Books, Brian Donaldson

Noam Chomsky - The Essential Chomsky

13 Nov 2008

(Bodley Head) For over 40 years, ‘the world’s greatest public intellectual’ has been not so much a thorn in the side of the West’s establishment structures as a battering ram to everything held dear by liberals and conservatives alike. Now fast…

Also released - 5 Poetry Books

13 Nov 2008

● Vera Brittain Because You Died A collection of poems and prose from the author of Testament of Youth, all about the men she loved who perished in the First World War. Virago . ● Dennis O’Donnell Stepping Stones This one features interviews with…

Hitlist-Books

13 Nov 2008

● Alastair Campbell New Labour’s arch doctor of spin tackles matters concerning real health with his debut novel, All in the Mind, based on his own mental breakdown back in the 1980s. Waterstone’s, Glasgow, Wed 19 Nov. ● Alexei Sayle In the not too…

Jim Holt - Stop Me If You've Heard This

30 Oct 2008

If there is one art form often deemed to be beyond analysis, it's comedy. You hear, see or read something funny and then you laugh. End of. Right? Anyone who seeks to go beneath the skin of stand-up and explain the mechanics only succeeds in killing the…

Andrew Anthony - The Fallout

16 Oct 2008

SOCIAL MEMOIR In 2001, Andrew Anthony was just another member of the liberal-left intelligentsia, dutifully filing his anti-conservative copy to The Observer and Guardian. Then a pair of planes swung into the World Trade Center and the belief systems…

Cosmo Landesman - Starstruck

16 Oct 2008

SHOWBIZ MEMOIR Fran and Jay Landesman sound like a tough set of parents. She a poet and jazz singer, he a producer and comedian. Together they fled the US due to a perceived lack of success, viewing Swinging 60s London as a kinder, less competitive…

Ali Smith - The First Person and Other Stories

2 Oct 2008

SHORT STORIES In this, her fourth collection of short stories, Ali Smith sets out her philosophical stall as quickly as she can. Her opening tale, ‘True Short Story’, ponders the very nature of the form itself as two men debate the merits of the…

Harry Hill - Tim the Tiny Horse at Large

18 Sep 2008

KIDS STORY You can virtually smell Harry Hill at his keyboard, big collar tickling his neck, tongue flicking in and out (‘hmm, hmm, yeah, hmm?’), eyes blinking maniacally as the ideas bristle through his cranium. There is a chance, of course, that he…

Gordon Burn

Upsetting the traditionalists with novelised news

21 Aug 2008

‘I hate plots. Soon as I know that a film or a book or TV show has a plot, my brain can’t cope with it. If I’m watching a film and I don’t know or have forgotten what the storyline is and I’m supposed to work out who this or that person is, I just fall…

Top 5 - Tories

21 Aug 2008

Rick Wakeman He might be a cast member of the Grumpy Old Men but simply mention the word ‘conservative’ and the Yes man lights up. He even performed a gig in 2004 to raise funds for the party. Rock’n’roll eh? 22 Aug, 6.30pm, £9 (£7) . Ffion Hague…

Kids Events

14 Aug 2008

When Miranda Richardson so memorably played the child-like Queen Elizabeth I in Blackadder, a career in entertaining kids seemed to be in the offing. With Horrid Henry (16 Aug) she appears to have finally grasped that opportunity by voicing the little…

Top 5 - TV People

14 Aug 2008

Susie Dent Don’t even ask her to be drawn on the subject of the ‘Carol Countdown Controversy’. Along with fellow word fan Henry Hitchings, the nine-letter word expert will be talking about the ever-evolving English language. 20 Aug, 2pm, £9 (£7).

Kids' Events

Trains and tweens dominate the first week

7 Aug 2008

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…

Kid loves - Children's books round-up

Edinburgh International Book Festival

22 Jul 2008

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…

Richard Mason

Edinburgh International Book Festival

22 Jul 2008

In some forms of entertainment fame can often come extraordinarily early (music and film perhaps), but with mechanisms in place to help the ‘victims’ deal with the onset of celebrity. In the literary world, support systems are less common, especially…

5 Travel Books

17 Jul 2008

Ellie Nielsen Our Own Piece of Paris Subtitled ‘How We Fell in Love with the City of Light’, this follows one woman’s quest to find an apartment that oozes Parisian chic. Atlantic. Kapka Kassabova Street Without a Name Subtitled ‘Childhood and Other…

Simon Critchley - The Book of Dead Philosophers

5 Jun 2008

PHILOSOPHER HISTORY (Granta) Alongside religious types, the permanently unhealthy and stand-up comedians, philosophers have a nightly battle with questions about the process of dying and the actual reality of having snuffed it. Naturally, none of them…

Neil Astley & Pamela Robertson-Pearce - In Person: 30 Poets

22 May 2008

POETRY DVD/BOOK (Bloodaxe) Tucked inside the book of the same name comes a smart pair of DVDs which platform the depth and range which poetry publisher Bloodaxe have been offering us for three decades. In Person is a celebration of the intimacy that…

Michael Bond - Paddington Here and Now

22 May 2008

KIDS COLLECTION (HarperCollins) When a book series returns from a long absence to mark its main character’s anniversary, it can often feel too much like a rushed job created purely to ensure that the keynote guest isn’t late for their own party.

Also Published - 5 Travel Books

8 May 2008

Daniel Kalder - Strange Telescopes Following up his Lost Cosmonaut, this intrepid Fifer goes on the hunt for some more offbeat individuals in the former Soviet Union. Faber . Susanna Clark - A House in Fez Subtitled ‘Building a Life in the Ancient…

Also Published - 5 Sports Paperbacks

24 Apr 2008

Barry Davies - Interesting, Very Interesting Over 40 years of broadcast commentating are recalled here by a man who reached the peaks when he went on Big Train to cover the World Stare Out Championships. Headline . Eddie Jordan – An Independent Man…

Joe Humphreys - Foul Play

10 Apr 2008

SPORT HISTORY (Icon Books) With the protests surrounding the Beijing Olympics going into overdrive, disgraced sprinter Dwain Chambers seeking a new career in rugby league and the integrity of referees, umpires and line judges being called into…

5 Debut Novels

10 Apr 2008

Héddi Kaddour - Waltenberg A bumper espionage thriller between World War I and the Berlin Wall’s collapse featuring a German author, an American singer and a French journalist. Harvill Secker . Jane Kotapish - Salvage Narrated by a woman who has…

5 Paperback Autobiogs

Also Published

27 Mar 2008

David Coulthard - It Is What It Is From rural Scotland to a multi-millionaire lifestyle in Monte Carlo all thanks to the flashy world of Formula 1 motor racing. Orion . Mark Barrowcliffe - The Elfish Gene A memoir of a nerdish youth in the 1970s…

Gordon Burn - Born Yesterday

27 Mar 2008

NOVELISED HISTORY (Faber) Having dabbled in the world of real life Manchester United legends in Best and Edwards and fictionalised the stories of semi-real boxers and comedians for The North England Home Service, Gordon Burn’s latest, the ‘News as a…