2019 Edinburgh International Book Festival

Marian Keyes didn’t start writing until her twenties, she felt that she was ‘all washed up at 30.’ But readers have had a love affair with Keyes that has lasted over two decades now. It’s hard to imagine a greater, more reliable comfort than a new book by Marian Keyes landing solidly in your lap, promising all the qualities that have come to define her work: complicated family dynamics, bountiful quantities of laughter, skeletons in the closet and uncomfortable moments of truth that lie close to the bone. Her latest, Grown Ups, centres around Cara Casey, who after a bang on the head finds herself incapable of keeping mum on the family secrets. With more than 35 million copies sold of her 13 novels to date, Keyes’s own brand of irrepressible, generous, hilarious storytelling goes from strength to strength. Join Keyes and writer Jenny Colgan for an hour of unforgettable grown-up fun in this event recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival.  

‘You were always sitting in character, you were just never sure which one.’ So says Norah to the memory of her mother in Actress, the new novel by Anne Enright. The mother in question is Katherine O’Dell, who died aged 58 – the same age Norah has now reached. Actress is a portrait of life in the theatre, of one woman’s rise to fame and her subsequent decline, with all the challenges that women on stage faced in the years before the #MeToo movement shone light on them. But this novel is also a tender examination of the relationship between mother and daughter – the reconstruction of an emotional landscape in which fame has left a trail of newspaper articles, photographs and public performances. For this event, recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival, the Booker Prize-winning novelist is joined by Vicky Featherstone, Artistic Director of the Royal Court Theatre and the first Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Scotland, to discuss this sensitive portrayal of a life lived in the spotlight.

While the Summer of Love is about to unfold across the Atlantic, life in 1967 isn’t so easy for a young would-be musician in London’s shabby Charing Cross Road. Yet from this modest starting point, David Mitchell builds a joyful fictional biography of a band that will take the world by storm. Utopia Avenue is the finest prog-folk band you have never heard of, and the novel of the same name is a stylish romp through the rags-to-riches lives of drummer Griff, singer Elf, guitarist Jasper and bass player Dean. Organised around the song titles of the band’s albums, Utopia Avenue's clever structure also gives it a powerful narrative drive – with added zest from a series of cheeky cameo appearances by real-life rock legends including David Bowie and Leonard Cohen. Funny, whip-smart and occasionally veering into the fantastical, it is one of the most compellingly entertaining reads of 2020. Join Mitchell in this event recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival as he shares his notes with folk singer and musician Sam Amidon, who also plays some of his most recent music.

Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency is more than just a collection of Olivia Laing’s essays over decades. Ranging from interviews and profiles to reflections and confessionals, Laing’s characteristic generosity of spirit and optimism of purpose inspires hope in the midst of the unsettling weather of the present emergency. But this book is also a manifesto for the power, the value and the need for art: ‘Art is… political in the sense of being available as a tool for protest and activism… but it’s also political in that it continually offers new perspectives, new ways of seeing, other consciousnesses with which to view reality.’ With Fiona Bradley, Director of the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, Laing unpacks our political, emotional and creative selves in this event recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival, drawing us in to her career-spanning conversations with art, with artists, and with herself.

2020 was, without doubt, a banner year for challenging our understanding of what constitutes a global problem and how equipped we are to address that task collectively. At the start of that year — what feels like an age ago — after generations of scientific findings and urgent calls to action, a unified, collective response to the global climate crisis remained elusive. But there were some green shoots of hope. Late in 2019, the European Commission announced the formation of the European Green Deal, a body that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declared was Europe’s ‘Man on the Moon moment’: a plan to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent. Dutch politician and diplomat Frans Timmermans was named Executive Vice-President for the project and planning, and began negotiating with vigour. Then the pandemic hit. In this special conversation recorded live at the 2020 Edinburgh International Book Festival, Timmermans sits down with former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown to discuss the politics of environmental change. How much action is needed for meaningful change? What are the roadblocks to genuinely ending Europe’s dependence on fossil fuels? And what does a green recovery from COVID-19 look like?

As a war correspondent in the Balkans, through to her time as senior policy advisor to Barack Obama, and her appointment in 2013 as US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power has spent her career committed to resolving international conflict and protecting human dignity. In her intimate and candid memoir, Education of an Idealist, Power offers an urgent response to the pressing question of our times, ‘What can one person do?’. The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and Professor of Human Rights talks with Allan Little in our annual Frederick Hood Memorial Lecture, recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival.

