Festival
{BOOKS} LIST.CO.UK/FESTIVAL
HITLIST ALASDAIR GRAY’S FLECK A glittering cast of top literary names gather up for this world premiere public reading of Gray’s take on the Faust myth. Who, you say? Just the likes of AL Kennedy, Will Self, Ian Rankin (pictured), Louise Welsh and Ron Butlin, that’s all. ■ 29 Aug, 8pm, £15 (£12).
Heather Brooke After helping to break the story of MPs’ expenses, the US-born investigative journo looks at the world of online campaigning and WikiLeaks, wondering whether the flow of information has changed forever. 29 Aug, 3.30pm, £10 (£8). Adam Levin With The Instructions, this debut author has penned a massive (quite literally) novel about an uber-precocious young lad with quite a high opinion of himself. But can he really be the messiah? See Top 5, page 23. 27 Aug, 8.30pm, £7 (£5).
Alan Bissett and Doug Johnstone Two Scottish talents hook up to discuss their latest novels. And we’ve even got one of them to interview the other in this very mag. How terribly clever of us. See page 82. 26 Aug, 7pm, £7 (£5).
Will Self A pair of events from the Thesaurus-taunting scribe as he muses on psychogeography and WG Sebald. Plus he’s also got a tip-top role in Fleck. See feature, page 22. 28 Aug, 3.30pm, 8pm, £10 (£8); 29 Aug, 8pm, £15 (£12).
Rebecca Hunt Her debut Mr Chartwell featured a big black dog, a famously depressed British leader and a vulnerable young House of Commons library clerk. Impressive stuff. See preview, page 24. 29 Aug, 3.30pm, £10 (£8).
Ben Mezrich This is the guy you contact when you want the world to know about your grand schemes, given that he’s written about the Facebook founder and a bold NASA trainee. See feature, page 22. 26 Aug, 8.30pm, £10 (£8).
James Yorkston The bard of Fife is in town to chat about his on-the-road memoirs, It’s Lovely to Be Here. Subtitled ‘The Touring Diaries of a Scottish Gent’, it’s a blast. See preview, page 24. 27 Aug, 4pm, £10 (£8).
EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL 13–29 AUGUST Q A&
In the second volume of her memoirs, JANICE GALLOWAY looks at her teenage years in Ayrshire, a time of schoolrooms, puberty and sex. Here she takes on our Q&A Give us five words to describe All Made Up? True. Funny. Sad. Teen-to-adult. Novel. Which author should be more famous than they are now? VS Naipaul. Because he’s irritating, self-regarding and self-involved enough that massive fame would be in with a shout of soothing his elephantine ego long enough to avoid any more daft pronouncements about what writing is and is not for maybe a week and a half. The kind of writer that gets literary writers a Bad Name. Booooo. What do you love about book festivals? Audiences turning up. The goodwill. The sociability. Writing is a solitary business without them. Which dead author do you wish was still alive today? I can imagine wishing three dead people alive for the sheer pleasure of hearing their voices again and getting to touch them, but none of them are writers. The voices of writers stay alive after death as it is. That’s enough for me. I don’t want to be greedy. What was the last book you read? David Sacks’ The Alphabet, the story of the most startling human technological breakthrough. ■ 26 Aug, 11.30am, £10 (£8); Alasdair Gray’s Fleck, 29 Aug, 8pm, £15 (£12).
25 Aug–22 Sep 2011 THE LIST 21
F E S T I V A L