How to Live a Meaningful Life

How to Live a Meaningful Life

The 2025 Festival will also see the return of some of 2024’s most popular programme themes, including How to Live a Meaningful Life, guiding audiences new and deeper ways of creating connection, resilience and hope, amongst the chaos, and the expanded Table Talks series, with top chefs and food writers taking to the stage – or rather around the table – in intimate gatherings with audiences to enjoy delicious food and make memories together.

Showing events in the How to Live a Meaningful Life theme.

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Browse this year's themes
 

Men with Pens

Saturday 9 August 20:00 - 21:00

Men with Pens Find out more
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Over the spring, award-winning poet, author and playwright Ross MacKay led a series of creative writing workshops for men living with mental health conditions. Working with groups at the AK Bell Library (Perth) and Granton Library (Edinburgh) the men……
 

Devi Sridhar: Health For All

Monday 11 August 11:00 - 12:00

Devi Sridhar: Health For All Find out more
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What's the key to a longer, healthier life? Is the answer in self-help books and disciplined individual optimisation, or should we be holding governments to account for their policies on everything from pandemic preparedness to water treatment?…
 

Clare Hunter & Callum Robinson: With Our Hands

Wednesday 13 August 10:30 - 11:30

Clare Hunter & Callum Robinson: With Our Hands Find out more
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From wood to thread, Callum Robinson and Clare Hunter both explore the powerful stories held within crafted objects…
 

Sophie Elmhirst: For Better or Worse

Wednesday 13 August 14:15 - 15:15

Sophie Elmhirst: For Better or Worse Find out more
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What is a marriage, if not being stuck on a raft with another, trying to survive? That's the question, both literally and figuratively, at the heart of Sophie Elmhirst's remarkable Maurice and Maralyn…
 

Mona Arshi, Rosa Beltrán & Sunny Singh: Giving Voice

Wednesday 13 August 15:45 - 16:45

Mona Arshi, Rosa Beltrán & Sunny Singh: Giving Voice Find out more
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Join us today for a powerful conversation delving into three urgent and gripping new books: Mona Arshi's Mouth, Rosa Beltrán's Free Radicals, and Sunny Singh's Refuge: Stories of War (and Love)…
 

Esa Aldegheri, Linda Cracknell, Alice Tarbuck & Amanda Thomson: The Road She Travelled

Thursday 14 August 18:00 - 19:00

Esa Aldegheri, Linda Cracknell, Alice Tarbuck & Amanda Thomson: The Road She Travelled Find out more
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There She Goes is a special new anthology of travel writing, bringing together 17 women writers of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction to give life to the landscapes they travel through…
 

Maggie Nelson & Oluwaseun Olayiwola: Embodied Interiority

Friday 15 August 20:00 - 21:00

Maggie Nelson & Oluwaseun Olayiwola: Embodied Interiority Find out more
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Our relationships with our bodies can be both intimate and alien at once. How can we feel at home in them? Together, genre-defying writer Maggie Nelson (Pathemata) and poet and choreographer Oluwaseun Olayiwola (Strange Beach) explore how our bodies can…
 

Shon Faye: Love Without Bounds

Saturday 16 August 16:00 - 17:00

Shon Faye: Love Without Bounds Find out more
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In Love in Exile, Shon Faye (author of the acclaimed bestseller The Transgender Issue) explores what happens when we break the constraints of conventionality and embrace love in all its forms…
 

Lamorna Ash & Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin: Millennial Saints

Saturday 16 August 20:00 - 21:00

Lamorna Ash & Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin: Millennial Saints Find out more
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Two exciting writers take on faith and religion, wielding fiction and non-fiction respectively…
 

Jenny Lau, Chitra Ramaswamy & Sami Tamimi: Food and Home

Sunday 17 August 10:15 - 11:15

Jenny Lau, Chitra Ramaswamy & Sami Tamimi: Food and Home Find out more
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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…