Books

James Kelman - If it is Your Life

19 Mar 2010

(Hamish Hamilton) James Kelman’s fiction is a safehouse for the dispossessed and downtrodden; a soft and sympathetic place where the homeless, limbless or loveless find refuge. This short story collection from the Glaswegian socialist is typically…

Alex McBride - Defending the Guilty

19 Mar 2010

(Viking) They might have a public image problem, but when a lawyer is the difference to you between freedom and incarceration, they can suddenly become closer than any family member or friend. In Defending the Guilty, criminal barrister Alex McBride…

Kevin MacNeil: Big Picture

19 Mar 2010

Having just completed cycle rides across Europe for cancer charities, the acclaimed Hebridean author gets back inside his writerly head for this event in which he will discuss his work, an oeuvre that includes a novel, The Stornoway Way, a book of…

Mike Carey & Peter Gross - The Unwritten

19 Mar 2010

(Vertigo/Titan) Obviously taking the boy wizard Harry Potter as its cultural and contextual inspiration, this new ongoing series from writer Mike Carey weaves a complex metafiction blurring the lines between fact and fantasy. In The Unwritten, Tommy…

Derek Walcott - White Egrets

10 Mar 2010

(Faber) Derek Walcott’s White Egrets was years in the writing, its publication coming after last year’s Poetrygate which resulted in his reputation smeared through allegations of sexual harassment. If there was one way in which Walcott could get the…

Glasgow’s Aye Write literary festival - Louise Welsh interview

5 Mar 2010

Ahead of her appearance at Glasgow’s Aye Write! literary festival, crime fiction master Louise Welsh tells Claire Sawers about the dark side of the English Lit department in her latest novel

Jonathan Safran Foer - Eating Animals

4 Mar 2010

(Hamish Hamilton) Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book – a thoughtful and vigorously researched survey of US farming practices – may seem at odds with his previous works, but there are striking similarities. Like his lauded novels, Everything is…

Various - Batman: Battle for the Cowl Companion

4 Mar 2010

(DC/Titan) The companion to Battle for the Cowl fleshes out the story ever further as various writers and artists (including David Hine, Chris Yost, Fabian Nicieza and Mark McKenna) show the events from other angles focusing on the likes of…

Little Hands Clapping - Dan Rhodes interview

2 Mar 2010

First record you ever bough t ‘Intuition’ by Linx, from Woollies in Tiverton. And I’m not ashamed. First film you saw that really moved you If ever a film changed my life it was Billy Liar. It made me realise I really shouldn’t work in a petrol…

Alain de Botton, AL Kennedy and Janice Galloway among highlights at Glasgow's Aye Write! literary festival

2 Mar 2010

Alain de Botton The terribly clever philosopher and author wonders just what our obsession with work is all about. Why do we spend most of our waking hours doing it and what makes it pleasurable? Fri 5 Mar, 6pm. Janet Paisley and Manda Scott…

Don Delillo - Point Omega

2 Mar 2010

(Picador) In a rare interview given to the British press, Don DeLillo claimed that his recent shorter fiction has nothing to do with him, that the books take him by the hand and suggest their length. Harsher critics point to the fact that in quantity…

Joe Hill - Horns

2 Mar 2010

(Victor Gollancz) Joe Hill certainly has an eye for a story pitch. Heart-Shaped Box, his full-length debut novel of 2007, features an ageing rock star who inadvertently purchases a poltergeist over the internet, leading to some terrifying…

Beatrice Colin - The Songwriter

25 Feb 2010

(John Murray) One of the more promising new writers in Scotland returns with a fourth novel which sets its sights far from her home country. In the same manner as Glasgow-based Beatrice Colin’s last book The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite explored…

StAnza 2010 - Kei Miller interview

25 Feb 2010

In the historic surroundings of St Andrews resides one of the most interesting events in the literary calendar. The unassuming programme for StAnza sets out the expected author events, the star names like Seamus Heaney, the technique-polishing workshops…

Tony S Daniel & Various - Batman: Battle for the Cowl

25 Feb 2010

(DC/Titan) VARIOUS After the cataclysmic events in Grant Morrison’s Batman RIP, there’s a void in Gotham City, and while Nightwing, Robin, Huntress, Batgirl, Catwoman and their allies are trying to fend off the crimewave, it appears someone needs to…

Delphine De Vigan - No and Me

18 Feb 2010

(Bloomsbury) When Lou Bertignac decides to focus on the homeless of Paris for a school project, she is unprepared for the battle with herself she is about to undertake. Already life is barely tolerable with her dad often to be found crying in the…

Martin Amis - The Pregnant Widow

18 Feb 2010

(Jonathan Cape) On page 395 of this 465-page endurance test, Martin Amis promises the following from one of his characters: ‘Gloria Beautyman, at least, will be giving us something that Life badly needs. Plot’. Life, Martin – and indeed your latest…

