Books and Brian Donaldson

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…

Julian Barnes - The Sense of an Ending

Economically-told novella from the master storyteller

21 Jul 2011

(Jonathan Cape) Imprecise memory, lifelong regrets and the inconsistencies between shared histories are at the heart of Julian Barnes’ short and sharp new novella. As a title, The Sense of an Ending refers to the way in which his characters…

The Hot 100 2010 - Mark Millar, Kevin Bridges and Alasdair Gray take top 3 spots

Our annual chart of the people from Scotland being interesting, successful and creative

16 Dec 2010

The Hot 100 is a list of Scots who’ve made a sizeable creative splash in 2010. It includes musicians, artists, writers, actors, fashion designers, technological innovators, shop owners, festival directors, record label heads and one mad cyclist.

Alan Warner - The Deadman's Pedal

Evocative and personal rural drama from the Morvern Callar author

22 May 2012

In a literary career which has played down the overly autobiographical tendency (all that writing from a female perspective malarkey for one thing), The Deadman’s Pedal seems far and away Alan Warner’s most personal fiction to date. We return to the…

Ewan Morrison - Tales from the Mall

A wealth of information and anecdotes drawn together to paint a funny, scary portrait of our times

22 May 2012

As Ewan Morrison notes in his introduction, the shopping mall is a potent symbol of the homogenised world in which we live now. You could look at images of shopping centres in Dundee and Dresden and chances are you won’t be able to tell them apart. The…

Ewan Morrison - Tales from the Mall

Author's latest project contains pictures from shopping centres

18 Aug 2010

Can you give us five words to describe Tales from the Mall? Anecdotes, confessions, myths, underbelly, consumerism. Which authors should be more famous than they are now? Wishing fame on a writer is tantamount to desiring their demise as…

Christopher Hitchens - Arguably

Stellar collection of essays from the outspoken journalist

16 Sep 2011

(Atlantic) As Christopher Hitchens movingly concedes in the intro to Arguably, he writes each new slice of social, political and cultural commentary as though it may be his last. While others would have disappeared within their shell at having…

The Midnight Beast - Book At Us Now

Unfunny pop-parody book designed to cash in on upcoming TV fame

18 Oct 2011

(Coronet) ‘We mock the living hell out of stuff for a living,’ claim London pop parody trio The Midnight Beast. Even in this disposable age, simply poking fun at more talented people can only stretch so far before the game is up. Success rarely…

Fatima Bhutto's Songs of Blood and Sword

Benazir Bhutto's niece tells her criticizing story.

5 Aug 2010

Mystery still surrounds the murder of Benazir Bhutto in 2007 but while people like her niece Fatima are around to ask questions, there’s always some chance that the puzzle might yet be solved. Not that Fatima has the family blinkers on as she was an…

Will Self at the Edinburgh International Book Festival

15 Jul 2010

A is for Alice in Wonderland A voracious reader as a child, Will Self skipped between adult and kids’ fiction, including reading all 650 pages of Frank Herbert’s Dune at the age of ten. But the book that had the biggest impact on the mind of the young…

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…

Preview of 2012 - Irvine Welsh's Skagboys

Renton, Sick Boy et al are revisited in this Trainspotting prequel

6 Jan 2012

Wonder how Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and co got to be the drugged-up life-rejecting Leith loons in Trainspotting? Well, wonder no more, as the publication of Skagboys brings us a bit more background on the individual and social circumstances revolving…

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…

The best upcoming events in Scotland in 2011

Highlights of the 2011 cultural calandar from Film, Music, Comedy, Theatre and Visual Art

3 Jan 2011

Huge gigs, inspiring theatre productions, comedy legends and two cute little waving bears – just a few of the things coming up in ‘11 that we can barely contain our excitement about

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…

Howard Marks in discussion event with MC5 manager John Sinclair

The two can offer different takes on the 1960s counter culture

22 May 2012

Every generation needs a figurehead to accentuate the fun side of drugs. From Thomas de Quincey to Sherlock Holmes and through to Timothy Leary, the Beatles and Bill Hicks, it’s not all been bad trips and cold turkey (if there any wags out there…

Crime books round-up – March 2012

Doug Johnstone, Alex Gray and Mari Jungstedt deliver new crime novels this month

17 Feb 2012

As if to show that fiction readers love a good bit of murder and mystery, death and deceit, blood and booze, there’s acres of it about to be scattered around the nation’s book shelves. Doug Johnstone (of this parish) parks his Hit and Run (Faber) at our…

Profile: Louise Welsh, author of The Cutting Room and Naming the Bones

The crime author is set to appear at three literary events this month

1 Feb 2012

Ever since she exploded onto the Scottish literary scene in 2002 with her literary detective novel The Cutting Room, Louise Welsh has proved to be an astute explorer of human frailty. She describes her quartet of acclaimed novels as quests in which an…

The Hot 100 2011: 100-50

The definitive list of Scottish creative talent

16 Dec 2011

100: Gordon Ferris. Kilmarnock crime author makes good. The already packed Scottish crime writing field has finally found a bit of elbow room for another burgeoning talent. Joining the likes of Rankin, Brookmyre, McDermid and co is this Ayrshire-born…

Hot 100 2011 - No. 49 to 1

The definitive list of Scottish creative talent

16 Dec 2011

The Hot 100 is the definitive list of Scottish creative talent. From fashion designers to performance artists, everyone who has made a sizeable splash in 2011 has a place in this countdown. It’s for people who’ve created a buzz, but it’s also about…

Top children's books on sale for Christmas

New titles from Jacqueline Wilson, Julia Donaldson, Francesca Simon and David Walliams

15 Nov 2011

While the December market is traditionally slow for adult fiction, when it comes to kids books, it’s a ripe old time of year. This winter there are books from some familiar names and favourite characters which won’t look bad popping out of a woolly…

Umberto Eco - On Ugliness

Entertaining collection of art history essays edited by the Italian author

15 Nov 2011

(MacLehose Press) Just as notions of beauty are very much in the eye of the beholder, what constitutes ‘ugly’ can be viewed differently across centuries and continents. Football teams who ‘play ugly’ might still end up as winners, while being told by…

Five Edinburgh Book Festival guests you'll know from TV

Lucy Worsley, Bettany Hughes, Alexei Sayle, Kirsty Wark and Peter Taylor

9 Aug 2011

Lucy Worsley Delving into the intimate history of old homes and buildings is Worsley’s prime passion and her BBC Four series and book If Walls Could Talk pretty much sums it up. During her years of research, she has uncovered the fact that bedrooms…

Antony Gormley - One and Other

6 Oct 2010

(Jonathan Cape) For 100 days last year, 2400 chosen people plonked themselves atop the Fourth Plinth at Trafalgar Square and had an hour to express pretty much anything they wished. So, we had one person delivering a list of apologies for all the…

501 Minutes to Christ - Poe Ballantine

17 Dec 2009

(Old Street Publishing) For Poe Ballantine, the point of an essay isn’t just to pass on information or offer some straight analysis. It all works so much better when it’s given the feel of a drama, which is why this new set of stories often feels as…