Highlights | BOOKS
BAILLIE GIFFORD REBUSFEST
GLASGOW COMIC CON EDINBURGH
KAITE WELSH
BORDERS BOOK FESTIVAL
Harmony Garden, Melrose, Thu 15–Sun 18 Jun, bordersbookfestival.org The Borders Book Festival attracts world-class literary figures. Highlights include John Cleese, Michael Parkinson and Judy Murray. See preview, page 67.
Various venues, Edinburgh, Fri 30 Jun– Sun 2 Jul, ianrankin.net/ rebusfest A celebration of one of Scottish crime fiction’s best loved characters, John Rebus. The festival, curated by Ian Rankin, includes whisky tastings, walking tours, live music, film screenings and crime writing workshops.
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Sat 1 Jul, glasgowcomiccon.com A comic convention with the focus very much on comics and their creators, writers, illustrators and readers. Guests for 2017 include Pat Mills, Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, and Marguerite Sauvage. See preview, page 65.
INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL
Charlotte Square Gardens, Edinburgh, Sat 12–Sun 28 Aug, edbookfest.co.uk The world’s largest public celebration of the written word. Look out for all of our Book Festival coverage in August at list.co.uk/festival and in our August issues.
Waterstones West End, Edinburgh, Thu 1 Jun, kaitewelsh.wordpress. com Author Kaite Welsh discusses The Wages of Sin, her feminist historical crime novel set in Victorian Edinburgh. Featuring medical student and amateur sleuth Sarah Gilchrist, two further books are due in 2018 and 2019.
H I T L I S T
BOOKS HIGHLIGHTS
Events are listed by city, then date. Submit listings for your event at list.co.uk/add GLASGOW
LESLEY RIDDOCH Waterstones Sauchiehall Street, Thu 1 Jun, lesleyriddoch.com What can post-Brexit Scotland learn from the Nordics? Broadcaster, presenter and journalist Lesley Riddoch tackles the question in her new book McSmorgasbord.
ROBIN WARD: EXPLORING GLASGOW
Waterstones Argyle Street, Thu 1 Jun, waterstones.com Architecture critic and graphic designer Robin War launches a new guide to Glasgow, looking at the legacy of architecture in the city. Exploring Glasgow illustrates and describes almost 500 buildings and structures.
THE BRITANNIA PANOPTICON COMIC MART
Britannia Panopticon Music Hall, Sat 3 Jun, britanniapanopticon. org Get your paws on comics, memorabilia, collectibles and more.
TRANSATLANTIC LITERARY WOMEN
Glasgow Women’s Library, Sat 3 Jun, womenslibrary.org.uk As the centenaries of women’s suffrage in the UK and the US draw close, this free symposium of talks, workshops, readings and performances celebrates the achievements of transatlantic literary women of the period.
ALLISON GALBRAITH & ALETTE
J WILLIS Waterstones Byres Road, Wed 7 Jun, waterstones.com The duo present Dancing with Trees, a richly illustrated book with over 30 original drawings that brings together folk tales from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland that depict humanity’s relationship with nature.
ALAN LEE Waterstones Sauchiehall Street, Wed 7 Jun, waterstones.com Celebrate the launch of JRR Tolkien’s Beren and Lúthien with Alan Lee, the Oscar-winning artist behind the illustrations in this book. The work has been restored from Tolkien’s manuscripts and is presented as a standalone story.
LIZZIE ELDRIDGE Louise Welsh
Waterstones Byres Road, Thu 15 Jun, waterstones.com The Glasgow-born author discusses her second book Vandalism, which was shortlisted for the Best Novel Award by the National Book Council of Malta.
CLYDEBANK COMICS DAY Clydebank Museum, Sun 18 Jun, west-dunbarton.gov.uk Pop into this comic market to pick up bargains and meet artists and writers. You can also take photos with costume characters and visit Comic Invention in the temporary exhibition space.
ALLAN CAMERON Waterstones Byres Road, Thu 22 Jun, waterstones.com The writer and translator discusses his new book Cinico; Travels with a Good Professor at the Time of the Scottish Referendum in which a narrator pretends to be an author and an author pretends to be a translator.
THE VILLAGE STORYTELLING FESTIVAL
CCA, Mon 3–Sat 8 Jul, thevillageonline.org.uk Participative storytelling festival with exhibitions, films, music, performances and cutting-edge storytelling.
COMIC AVENGERS ASSEMBLE CCA, Wed 2–Fri 4 Aug, cca- glasgow.com BHP Comics host a superhero comic book drawing class, where kids can create their own super-powered person or be inspired by the world of Marvel and DC comics. Each day is a different comic class.
EDINBURGH
DENISE MINA Blackwell’s, Thu 1 Jun, blackwell. co.uk The popular Scottish crime writer and playwright talks about her work, including her most recent book, The Long Drop, based on the infamous case of Peter Manuel.
MARK BOLSOVER Blackwell’s, Fri 2 Jun, blackwell. co.uk The launch of In Failure and In Ruins, a short collection of psychological realist experimental prose-poetry and the debut chapbook by Mark Bolsover.
LOUD POETS: EXPERIMENTAL
WORDS Scottish Storytelling Centre, Wed 14 Jun, loudpoets.com Leading Edinburgh scientists have been challenged to create new performances in collaboration with Loud Poets. Expect a mashup of science and spoken word about global warming.
CAFE VOICES Scottish Storytelling Centre, Thu 15 Jun, tracscotland.org Join storyteller Lauren Bianchi from The Village Storytelling Centre in Glasgow for an evening of Goddesses and Shero tales from around the world.
BROOKE MAGNANTI Waterstones Argyle Street, Tue 20 Jun, brookemagnanti.com Brooke Magnanti is a research scientist with
a doctorate in forensic science, but is perhaps better known as the blogger formerly known only as Belle de Jour. Her most recent novel, You Don’t Know Me, is a pacy thriller taking in call girls and political machinations.
ENLIGHTENMENT EDINBURGH Waterstones West End, Tue 27 Jun, waterstones.com In her new guide to the capital city historian and writer Sheila Szatkowski celebrates the beautiful buildings and influential ideas that gave Enlightenment Edinburgh the moniker ‘Athens of the North’.
LOUISE WELSH Blackwell’s, Thu 13 Jul, blackwell. co.uk It’s been three years since the first of Welsh’s Plague Times trilogy was published, 2014’s A Lovely Way to Burn. Here she discusses the final novel, No Dominion.
BLACKWELL’S WRITERS AT THE FRINGE
Blackwell’s, Thu 3, 10, 17 & 24 Aug, edfringe.com Edinburgh’s oldest bookshop presents a Scottish literary lineup with poetry, Tartan Noir and contemporary and historic fiction.
CAROL ANN DUFFY & JOHN SAMPSON
The Stand Comedy Club V, Fri 4– Sun 13 Aug, edfringe.com The Poet Laureate and her virtuoso musical collaborator return to the Fringe with an afternoon of poetry and music that pays tribute to the fallen soldiers of WWI and tackles contemporary themes.
OUT OF TOWN
PETER ROBINSON Primavera Bistro, Newton Mearns, Thu 17 Aug, waterstones. com Crime writer Peter Robinson celebrates 30 years of DCI Banks and the release of his latest book, number 24 in the series, Sleeping In The Ground.
1 Jun–31 Aug 2017 THE LIST 69