Pedro Juam Gutierrez - Our GG in Havana

18 Feb 2010

(Faber) To fans of the author behind such classic works as Brighton Rock and The Quiet American, it might come as something of a surprise to read the first 30 pages in this curt novel. Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, himself the scribe of the acclaimed Dirty…

The Golden Hour

18 Feb 2010

The Forest Cafe’s glorious, shambolic and boozy literary cabaret night, hosted as ever by the utterly affable Ryan Van Winkle, gets in on the Edinburgh City of Literature One Book / One City campaign. The theme this year is ‘Carry a Poem’, and readers…

Why there's life in the book trade yet

Reading and righting

17 Feb 2010

Between the bankruptcy of Borders before Christmas and the oncoming onslaught of cheeky backlit upstarts like the Kindle and the iPad, popular wisdom would have it that things are looking a little gloomy in the world of book selling. It’s certainly…

New British Comics No 2

17 Feb 2010

www.polygobooks.com

The Still Point - Amy Sackville interview

17 Feb 2010

A married couple is asleep in bed. Back to back, knees bending, and feet touching, ‘they form the uneven outline of an urn’. Bizarrely, they are both dreaming of the same freezing cold place, but it means two very different things to them. To Simon, the…

It’s Only A Movie - An Evening with Mark Kermode launches his autobiography

1 Feb 2010

The Exorcist-obsessed, leather-clad and utterly iconic film critic is in (both) town(s) this fortnight, to discuss his autobiography, It’s Only A Movie, probably in a sardonic and slightly sarcastic fashion. Little-known Kermode fact: he plays double…

Nothing But The Truth - Anna Politkovskaya

1 Feb 2010

In a world where the worst atrocities some journalists might face are their copy being ravaged by unscrupulous subeditors and unreasonable deadlines being imposed by cold-hearted commissioning editors, the fate of our kin abroad make such concerns seem…

Paul Cornell & Leonard Kirk - Captain Britain and MI13: Vampire State

1 Feb 2010

(Marvel UK) It’s a shame to see Paul Cornell’s rebirth of Captain Britain come to a close so quickly (the final six issues and the 2009 annual are collected here), but such is the fickle world of mainstream comics. At least it goes out with an…

Henning Mankell - The Man From Beijing

29 Jan 2010

(Harvill Secker) As all Wallander fans will testify, Henning Mankell does a good line in legal professionals. His long-running series about the flawed but eminently likeable detective has sold millions worldwide, not to mention spawned TV adaptations…

Natasha Walter - Living Dolls

29 Jan 2010

(Virago) When Natasha Walter published The New Feminism in 1998, it was with a triumphant air that she declared sexism to be in permanent decline. As New Labour women such as Harriet Harman, Mo Mowlam and Clare Short achieved high office, the signs…

Laila Lalami - Secret Son

27 Jan 2010

(Viking) Nineteen-year-old Youssef El Mekki lives with his mother in a Casablanca slum, having grown up believing that his father died when he was young. In fact he’s the illegitimate son of a rich local businessman, and when he makes the connection…

Robin Robertson - The Wrecking Light

27 Jan 2010

(Picador) Like his previous book, the Forward Prize-winning Swithering, Robin Robertson’s new collection is powered by contrasts. Stark, ominous, depictions of nature rub shoulders with a strongly developed sense of the domestic, as in ‘Tinsel’…

Dan Rhodes - Little Hands Clapping

21 Jan 2010

(Canongate) Dan Rhodes is a wonderful writer who seemed to spring from the ether a few years ago as a fully formed storyteller par excellence, a purveyor of the bleakest, funniest black comedy around, and an author with no obvious peers. Little Hands…

Chris Kent - Medusa

21 Jan 2010

(Graphite Fiction) Borders-based artist and writer Chris Kent has produced a strong piece of complex work for his debut comics project. Using collage, photo and painted art Medusa has a unique look for a haunting tale of lose and longing. Following…

Edward Ross - Filmish

20 Jan 2010

(Chiaroscuro) Edinburgh-based cartoonist, comic writer and filmmaker Edward Ross releases this sharp and wryly amusing ‘wee collection of comic book essays on film theory’. This isn’t hard academia (and doesn’t pretend to be) but an engaging look at…

Have meat, can eat

20 Jan 2010

Just when you thought it was safe to crack open your haggis... BURNS IS BACK. Yes, no sooner has the Year of Homecoming been safely consigned to the tartan time capsule than Burns Night 2010 rolls around, with the usual mix of traditional suppers…

