Feats of Imagination

Feats of Imagination

What’s the relationship between reading, imagination, and health? This question fuels The Edinburgh Readerbank: an ambitious new study from Durham University with whom the Book Festival have forged a major new long-term partnership. Hear from experts as they share perspectives on belief, perception, and the imagination. And then join us in participating in a potentially game-changing study.

 

Ben Alderson-Day & Sarah Krasnostein: Questions of Belief

Wednesday 16 August 19:00 - 20:00

  • Attend in person
Do you believe – really believe – in ghosts, or UFOs, angels or the devil? Where do our belief systems come from, and what happens when other people’s experiences or beliefs crash into our own? Join associate professor of Psychology Ben...
 

Judith Schalansky: Maps of the Imagination

Thursday 17 August 13:45 - 14:45

  • Attend in person
In 2022, Judith Schalansky was named as the ninth author to write secret work for Future Library which will remain unpublished until 2114. With two genre-defying books, An Inventory of Losses and Atlas of Remote Islands, Schalansky has forged a special...
 

Rebecca May Johnson: Kitchen Confessional

Thursday 17 August 19:00 - 20:00

  • Attend in person
Food isn’t simply fuel: it’s a vehicle for life. Editor, writer, and essayist Rebecca May Johnson has shaken the culinary writing world up with Small Fires, mixing memoir with social criticism. Described by Nigella Lawson as ‘an intense,...
  • Attend in person
Daily from 19-26th August. This is an opportunity to participate in a major new study of reading, the imagination, and their relationship to health. Over the coming years, the Book Festival will become a research hub in partnership with a team from...
 

Gavin Francis & Devi Sridhar: The Cost of Health

Monday 28 August 11:45 - 12:45

  • Attend in person
  • Watch online
  • Captioned
The result of a pandemic and an ageing UK population: record waiting times for treatment. Conversely, medical advances are saving and prolonging lives – albeit ever more expensively. If the NHS is broken, how can we afford the cure? Writer and GP...