‘Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.’ So said Abraham Lincoln in one of his rousing speeches, but it is a sentiment that could come straight out of the playbook of popular Dutch historian Rutger Bregman. Bregman's compelling ‘hopeful history,’ Humankind, is a bracingly optimistic account of human nature. Essentially, in his view, the vast majority of people are pretty decent. He contrasts this idea with biologist Frans de Waal’s ‘veneer theory’ which posits that beneath a thin skin of human decency, there’s a savage waiting to burst forth. Superbly readable and full of fascinating evidence, Bregman’s book also looks at how his optimistic analysis of human nature could play out in policy terms. Hyper-local participatory democracy? Schools with little or no curriculum? A change to the tough treatment of people serving time in prisons? In this event recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival,  Bregman shares his invigorating thesis with Lee Randall.

Earmarked as ‘the voice of our communal consciousness’ by Edinburgh International Book Festival’s 2018 Guest Selector Afua Hirsch, it’s hard to believe that Roger Robinson hasn’t been a staple of British public life since time immemorial. A fixture of the UK spoken word scene for many years, Robinson rocketed to national prominence in 2019 when his third poetry collection, A Portable Paradise, bagged the prestigious T S Eliot Prize. Firmly rooted in the dub poetry tradition of his Trinidadian heritage, Robinson’s plain-speaking, fizzy, often joyous verse journeys through our contemporary preoccupations with a seasoned insight few could replicate. From the ongoing injustices of Grenfell to the pains and pleasures of family life, he unpacks the cosmos of ideas that make up A Portable Paradise with fellow poet Kei Miller in this event recorded for the 2020 Book Festival.

With Val McDermid’s iconic detective soon set to hit our screens, it couldn’t be a more perfect time to revisit Police Scotland's Historic Cases Unit and the savvy, no-nonsense DCI Karen Pirie. A thrilling new head-scratcher from the undisputed ‘Queen of Crime,’ Still Life sees the much-loved detective inspector confronted by a decade-old cold case, drawing her into a historical cover-up that someone would do anything to keep under wraps. With all the dizzying narrative trickery and canny characterisation we’ve come to expect from one of our finest literary minds, this sixth instalment in the bestselling series is Val McDermid at the top of her game. Inspired in part by the wildly popular Portrait Artist of the Year competition, the ever-inventive author teases the mysterious connection between Still Life and the Sky Arts series in a conversation with one of its widely-admired presenters, Dame Joan Bakewell, recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival.

‘Life is just a party, and parties weren’t meant to last.’ The post-punk protagonists of Andrew O’Hagan’s Mayflies would probably describe the lyrics of Prince’s hit pop song 1999 as ‘Yankee pish,’ but O’Hagan’s novel catches exactly the mood of the song. The ephemeral nature of life, burning brightly and then so soon extinguished, lies at the heart of this soulful story of two lads from small-town Scotland. Tully and James are growing up in Irvine, steeped in the music of the Fire Engines, the Fall and the poetry of John Cooper Clarke. Together they rush towards the climax of their youth in an unforgettable, friendship-defining weekend in Manchester. Thirty years later, Tully calls his old pal with some troubling news. The fine grain of working-class teenagers’s lives; the blether, the binge-drinking and nights on the pull: Mayflies sees Andrew O’Hagan in scintillating, heartbreakingly good form. He talks with fellow Scottish writer, columnist and doyen of the literary salon, Damian Barr in this event recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival.

One of Scotland’s most gifted and unpredictable writers, Michel Faber has always defied categorisation. His previous novels including Under the Skin, The Crimson Petal and the White and The Book of Strange New Things have been described as ‘unbelievably clever,’ ‘wildly entertaining’ and ‘impossible to put down.’ Now he returns with D, his most shape-shifting book yet. Like The Wizard of Oz, Faber’s novel is a political adventure that will be enjoyed by children and adults alike. Its heroine is brave, resourceful Dhikilo who lives in a faded English seaside town. When the letter ‘d’ suddenly disappears from the alphabet and only Dhikilo notices it’s gone, she embarks on a journey to the land of Liminus to get the ‘d’ back. Reminiscent of Charles Dickens and of Lewis Carroll, Michel Faber’s fable is a delightful sideways look at the evils of our times. He joins us to discuss Dhikilo’s wild odyssey with literary critic Stuart Kelly in this event recorded for the 2020 Book Festival.