Simon Lelic - Rupture

20 Jan 2010

(Picador) Simon Lelic’s debut novel is certainly timely. His story about a massacre in a north London school would appear to symbolise our so-called ‘Broken Britain’. But the fact that the shooting of three students and a teacher during a morning…

Before the Gods - KS Turner interview

19 Jan 2010

From the moment you pick up Before the Gods, with its tantalising mix of fantasy, science fiction, psychology, mythology, existential questioning and spirituality, it’s clear that we’re dealing with no ordinary fictional debut. But with its lofty title…

David O'Doherty, Claudia O'Doherty and Mike Ahern - 100 Facts About Pandas

19 Jan 2010

(Square Peg) Did you know that an administrative error resulted in the panda being classified not as a mammal but as a nut? Were you aware that the original Concorde had an in-flight panda called Mr Nougat who snuggled up to passengers having…

Jon McGregor - Even the Dogs

19 Jan 2010

(Bloomsbury) On a cold, miserable day between Christmas and New Year, a dead junkie’s body is found in the cold, miserable flat which used to be the warm loving home where Robert and his wife raised their daughter Laura. But one day they left and his…

Willy Vlautin - Lean on Pete

19 Jan 2010

(Faber) To date, Willy Vlautin has written about ordinary American drifters careering from one dead end job to another on lonely roads, escaping something dark from their past and desperately seeking hope in an uncertain future. Lean On Pete offers…

2010 preview: Great expectations

7 Jan 2010

Favourite things are ending, exciting things are beginning and old things are coming back. 2010 is already shaping up to be a thrilling year and here are the 30 good reasons why we can’t wait

Five Christmas books

7 Jan 2010

Augusten Burroughs You Better Not Cry: True Stories for Christmas A twisted collection of Yuletide tales in which the face of a stuffed Santa is eaten off and a tenement is constructed entirely from gingerbread. Atlantic. Loek Koopmans The…

Five health books

7 Jan 2010

Susan Hepburn Hypnodiet Subtitled ‘Lose Weight, Feel Fabulous the Stress-Free Way’ this claims to help reprogramme your mind into making the right choices about grub. Should you care, Lily Allen is an advocate. Piatkus. Paul McKenna I Can…

Alex Horne - Wordwatching

7 Jan 2010

(Virgin Books) Alex Horne is a true logophile. He’s a lover of words, especially rare words, like ‘logophile’, that seldom make it into dictionaries. Or ‘bollo’, ‘pratdigger’ and ‘mental safari’, his own recent coinages that the comedian has been…

Barbera Ehrenreich - Smile or Die

7 Jan 2010

(Granta) What’s wrong with positive thinking? Anyone who’s been forced on a team bonding day or made to sit through the platitudinous drivel of a ‘motivational guru’ by their employers will tell you exactly what’s wrong with it. And that culture of…

David Hughes - Walking the Dog

7 Jan 2010

(Jonathan Cape) David Hughes is an illustrator, graphic designer and artist whose work is pitched somewhere in the hinterland between the poignantly funny line scribbles of artist David Shrigley and the acerbic splashes of Pink Floyd collaborator…

New York state of mind

7 Jan 2010

Nestled at the heart of Jonathan Lethem’s Chronic City is a duality. Leading with the tagline, ‘Lethem does Manhattan’, the Brooklynite’s latest owes much to a slight, yet significant switch in New York perspective. ‘Manhattan has a quality of being far…

Tiffany Murray - Diamond Star Halo

7 Jan 2010

(Portobello) Inspired by her own upbringing at Monmouthshire’s Rockfield Studios – the world’s first residential recording studio whose alumni include Queen, Iggy Pop and Oasis – Tiffany Murray’s second novel is part dysfunctional family drama, part…

William Styron - The Suicide Run

7 Jan 2010

(Jonathan Cape) On first glance at the cover image depicting a uniformed soldier speeding across a field, The Suicide Run looks like your average war story. But this is no ordinary tale; we should have guessed really, as William Styron is no…

The Hot 100 2009

18 Dec 2009

Compiled by List staff through a painstaking process of review and debate, the Hot 100 is the comprehensive list of Scottish creative talent, covering both individuals and organisations who’ve made a standout contribution to culture in 2009. This year’s…

Hot 100 2009 - Carol Ann Duffy profile

17 Dec 2009

In one year as Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy has made more of an impression than Andrew Motion managed in a decade in the job. Her appointment in itself was pretty iconoclastic, and we all dutifully reeled off the reasons why it was a historic event…

Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India - William Dalrymple

17 Dec 2009

(Bloomsbury) William Dalrymple’s publisher describes Nine Lives as his ‘first travel book in a decade’; this is rather misleading. Dalrymple’s own, contradictory phrase, ‘linked non-fiction stories’, is closer to the truth. This collection is, in…