Saturday 16 August 20:30 - 21:30
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Death’s usually thought of as the end of life, but according to V E Schwab, author of international sensation The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, it’s just the beginning of something beyond our imagining…
Suitable for age 6 - 9
Sunday 17 August 10:00 - 11:00
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Just when Lottie thought life might be going back to normal, everything goes wrong again! Now she must battle the Ultra Mean Girl Gang, survive school, and navigate even more extremely embarrassing moments. Join hilarious bestselling author Katie Kirby…
Sunday 17 August 10:15 - 11:15
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Food profoundly shapes our sense of home and belonging, no matter which country or cuisine we identify most closely with. Jenny Lau, Sami Tamimi, and Chitra Ramaswamy come together to discuss the kaleidoscope of stories and connections that come alive…
Sunday 17 August 10:30 - 11:30
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Healing practices - physical, emotional, or spiritual - are part of what make us human; they're also key tenets of Buddhism. Join Dr Halle O'Neal, co-director of the Edinburgh Centre for Buddhist Studies, for this special discussion on the myriad forms…
Sunday 17 August 11:45 - 12:45
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Campaign group Witches of Scotland are on a mission to illuminate the unjust killings of nearly 4,000 Scottish women in the 1500s. They want an official pardon, an apology, and appropriate memorialisation of those who were killed…
Sunday 17 August 12:00 - 13:00
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The Independent called Jonathan Coe the 'funniest serious novelist' in Britain. In The Proof of My Innocence, a blistering political critique of a chaotic post-Brexit Britain gets wrapped up in a murder mystery featuring a trepidatious reporter, a…
Sunday 17 August 12:00 - 13:00
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Bestselling author Caroline O’Donoghue’s Skipshock – her dazzlingly inventive new YA sci-fi romantasy – is set in a universe where time is a resource; coveted and exploited, it’s the key to power and privilege. Hear Caroline chatting today…
Sunday 17 August 13:30 - 14:30
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It’s hard to overstate the extent to which the Trump administration has disrupted the past 70 years’ world order. Journalists Anne Applebaum and Edward Wong are here to report on whether democracy can ever truly be safeguarded…
Sunday 17 August 13:30 - 14:30
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Did you know that years before Alice Oseman started writing, drawing, or even planning the smash-hit graphic novel series, Heartstopper, she released a novella about its two main characters: Nick and Charlie? Come along today to hear Alice chat about…
Sunday 17 August 13:30 - 14:30
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Join inventive writers, Michelle de Kretser and Linn Ullmann, discussing their category-defying works that so searingly explore power, womanhood, and memory…
Sunday 17 August 14:45 - 15:45
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- BSL interpreted
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2025 marks 30 years since the first major Pride event in Scotland, yet queer histories have existed for as long as Scotland has. who will be remembered here enlivens these histories through performances, films, and an anthology…
Sunday 17 August 15:00 - 16:00
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Poet, critic and literary historian Robert Crawford nimbly traverses the globe in his new poetry collection, Old World, in this special launch event. Crawford is one of Scotland's most esteemed poets and thinkers, deftly weaving between different poetic…
Sunday 17 August 15:15 - 16:15
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Nimble, playful, canny, subversive – four-time Booker-shortlisted Ali Smith returns to the Festival with Gliff. Written with her singular blend of whimsy and gravitas, the novel is a near-future dystopia, meditating on themes of resistance, the making of…
Sunday 17 August 15:15 - 16:15
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Meet three creatives whose artistic practice incorporates writing and artmaking - from glass poetry and candle pouring to zine making, sewing, and linocut printing. Lucy Mercer, Nina Mingya Powles, and Stephanie Sy-Quia join us for this special event in…
Sunday 17 August 16:00 - 17:00
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The Humboldt Forum's 'Objects Talk Back' project invited authors to select an object from the museum's collection and write about it however they wished. Novelist Madeleine Thien chose the painting, 'Three Uyghur Princes'. She talks with project curator…
Sunday 17 August 16:45 - 17:45
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Moving Mountains is a new and compelling anthology of nature writing, from the perspective of disabled and chronically ill authors. Through 25 pieces, deftly edited by Louise Kenward, this is not a chronicle of overcoming and conquering, but rather of…
Sunday 17 August 17:00 - 18:00
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Join lifelong literary radical James Kelman, whose commitment to the power and truth of 'ordinary' life - sometimes tragic, but always inspiringly tender and human - remains undimmed. Talking today about his new collections of short fiction (The Story of…
Sunday 17 August 17:00 - 18:00
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This year marks 30 years since the Disability Discrimination Act. To mark this significant anniversary, activist Rachel Charlton-Dailey joins Caro Clarke to discuss Ramping Up Rights which brings together inspiring stories of over 100 years of disability…
Sunday 17 August 17:00 - 18:00
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Do you think you know Edinburgh? What about the parts of its story it prefers to conceal? This theatrical poetry performance from Edinburgh's former Makar Hannah Lavery alongside fellow poets Jeda Pearl, Shasta Hanif Ali, Niall Moorjani, and Alycia…
Sunday 17 August 17:45 - 18:45
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Maggie Nelson's intellectually nimble works of non-fiction (including The Argonauts) have earned her both Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships along with a reputation as one her generation's most versatile thinkers. Her latest work, Pathemata: Or, The…
Full 2025 Book Festival programme is announced with key theme of Repair 