Rarely does a novel set the Scottish literary scene abuzz in the way Scabby Queen has, counting amongst its fans figures as wide-ranging as Janice Galloway, Ian Rankin and Nicola Sturgeon. Sexy rock starlet, veteran political activist, symbol of a nation in decline — who really was Clio Campbell? In Kirstin Innes’s effervescent follow-up to her Not the Booker Prize-winning Fishnet, she invites you on a whistle-stop tour of the fictional Glasgow chanteuse’s life in the days following her suicide, so that someone might finally be able to answer that question. Written from the perspective of those who loved (and hated) her most, and taking in everything from Top of the Pops to IndyRef along the way, Scabby Queen will have you hooked. Kirstin Innes joins Heather Parry in this event recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival, to discuss how she ended up creating a novel that zips between daffy state-of-the-nation meditation and fantastic, elastic character study.

‘When we read and write, when we love our fellow creatures, when we walk on the beach, when we just listen and notice, we are not little cogs in the machine, but part of the remedy.’ These luminous words by Kathleen Jamie form part of the introduction to Antlers of Water, an outstanding collection of contemporary Scottish writing about nature and landscape. The generosity of Jamie’s approach as editor of the collection goes beyond the stellar selection of contributors such as Amy Liptrot, Karine Polwart and Malachy Tallack: she also invokes the agency of readers to make a difference. ‘If, by reading, you are encouraged or confirmed in your love of the natural world, if you’re inspired simply to… look outside, then our job is done.’ In a discussion recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival and led by the BBC's Clare English, Jamie is joined by award-winning journalist Chitra Ramaswamy as well as visual artist and writer Amanda Thomson – both contributors to the anthology – to discuss Scotland, landscape and the more-than-human world around us.

‘Hamnet and Hamlet are in fact the same name, entirely interchangeable in Stratford in the late sixteenth century.’ This epigraph to Maggie O’Farrell’s new novel, Hamnet, dispels any doubt that Shakespeare’s son and his most celebrated character are meaningfully linked. In a short but scorchingly emotional book, O’Farrell brings us into the 16th century world of Shakespeare’s family living in Stratford. It is the time of the bubonic plague and with one of the family members falling into a fever, the novel charts the emotional journey of Shakespeare’s wife Agnes as trauma approaches. Surely Maggie O’Farrell’s most accomplished novel to date, Hamnet centres around the emotional life of a deeply intuitive woman, charting the terrain of her grief at the loss of a child. Join the Edinburgh-based writer as she discusses her latest critically acclaimed novel with Scottish author and journalist Stuart Kelly in this event recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival.

Following on from his acclaimed trilogy about the American soul music scene in the 1960s, much-loved Scottish broadcaster and writer Stuart Cosgrove returns to the American post-war era with his highly topical new book. In Cassius X: Six Months That Shaped The Sixties, Cosgrove charts the journey of a young Kentucky boxer named Cassius Clay. Alongside his rise as a fighter, Clay begins to embrace the ideas of the Black Power movement and the teachings of Malcolm X. Thus, Clay changes his name to Cassius X, before eventually changing it again to his Islamic name: Muhammad Ali. As well as documenting the meteoric rise of one of the all-time sporting greats, Cosgrove shows how soul music formed a soundtrack to an era of social and political turmoil. Join him in this event recorded for the 2020 Book Festival as he talks to Scottish author Val McDermid about this landmark moment for American culture, and its parallels with the USA today.

When Shokoofeh Azar received the news that she was the first ever Iranian writer to be shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, she was transported back to when she was 15 years old, ‘in the village, surrounded by rainforest and rice fields, and dreamed of someday I would win this award as an Iranian writer.’ The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree is an incandescent novel that intertwines Persian history and folklore with magical realism, to tell the story of one family in the decade following the 1979 Iranian Revolution. It is a celebration of life and imagination in the face of chaos and brutality, as well as a lyrical response to curbs on freedom of expression. Azar herself settled in Australia as an asylum seeker in 2011, but her translator — shortlisted alongside her for the prize — wishes to remain anonymous, for fears for their safety. She talks to Marjorie Lotfi Gill in this event recorded for the 2020 Book Festival.

In Maaza Mengiste’s latest novel, the shadowy nature of figures from the past is played out in complex and interlocking ways. The Shadow King is powerful, stirring historical fiction that centres women within stories of war and battle that have traditionally excluded them, eliding their contribution and their fight. Against the backdrop of Italy’s 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, this is a story of Africa and Europe, of resistance and exile, of tradition and modernity, that is sweeping in vision and intimate in affect. A Fulbright scholar and the author of Beneath the Lion’s Gaze — named by the Guardian as one of the 10 best contemporary African books — Mengiste talks to Jess Brough in this event recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival about giving life to the stories of her parents and grandparents, and unpicking ‘faded documents’ to better understand the heroism and loss of the past.

