Welcome to the Book Festival

A sunny day at the Book Festival

Although August might seem a world away at the moment, it’s what we live for at the Book Festival and we’re looking forward to our Festival launch in late June when we can tell you about our programme line-up and other plans.

We’re staging a hybrid Book Festival in 2021 – a lovely big online programme streamed live. Alongside this, and if circumstances permit, we hope to have some events you can attend in-person. This year’s Book Festival will take place from Saturday 14 to Monday 30 August at our new Festival home: the University of Edinburgh’s Edinburgh College of Art.

For anyone unfamiliar with our new venue, the beautiful, accessible buildings and grassy, open outdoor spaces that make up the Edinburgh College of Art, reside on Lauriston Place in the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town. With magnificent views of Edinburgh Castle, the College is just a short stroll from the Grassmarket, with excellent transport links to the rest of the city.

The next Edinburgh International Book Festival will take place from 14-30 August 2021. The programme will be announced in late June. Sign up for our ebulletins or follow us on social media to hear announcements and updates.

In the meantime, you can enjoy watching Festival events on the website, have a look at our Festival photographs, listen to or download free podcasts of event recordings and watch exclusive interviews and Festival highlights from past Book Festivals on our YouTube channel and your favourite podcast platforms.

Tom Fletcher event, December 2019

Assembly Rooms for Tom Fletcher: © Robin Mair
Assembly Rooms for Tom Fletcher: © Robin Mair
Assembly Rooms for Tom Fletcher: © Robin Mair
Tom Fletcher: © Robin Mair
Leah Boleto: © Robin Mair
Leah Boleto and Tom Fletcher: © Robin Mair

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Look, Listen & read

Closing Night: A Case For Hope

Closing Night: A Case For Hope

Hope — Rebecca Solnit memorably wrote — is an embrace of the unknown. While embraces might be a lost pleasure from a pre-COVID age, it’s clear we’re living in an age of plentiful unknowns. But amidst the uncertainty and fear, the grief and the loss, perhaps we have a unique opportunity to create a future that is more just, more equitable and more sustainable. If we take up this challenge to imagine how we can live differently, how might we begin? What do we have to be hopeful for? In this speci…

Rutger Bregman: There is Hope for the Human Race (2020 Event)
Rutger Bregman: There is Hope for the Human Race (2020 Event)

Superbly readable and full of fascinating evidence, historian Bregman’s book Humankind looks at how his optimistic analysis of human nature could play out in policy terms. Hyper-…

Lola Olufemi & Minna Salami: Critical Reflections on Feminism (2020 Event)
Lola Olufemi & Minna Salami: Critical Reflections on Feminism (2020 Event)

Since 2010, the award-winning blog MsAfropolitan has connected feminism with critical reflections on contemporary culture from an Africa-centred perspective. Its founder is Nigeria…

Thistle Street 1995
Thistle Street 1995 by Paul Magrs

This was where I was more free than I’ve ever been…

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