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Alice Oswald revives Homer at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2012
2 Aug 2012
Laureate-championed poet revives ancient craft of storytelling with Homer yarn
‘As your poet laureate, I’m ordering you to go,’ announced Carol Ann Duffy at the Bath Literary Festival this year. She was talking about Alice Oswald’s event the following evening. ‘She’s a much better poet than I am.’ When the laureate says that, you…
Top five literary events outside the Edinburgh Intl Book Fest
2 Aug 2012
James Kelman, Ross Sutherland, Alan Bissett and more venture beyond Charlotte Square
There’s plenty of events for lit lovers in Edinburgh this month, with festival staple Edinburgh Book Fringe back for another year, plus the more indie stylings of Inky Fingers Minifest. The Book Fringe will have talks and readings by comedian Russell…
2012 Edinburgh International Book Festival highlights
2 Aug 2012
Etgar Keret, Louise Welsh, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Sarah Hall and more
He’s only gone and been dubbed by Salman Rushdie as ‘brilliant’ and by Clive James as ‘enchantingly witty’ so why wouldn’t you want to spend time with this Israeli writer? 3-16 Aug, 7pm, £7 (£5). Nikita Lalwani Meet the creator of Ray Bhullar…
Top 5 books and their authors coming to 2012 Edinburgh International Book Festival
2 Aug 2012
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…
Q&A: Geoff Dyer on new book Zona at 2012 Edinburgh International Book Festival
2 Aug 2012
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…
Neil Forsyth: Bringing Dundee to the masses
2 Aug 2012
Forsyth presents his new book at the Edinburgh Book Festival
You’d be forgiven for thinking that Neil Forsyth has a vendetta against con men. Among his published works are a biography of teenage scam artist Elliot Castro, an exposé on fraudulent psychics and Delete This at Your Peril, a collection of email…
Sarah Hall talks of new book Beautiful Indifference at 2012 Edinburgh International Book Festival
2 Aug 2012
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…
Charles Ferguson lifts the lid on US finance
1 Aug 2012
The author and filmmaker follows up documentary Inside Job with Predator Nation
Multi-millionaire software entrepreneur, technology policy consultant to the White House, and Academy Award-winning filmmaker and author Charles Ferguson is coming to Edinburgh to talk about the nightmare on Wall Street. Ferguson’s 2010 Oscar-winner…
Lydia Monks at the Edinburgh Book Festival 2012
1 Aug 2012
The author and illustrator discusses fighting writer’s block and indulging in starspotting
‘If I get stuck on something, I try to approach it from a different angle,’ says illustrator and author Lydia Monks. ‘It’s like hitting a dead end, doing a three-point turn and finding a different route. I think, as a writer or illustrator, you can’t be…
Louise Welsh tells us her favourite scary stories
1 Aug 2012
The Glaswegian author is due to appear at the Edinburgh International Book Festival
Think horror, think Stephen King, think John Ajvide Lindqvist, think books big enough to fight off the walking dead. But small can be as creepy as a Chucky doll. And sometimes you’ve got to read quickly because ‘the dead travel fast’. If you find…
Barry Fantoni’s Top 5 Detectives
1 Aug 2012
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…
Tam Dalyell at Edinburgh Book Festival 2012
1 Aug 2012
On Falklands, nuclear war and giving his home to the nation
As the title of his memoir, The Importance of Being Awkward, attests, former Labour MP Tam Dalyell has never been one to toe the party line. From the beginning of his parliamentary career in 1962, up to his retiral in 2005, Dalyell was a vocal critic of…
Andrew Keen: Manifesto for digital change
1 Aug 2012
Author and digital entrepreneur appears with Ewan Morrison at the Edinburgh International Book Fest
Author and digital entrepreneur Andrew Keen has serious concerns with the internet. ‘First we lived in villages, now we live on the internet,’ he muses. ‘And there are some people out here in California who believe it’s a utopia, an idyll which will…
August 2012 books round-up: debut fiction
29 Jul 2012
First time authors this month include Paolo Sorrentino, Ariel S Winter and Sabina Berman
