporium. Housed in a real fast food trailer (bought off eBay), it’s staffed by a rotating cast of the UK’s best performance poets and specialises in the production of free…

John Hegarty

Advertising, Mad Men and the future - John Hegarty interview

Advertising guru set for Edinburgh Book Festival 2011

8 Jul 2011

"In the end, virtually everything I work on is, to a certain extent, irrelevant." After the best part of an hour's chat in which John Hegarty has pretty much sold me on the unparalleled joys and benefits of advertising, it's a refreshing shock to the…

Julya Rabinowich

Debut novelists at 2011 Edinburgh International Book Festival

Rebecca Hunt, Adam Levin and Mary Horlock among visiting authors

8 Jul 2011

Charlotte Square Gardens will be teeming with quality first novels for the whole of August, one of which will receive the EIBF's Newton First Book Award. Brian Donaldson looks at the cream of this year's debutants

Unbound

Highlights of the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2011

Alasdair Gray's Fleck, Kristin Hersh and Heather Brooke among picks

8 Jul 2011

An event with the writer of landmark works such as Lanark and Poor Things is exciting enough, but the Book Festival has cranked up the fever to 11 with another excellent first. In 2007 Gray wrote Fleck, an adaptation of Goethe's Faust and the closing…

The kids are all write

But what books do children actually like?

Never mind publishers and literary critics, what are the readers' favourites?

8 Jul 2011

Of course, stuffy literary critics shouldn't always have the final say. Kelly Apter finds out which authors actual children (including List critics' own) are getting excited about

John Hegarty - Hegarty on Advertising

John Hegarty - Hegarty on Advertising

'Turning Intelligence into Magic' with a history of the cut-throat industry

(4 stars)29 Jun 2011

(Thames & Hudson) As the man behind the iconic adverts for Levi 501s (Nick Kamen in his boxers), Audi (‘Vorsprung durch Technik’) and Barnardo’s (a baby jacking up on heroin), John Hegarty is better placed than most to discuss the perfect campaign.

The highs and lows of Harry Potter’s outrageous fortunes

The highs and lows of Harry Potter’s outrageous fortunes

An evaluation of each of the films from the Harry Potter series

28 Jun 2011

Having earned £6 billion worldwide, Harry Potter is the highest grossing film franchise of all time. And while the critical reception hasn’t always matched the commercial one (no Academy Awards yet), the films have been as successful as JK Rowling’s…

Alan Hollinghurst - The Stranger’s Child

Alan Hollinghurst - The Stranger’s Child

Sprawling 1913 family epic leave reader underwhelmed

(3 stars)28 Jun 2011

(Picador) When it comes to keeping his fans waiting, Alan Hollinghurst has got it down to a very fine art. It’s seven itchy years since the London writer scooped the Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty and this resultant beefy doorstopper proves…

Supergods - Grant Morrison interview

Supergods - Grant Morrison interview

Grant Morrison on his journey to becoming one of the world’s leading comics writers

21 Jun 2011

When I was eight my mum, who was a big fan of science fiction in all its forms, took me to see 2001: A Space Odyssey three times in one month. It was a profound thing to see. The second time I was so freaked out by the Stargate sequence that I couldn’t…

Edinburgh International Book Festival 2011 programme

Edinburgh International Book Festival 2011 line up highlights

Grant Morrison, Will Self and Jo Nesbø among highlights

16 Jun 2011

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…

Debut author Rebecca Makkai answers our questions

Debut author Rebecca Makkai answers our questions

Brian Donaldson interviews the author of The Borrower

14 Jun 2011

Our debut author Q&As continue with Rebecca Makkai, whose first book is about an odd couple embarking on an improvised road trip Give us five words to describe The Borrower. Librarian, boy, kidnap each other. Name one author who should be more…

Yrsa Sigurdardottir - The Day is Dark

Yrsa Sigurdardottir - The Day is Dark

Yet another new Stieg Larsson-eque, nordic crime novel

(3 stars)14 Jun 2011

(Hodder & Stoughton) Just as Norwegian Jo Nesbø is busy being ‘the next Stieg Larsson’, Yrsa Sigurdardottir is apparently ‘Iceland’s answer to Stieg Larsson’. The late Swedish author could scarcely have predicted how posthumously helpful he would…

Daniel Clowes - Mister Wonderful: A Love Story

Daniel Clowes - Mister Wonderful: A Love Story

New York Times Magazine column story into bittersweet romcom

(4 stars)14 Jun 2011

(Jonathan Cape) Famed for titles like Ghost World and Art School Confidential (both adapted into films by director Terry Zwigoff), writer and artist Daniel Clowes’ real strength is the emotional realism he imbues his characters with. Mister Wonderful…

Helen Walsh - Go to Sleep

Helen Walsh - Go to Sleep

Melodramatic family drama about the stigma of post-natal depression

(3 stars)14 Jun 2011

(Canongate) Helen Walsh makes compelling reading of a complex issue in her third novel, Go to Sleep, which aims to explore, and explode, the taboos surrounding post-natal depression. Based on her own experience of PND – which is estimated to affect a…

Ross Raisin - Waterline

Ross Raisin - Waterline

Unconvincing follow up social drama to God's Own Country

(2 stars)14 Jun 2011

(Viking) The strength of Ross Raisin’s debut novel, God’s Own Country, was the authenticity of the central character’s Yorkshire voice, but for this follow-up Raisin has moved proceedings to Glasgow, and it has to be said that his Scottish brogue is…

Joe Simon & Jack Kirby - Fighting American

Joe Simon & Jack Kirby - Fighting American

Classic 50s action with satirical edge from famed writer and artist team

(4 stars)31 May 2011

(Titan) Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the greatest writer-artist team of the Golden Age of comics, created, among other colourful costumed crime-fighters, the star-spangled superhero Captain America. Conceived as the ultimate patriot in response to…

Mario & Gilbert Hernandez - Citizen Rex

Mario & Gilbert Hernandez - Citizen Rex

Science fiction satire from the creators of Love & Rockets

(3 stars)31 May 2011

(Dark Horse) Co-creator Mario opens this hardcover collection of the six-issue comic originally published in 2009 with an amusing anecdote about meeting a geek at a science fiction convention who had the cheek to write off Los Bros Hernandez…

The best literary festivals in Scotland 2011

The best literary festivals in Scotland 2011

Wigtown, Borders, Inverness and Edinburgh host book festivals

30 May 2011

Borders Book Festival. Melrose’s delightfully titled Harmony Garden will open its gates to 65 events featuring an array of authors and personalities. Among the hotshot names appearing are Maureen Lipman, Michael Parkinson, Alexander McCall Smith, Kirsty…

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