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Hundreds of events for adults, teenagers and children feature authors, illustrators, musicians, poets, policians, thinkers, prize-winners and rising stars every August.
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...
This year, we asked people across Scotland – of any age, background or ability – to submit their own stories responding to the prompt ‘On This Day’, to build a fascinating portrait of Scotland today. Every day at 17:00 different storytellers...
Liner Notes is a new series for 2022 and the musical pairing to our Close Read sessions. Join journalist and broadcaster Kate Molleson, the host of BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show and Music Matters, for a close listen of works by Béla Bartók (Hungary),...
A truly uplifting emotional journey; a tender, wise, brutally funny novel.’ So says the Guardian about The Coward, Jarred McGinnis’s autobiographical debut. After an accident leaves Jarred, the book’s narrator, in a wheelchair he is forced to...
It’s 30-odd years since Real Gone Kid became Deacon Blue’s first irresistibly catchy pop hit, and lead singer Ricky Ross has been in the thick of a music career ever since. Today he discusses his rollercoaster journey including behind-the-scenes...
On the years of dictatorship in Argentina, Mariana Enríquez said ‘I did not distinguish between reality and fiction because reality was worse than any fiction I could imagine’. Her gothic stories add gravity to that statement. Now, she discusses...
Does the ghost of Anita Brookner haunt the pages of Julian Barnes’s new novel Elizabeth Finch? Or is it Muriel Spark? Either way, his book is a loving tribute to a singular imaginary woman who teaches Culture and Civilization and who ‘radically...
How much can really go wrong at a hen party? Bride-to-be Jen is about to find out. A private island provides a getaway for the celebrations, but it quickly becomes the backdrop to chaos, a disappearance and an anonymous blackmailer demanding that one of...
Guggenheim Fellow and Booker International Prize-winning translator Jennifer Croft explores the relationship between translation and empathy in her new memoir, Homesick. It’s a tale of two sisters: Zoe, who falls seriously ill, and Amy, who strives to...