Whether you’re lazing on a beach or stuck indoors from the rain, there’s a host of exciting new debut fictions out in August for you to tear through. Film buffs will know Paolo Sorrentino from his directorial work on the likes of Il Divo and This Must…
Author Shirley Conran discusses Fifty Shades of Grey
28 Jul 2012
The erotic fiction writer is unimpressed by EL James' contribution to the genre
It was a visit to one of London’s top sexperts that finally convinced Shirley Conran to write Lace. At the beginning of the 1980s, after a successful career as a journalist and non-fiction writer, she was researching an educational tome about sex for…
Top 5 erotic fiction works
28 Jul 2012
Finished 50 Shades of Grey? Try The Harlequin Blog, The Story of O or DH Lawrence
The Harlequin Blog Inquisitive clit lit newbies could do worse than have a peek at the Harlequin blog, which offers a beginners guide to erotica: just name your kink and they’ll provide recommendations from their impressive oeuvre, whether it’s BDSM…
Eddie Campbell - The Lovely Horrible Stuff
28 Jul 2012
An occasionally boring but overall worthwhile mix of art, photos and prose
Eddie Campbell is most famous for his semi-autobiographical tales as well as providing the scratchy art to Alan Moore’s Jack the Ripper opus From Hell. In The Lovely Horrible Stuff, he’s contemplating everyone’s current obsession: money. The first half…
Emran Mian - The Banker's Daughter
28 Jul 2012
A topical and shrewdly observed thriller themed around a financial crisis
Whatever caused the recession, there’s one party on whom the trail has yet to go cold, and that’s the bankers. You couldn’t get much more topical, then, than The Banker’s Daughter. We begin in Beirut, where Hanna Mehdi and her father have sought refuge…
Chris Ewan - Safe House
28 Jul 2012
A credibly intricate crime thriller from the author of the Good Thief guides
Chris Ewan is best known for The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam / Paris / Vegas / Venice series of postmodern novels narrated by a thief who just happens to be a crime writer. Safe House is his first standalone thriller and this time the narrator is…
Liza Klaussmann - Tigers in Red Weather
28 Jul 2012
A cinematic historical tale set between the end of WWII and the 1960s
The Second World War is coming to an end and dashing Hughes Derringer is returning from the conflict to his bewitching wife, Nick. Her cousin, a young war widow Helena has found another someone of her own, and is shipping west for a life of glamour and…
New 'Spoken Word' category houses some of the finest acts of Fringe 2012
27 Jul 2012
Performers in the new strand include Luke Wright, Mark Grist, Alex Keelan and Claire Mooney
‘People still think it’s going to be “Charge of the Light Brigade” by a bloke in a suit,’ Luke Wright crackles down the phone to me. He’s sitting in the pub where he’s working on a new show with Mark Grist, a teacher turned rap battler and fellow…
Samit Basu - Turbulence
25 Jul 2012
Action-packed superhero novel set in India
It’s boom time for superheroes in pop culture. The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man and Dark Knight Rises are the three biggest films of the year and there are plenty more to come. However original novels about supermen and women are still relatively…
How to make your Edinburgh Fringe show a success
19 Jul 2012
Author of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide Mark Fisher dispenses good advice
A couple of years ago, I was commissioned by Methuen Drama to write The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide, a 280-page manual published earlier this year and described by Lyn Gardner of the Guardian as "a wonderfully practical but also inspirational book…
First Writes: Kerry Hudson on her first novel
18 Jul 2012
Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma
Give us five words to describe Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma? Profane, funny, tender, council-estate, debut. I know I’m pushing it with that hyphen. Name one author who should be more famous than they are now? AM…
Summer 2012 biography round-up
18 Jul 2012
New biographies on Amy Winehouse, Barack Obama, Marilyn Munroe and Raymond Chandler
It’s a year since Amy Winehouse joined the ill-fated 27 Club, so it was somehow inevitable that the story of her largely miserable short life would be out round about now. The fact that proceeds will be heading to a charitable foundation to help young…
