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HITLIST HITLIST THE BEST BOOKS, COMICS & EVENTS THE BEST BOOKS, COMICS & EVENTS
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✽ Louise Welsh ✽ Caitlin Moran: How to Build a Girl The ever-popular Glasgow author delivers a lecture entitled ‘Robert Louis Stevenson and Tour Much-loved How to Be a Woman the Theatre of the Brain’. If that wasn’t intriguing author and columnist stops off in Scotland – enough, let us hit you with the event’s subtitle: she’ll be talking feminism plus reading from her ‘An Exploration of. new novel, which gives its name to this tour. Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Fri 11 Jul.
✽ Louise Welsh ✽ The Causal Angel Edinburgh-based sci- The ever-popular Glasgow author delivers a lecture entitled ‘Robert Louis Stevenson and fi author Hannu Rajaniemi releases the final the Theatre of the Brain’. If that wasn’t intriguing part of his Jean de Flambeur trilogy. Released enough, let us hit you with the event’s subtitle: ‘An Thu 17 Jul (Gollancz). Exploration of.
✽ Neu! Reekie! Presents: The
Summer Sizzler The spoken word / music / art night teams up with East End Social this month: SAY-award nominees The Pastels, Broken Records, writer Jackie Kay and video artist Rachel Maclean
come along for the ride. There’s free whisky too. Platform, Glasgow, Sat 19 Jul.
✽ In Process: Christopher Brookmyre The author of Quite Ugly One Morning and
Flesh Wounds talks about his 17 published novels and his life as a crime writer. CCA, Glasgow, Tue 22 Jul.
✽ The Night Hunter Caro Ramsay launches her new Anderson and Costello
thriller. She’ll also be at Stirling’s Bloody Scotland in September. Primavera Bistro, Newton Mearns, Wed 30 Jul.
✽ Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage The eagerly
anticipated English translation of Haruki Murakami’s (pictured)latest novel – his first since sensational three-parter 1Q84 – comes out ten days before his Edinburgh International Book Festival appearance. Released Tue 12 Aug (Harvill Secker).
10 Jul–21 Aug 2014 THE LIST 61
GRAEME MACRAE BURNET Crime writer found in translation
T he publication of his debut novel, The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau, hasn’t quite sunk in for Graeme Macrae Burnet. ‘There’s been so much disappointment,’ he says, ‘and I’ve got that Scots mentality of holding back, but I’m fairly confident it’s happening now.’
Burnet, who received a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award in 2013, has reason to be wary. After rejections from a number of publishing houses, his novel was eventually bought by Saraband and is one of the first to be published under its new crime fiction imprint, Contraband.
Set
in a small French town, The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau is an intelligent and stylish crime thriller. Loner Manfred Baumann spends his evenings drinking in the Restaurant de la Cloche, observing the attractive waitress Adele Bedeau. But when she disappears without
a trace, Manfred is forced to confront some very dark secrets from his past. Inspired by his own experiences in France, Burnet has made every effort to ensure the book is authentic, to the point of devising an ‘original’ French author, Raymond Brunet. ‘I wanted it to be read like a novel in translation,’ says Burnet. ‘My French is bad, and I was conscious that I was writing a translation of the characters’ French dialogue anyway, so I really wanted it to come across as being authentic and to have that immersive sense of reality.’ (Jen Bowden)
The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau is published by Contraband on Thu 17 Jul, when there will be a launch at Waterstone’s Argyle Street, Glasgow. The Scottish Book Trust New Writers Awards are open for applications until Fri 5 Sep.