Explore the Festival programme

The Edinburgh International Book Festival takes place from 15-30 August 2026. The programme will be available in June 2026. Sign up for our ebulletins or follow us on social media to hear announcements and updates.

In the meantime, you can enjoy watching nearly 150 events from the 2025 Festival on our website. 

2024 Book Festival Highlights

EIBF - Phographer- Aly Wight - Sat 10-08-24 - File-06704
EIBF - Phographer- Aly Wight - Sat 10-08-24 - File-6176
BT6A1169 - Colin MacIntyre by Sally Jubb
EIBF_2024-08-13_image by Mihaela Bodlovic (5)
Patrick Kane by Rob MacDougall RMD_8231
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Look, Listen & read

Joe Boyd: Bringing It All Back Home

Joe Boyd: Bringing It All Back Home

Responsible for the sound on the night Bob Dylan went electric, and producer of Nick Drake, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, and R.E.M, few know the 20th century’s most popular music better than the legendary Joe Boyd – or are more familiar with the global……

David Mitchell with Sam Amidon: The Music of Utopia Avenue (2020 Event)
David Mitchell with Sam Amidon: The Music of Utopia Avenue (2020 Event)

While the Summer of Love is about to unfold across the Atlantic, life in 1967 isn’t so easy for a young would-be musician in London’s shabby Charing Cross Road. Yet from this…

Val McDermid & Jo Sharp: Shaping a Better Future (2020 Event)
Val McDermid & Jo Sharp: Shaping a Better Future (2020 Event)

At last year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival, bestselling author Val McDermid and professor of geography Jo Sharp were inspired by the festival theme, We Need New Stories…

The Novelist and the Tyrants
The Novelist and the Tyrants by S J Naudé

In the South Africa of the 1970s and 80s, political writing was practically the only mode that was available to writers who wanted to be taken seriously. And coupled with the need to integrate a critique of the inhumane system of apartheid into one’s…