We have all become familiar with living through these strange times but for Ian Rankin 2020 was unusual in more ways than one. For starters, even though the number one bestselling writer thought he was taking a year off, he found himself topping the charts with a book he once hoped would ‘never see the light of day again.’ That book is Westwind, first published in 1990 in an edition of just 1000 copies, but strikingly relevant today in its brand-new edition. What’s more, his new Rebus novel, finished just a few months ago, carries a prescient (Brecht-inspired) title despite not being about the COVID-19 pandemic at all. A Song for the Dark Times is released in October and sees John Rebus travelling to the north of Scotland to help his daughter, who is in a spot of bother. In this event recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival, Rankin joins us for a conversation, in our Edinburgh studio, with leading Scottish journalist Ruth Wishart about Westwind, and a hint of the Dark Times to come.

Celebrated Mexican author Fernanda Melchor’s first book translated into English, Hurricane Season, has been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. In a piece for Granta, the book’s translator Sophie Hughes reflected: ‘Melchor goes with her characters to the edge of the precipice. As her English translator, I followed her there and was left changed and with many questions about her method and influences, manipulating readers, and the unavoidable lure of darkness.’ Ahead of the Award’s announcement, author and translator come together with poet Juana Adcock in this event recorded for the 2020 Book Festival, to discuss these unavoidable darknesses, and share the processes — limitations, challenges and delights — of translating such a layered, densely playful work as Hurricane Season. Brutal, unflinching, depraved and profane, this is a story of small towns and violence, claustrophobia and rage. Unique and unforgettable.

Over the years that James Naughtie has been reporting on world politics, the USA has undergone seismic changes. Naughtie first visited the States in 1970 as a student, when the Vietnam War was raging and Richard Nixon was in the Oval Office. Since then, Naughtie has grown into one of the BBC’s best-respected reporters and has covered every election since the triumph of Ronald Reagan. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, it appeared that the US would reign as the world’s only superpower – leading to Francis Fukuyama’s suggestion that this may be ‘the end of history.’ But a rapid rise of Chinese economic and political power, combined with the election of a president whose slogan is ‘America First’ has led to a period of US nativism, and a country where (according to Naughtie), self-doubt has crept in. On the Road is Naughtie’s compelling memoir of his American experiences during this period of change. In this event recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival, he discusses his adventures – and a rollercoaster half-century of USA life - with fellow BBC journalist Allan Little.

Of the five women who died in the Autumn of 1888 at the hands of Jack the Ripper, the most salient thing that has remained in the public imagination has been the brutal manner of their murders. While the identity of the murderer has been the subject of relentless, salacious speculation, only now have the stories of those who were killed been told. Hallie Rubenhold’s landmark publication, The Five, reconstructs the lost lives of Mary Ann 'Polly' Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. So compelling is Rubenhold’s book that it won last year’s Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. In this event redorded for the 2020 Book Festival, Rubenhold discusses a new essay, The Problem with Great Men, commissioned by Edinburgh International Book Festival as a follow-up to The Five, with support from Baillie Gifford and the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. Many people are calling into question the histories handed down to us by our ancestors. With statues of so-called ‘great men’ being torn down, how can we celebrate ordinary people who – like the Ripper’s victims – have routinely been airbrushed out of history? Rubenhold discusses her ideas with Scottish broadcaster Sheena McDonald. Please note: there is no PDF download of Rubenhold’s new essay, as mentioned in the event.  

‘Given the right conditions, any society can turn against democracy. Indeed, if history is anything to go by, all of our societies eventually will.’ Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Anne Applebaum’s bleak prognosis for liberal democracy lies at the heart of her intriguing new book, Twilight of Democracy, which blends deeply-felt memoir with cool political analysis. Applebaum’s personal approach carries weight because she’s witnessed the rise and fall of democratic sentiment first hand in her adopted Poland. A staff writer for the Atlantic, she is also deeply connected to the US and British political scenes. From the recently-converted Post-Communist states in Eastern Europe to those bastions of western liberal democracy, Britain and the USA, Applebaum analyses the rise of a nativist, authoritarian leadership style. Join her in this event, recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival, as she discusses the fractured present and tenuous future of liberal democracy with BBC special correspondent Allan Little.

