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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.

Showing events categorised Science/Medicine.

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    Henry Marsh: Of Life and Death

    Saturday 13 August 10:30 - 11:30

    Henry Marsh: Of Life and Death Book
    • Attend in person
    • Watch online
    • BSL interpreted
    The publishing world might not have predicted that a book about brain surgery would sell hundreds of thousands of copies. But when neurosurgeon Henry Marsh embarked on a writing career, readers were enthralled by the wisdom and candour of Do No Harm....
     

    Abi Morgan: For Love Nor Pity

    Saturday 13 August 19:00 - 20:00

    Abi Morgan: For Love Nor Pity Book
    • Attend in person
    • Watch online
    One of the UK’s most fearsomely talented screenwriters, Abi Morgan has worked on projects including The Iron Lady and Shame, which garnered both headlines and awards. Today, she reveals her own powerful story of survival. In This is Not a Pity Memoir,...
     

    Adam Tooze with Allan Little: When the Markets Caught Covid

    Saturday 13 August 20:15 - 21:15

    Adam Tooze with Allan Little: When the Markets Caught Covid Book
    • Attend in person
    Covid-19 brought about the biggest crisis since the Second World War. It required government interventions so huge that the result was effectively a revolution. That’s the crux of Adam Tooze’s argument in Shutdown, his trenchant analysis of how...
     

    Amy Bloom: Till Death Us Do Part

    Monday 15 August 16:30 - 17:30

    Amy Bloom: Till Death Us Do Part Book
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    • Watch online
    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...
     

    Patrick Radden Keefe: Money is a Drug

    Monday 15 August 19:00 - 20:00

    Patrick Radden Keefe: Money is a Drug Book
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    • Watch online
    It was a family whose fortune was built up by Valium, then destroyed by Oxycontin. Patrick Radden Keefe’s electrifying history, Empire of Pain, won the 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction, but he discusses the challenges he faced in publishing...
     

    Patrick Barkham & Ed Yong: The Secret Lives of Animals

    Wednesday 17 August 13:30 - 14:30

    Patrick Barkham & Ed Yong: The Secret Lives of Animals Book
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    • Watch online
    Discover nature’s marvels with two expert writers. 20 years of writings about the natural world are collected in Patrick Barkham’s Wild Green Wonders. The Guardian writer observes the changing conditions of the wildlife around us, from peregrine...
     

    Sam Knight: Chronicle of a Death Foretold

    Wednesday 17 August 16:30 - 17:30

    Sam Knight: Chronicle of a Death Foretold Book
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    • Watch online
    New Yorker writer Sam Knight uncovers eccentric 1960s attitudes to the human mind in his book The Premonitions Bureau. In 1966, psychiatrist John Barker became interested in whether psychic visions might have helped forewarn people of the tragic...
     

    Devi Sridhar: How to Prevent (Another) Pandemic

    Thursday 18 August 11:30 - 12:30

    Devi Sridhar: How to Prevent (Another) Pandemic Book
    • Attend in person
    • Watch online
    • Captioned
    As both chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh and a highly effective social media communicator, Professor Devi Sridhar became an invaluable resource for many in the early days of the pandemic, and a household name across the...
     

    Sidarta Ribeiro: Why Do We Dream?

    Thursday 18 August 14:15 - 15:15

    Sidarta Ribeiro: Why Do We Dream? Book
    • Attend in person
    • BSL interpreted
    Dreams have been a favourite topic of psychology for a long time – but advances in biochemistry and neuroscience now confirm that dreams are more important than we might think. The Oracle of Night leads us on a grand-scale investigation through...
     

    C A Fletcher & Ewan Morrison: Great Pandemic Novels

    Friday 19 August 17:30 - 18:30

    C A Fletcher & Ewan Morrison: Great Pandemic Novels Book
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    With lockdown not long lifted, already we have two masterful pandemic-inspired, Scottish novels. The residents of a Scottish island are stranded by a mysterious illness in C A Fletcher’s Dead Water and the community descends into mass hysteria....