This event was clearly highly anticipated. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Nicola Sturgeon are welcomed to the stage with the loudest, and longest, cheer I’ve ever heard at the book festival. It appears they have both been anticipating the moment too. The first words out of Sturgeon’s mouth are ‘I am beyond excited right now’. Adichie is an author … [Read more...] about EdBookFest 2017: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie with Nicola Sturgeon
EdBookFest 2017: Jeremy Paxman
Chair Ruth Wishart has a sharp and fearsome mind herself but she begins by stating that she has the ‘great and daunting’ pleasure of interviewing Jeremy Paxman for the next hour. Paxman is certainly someone few would enjoy being interviewed by and has spent a decent amount of his career on television repeating unanswered questions and wondering … [Read more...] about EdBookFest 2017: Jeremy Paxman
EdBookFest 2017: Val McDermid
Val McDermid, Photograph courtesy of © Antonia Reeve Scotland’s queen of crime needs very little introduction, as chair Daniel Gray said: ‘Val is Val’. She will always write books that frighten and excite, and in his case voice squawks on the bus that make other passengers shift away. He wonders if she is trying to give us all heart attacks but … [Read more...] about EdBookFest 2017: Val McDermid
EdBookFest 2017: Elif Shafak with Nicola Sturgeon and Heather McDaid
Heather McDaid, Elif Shafak & Nicola Sturgeon Photograph courtesy of: © Antonia Reeve Turkish author Elif Shafak is one of this year’s Guest Selectors for the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Across a series of events she has built a fascinating programme of discussions, including this afternoon’s discussion of life as a woman in the … [Read more...] about EdBookFest 2017: Elif Shafak with Nicola Sturgeon and Heather McDaid
EdBookFest 2017: Johan Norberg – Reasons to Look Forward to the Future
Johan Norberg’s book, Progress, with it’s appropriately sunshine yellow cover and smiling graph, is all about the tremendous progress the human race has made in recent decades. The past 200 years has seen more progress than the previous 200,000 and Norberg has gathered all of this into a book of reasons to be optimistic about the world. Chaired by … [Read more...] about EdBookFest 2017: Johan Norberg – Reasons to Look Forward to the Future
Edinburgh International Book Festival 2017: Director’s Preview
This year marks 70 years since the Edinburgh Festival began. 70 years since we became Festival City and 70 years since the world started to come calling every summer. The Edinburgh International Book Festival is young in comparison at ‘just’ 34 but they’re still marking the anniversary. At the Director’s Preview for the 2017 book festival director … [Read more...] about Edinburgh International Book Festival 2017: Director’s Preview