1191 results

Val McDermid & Jo Sharp: Imagine Another Country Two years ago, inspired by Book Festival discussions about the necessity of imagination for political change, Val McDermid and Geographer Royal for Scotland Jo Sharp invited a diverse group of people to share their ideas. This summer a post-pandemic secon… Elena Pala, John Retallack & Sandro Veronesi: The World of the Hummingbird Sandro Veronesi’s international bestselling novel, The Hummingbird, is transformed into an exclusive, experimental and immersive event for the Book Festival by the team who adapted it for BBC Radio 3. Experience the impressionistic, dreamlike life of … Stories and Scran Returning for its third year, Stories and Scran celebrates the dynamic and thought-provoking work created by participants in Citizen, our long-term creative programme offering local people a platform to explore identity and place. Enjoy a snack and a dive… Alan Cumming: Unpacking a Life One of Scotland’s favourite entertainers, Alan Cumming proved his command of the written word was just as strong as his command of the stage in 2014, when he became a New York Times bestselling author. His most recent book, Baggage, takes us through his… Jonathan Freedland: The Man Who Escaped Auschwitz Imagine trying to escape from Auschwitz as a teenager, hiding for three days, while 3,000 SS and their bloodhounds search for you. This is the story of Rudolf Vrba, whose report on the atrocity of Auschwitz reached Roosevelt, Churchill and the Pope, savin… Sabrina Mahfouz: Notes on the British Empire Sabrina Mahfouz has often experienced the sly questioning underneath much of British society’s treatment of her: as someone of Middle Eastern heritage, can she be trusted? Confronting what’s at play here, These Bodies of Water takes us to the Middle E… Jack Monroe: On Self-Care and Social Change To call Jack Monroe a cookbook writer would be to undersell her by several degrees of magnitude. From being a struggling single mother on a microbudget, she has built a career helping those who society has left behind. Fresh from pressuring supermarkets t… Gulbahar Haitiwaji: To Make Us Slowly Disappear This is one Uyghur woman’s astonishing story of survival. More than a million Uyghur Muslims are incarcerated in Chinese detention units: China describes them as re-education camps while human rights organisations accuse China of genocide. Gulbahar Hait… Fintan O'Toole: The Unknown Knowns of Ireland One of Ireland’s finest journalists shares an intimate account of how the country has changed during his lifetime. There are many contradictions in Ireland’s history and the title of Fintan O’Toole’s personal history, We Don’t Know Ourselves, is… Karen Campbell & Charlie Roy: Things We Don’t Remember, Things We Can’t Forget Charlie Roy’s The Broken Pane follows Tam’s flight into her past, after a tragic discovery throws her life off course. Karen Campbell’s Paper Cup journeys with Kelly, who is homeless and decides to leave the streets of Glasgow to return to her child… Fernanda Melchor: Think Twice While Fernanda Melchor was completing her International Booker Prize shortlisted Hurricane Season, she came across the story of a town whose residents were removed from their land so that a luxury gated community could be built. The idea that violence cou… Audrey Magee: Still Waters Run Deep Two men arrive on an island, one to paint it, the other to record its speech. Amid their rivalry, the islanders discover their own relationship with the place they call home. Audrey Magee’s second novel, The Colony, tackles questions of identity, art an… Amy Bloom: Till Death Us Do Part The last time American author Amy Bloom came to the Book Festival in 2014 to talk about Lucky Us, she travelled with her husband Brian. In 2020 they made a very different kind of journey together – to Switzerland where Brian was helped by Dignitas to en… David Wengrow: Reimagining Prehistory It’s a pervasive belief that early human history involved a pivotal bargain; when cities and agriculture developed, primitive hunter-gatherers exchanged their freedom and equality for the hierarchies of civilisation. This is far from the truth, argue ar… Pankaj Mishra: The Personal is Always Political A prolific, award-winning writer, Pankaj Mishra has kept us waiting two decades for his second novel; this event, with one of our bravest and most insightful contemporary writers, is not to be missed. Seeking a way out of his small railway town, Arun enro…