In the words of the Kirkus review: ‘You will never forget Shuggie Bain. Scene by scene, this book is a masterpiece.’ This astonishing debut is a powerful and heartbreaking story about the love between a boy and his mother, about poverty and addiction, about Thatcher’s Glasgow, about sexuality, coming of age and finding one’s way. Roaming through public housing, wandering in and out of pubs and neighbourhoods, it asks how we might protect those we love most of all, and at what cost. Hugh ‘Shuggie’ Bain and his mother Agnes are two of the great characters of literature and in this event recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival, their creator, Douglas Stuart, answers your questions after a conversation with author Damian Barr. Inviting comparisons to the works of Alan Hollinghurst, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, you will not finish it unscathed, and you will not forget Shuggie Bain.

At last year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival, bestselling author Val McDermid and professor of geography Jo Sharp were inspired by the festival theme, We Need New Stories. So inspired, in fact, that they turned to a loveable rogues gallery of Scottish cultural folk to submit a piece of writing about their dreams for a better future. Edited by McDermid and Sharp, Imagine A Country is the fascinating, eclectic and often inspiring result. In this event, recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival, Val McDermid and Jo Sharp host acclaimed writers Doug Johnstone, Jo Clifford and Leila Aboulela, who read their contributions and discuss how we might create a better future for the greatest number of people.

How do you get the upper hand on a world you don’t yet understand? That’s the burning question at the heart of two striking debuts that scrape away the coming-of-age clichés, breathing through the aches and pains of growing up. With echoes of early Baldwin, Paul Mendez’s Rainbow Milk, one of the Observer’s top 10 debuts of 2020, mines the author’s upbringing as a lapsed Jehovah's Witness and, later, sex worker, to tell an intergenerational story of two men stalled at an impossible intersection of sexuality, spirituality and race. Derek Owusu’s ‘virtuosic debut’ That Reminds Me — the first novel to be released on Stormzy’s new imprint #Merky Books — pieces together the fragments of K’s short life, as memories of addiction, racism and trauma threaten to flatline an already faltering recovery. In this event recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival, join Owusu and Mendez as they interrogate the forces that seek to cast a shadow over the blossoming of young Black men in the UK today with former Lord Mayor of Sheffield Magid Magid - and fall in love with two writers soon to be on the tip of everyone’s tongue.

Since 2010, the award-winning blog MsAfropolitan has connected feminism with critical reflections on contemporary culture from an Africa-centred perspective. Its founder is Nigerian-Finnish writer and lecturer Minna Salami, a powerhouse of feminist thinking and organising whose first book of essays is Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone. Salami joins our event alongside writer and activist Lola Olufemi, author of Feminism, Interrupted. Olufemi is an organiser with the London Feminist Library and co-founder of FLY, Cambridge University’s network for women and non-binary people of colour. In conversation with feminist historian Jade Bentil recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival, Salami and Olufemi discuss the big ideas around empowerment, inclusion and activism and how (in Salami’s words) ‘we see ourselves, our history, and our world’.  

In May 2019, Jokha Alharthi became the first Arabic language writer to win the Man Booker International Prize for her searing novel Celestial Bodies. She also became the first female Omani novelist to be translated into English thanks to Marilyn Booth, with whom she shares the prize. Alharthi joins the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2019 to discuss her path to success as well this work of incredible depth, which follows the lives of three sisters in the village of al-Awafi through heartbreak, marriage and duty with tenderness and subtlety. Expect to hear an enlightening introduction to Omani literature and celebration of international ideas chaired by Fiammetta Rocco.

Warnings of looming environmental catastrophe rain down on us with increasing frequency, and only the most ardent climate change sceptics deny we live at a crucial point for the Earth's future. Join sustainability expert Mike Berners-Lee in a live conversation with WWF’s Tanya Steele at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019, as he cuts through the noise with practical advice on how we can avoid calamity, drawn from his book There is No Planet B, a ‘Handbook for the Make or Break Years’.

In a pair of moving memoirs, Guyana-born Canadian writer Tessa McWatt and Zeba Talkhani, who was raised in Saudi Arabia, explore themes of race, feminism, heritage and belonging. McWatt’s Shame On Me is a journey through the multiple threads of her identity. In My Past Is a Foreign Country, Talkhani charts her experiences as a British Muslim feminist with nuance and generosity. They come together at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 to share their stories in an event chaired by Nadine Aisha Jassat.

While the realities of climate change are not always visible, the realisation that our grandchildren will live in troubled times can catalyse action. After becoming a grandmother, former Irish president and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson travelled the world to learn about the fight back. In her book Climate Justice, she describes the people working to overcome the threat. In a live event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 she shares her hopeful account in conversation with Ruth Wishart.

Whenever the latest dieting fad comes along, those promoting new theories are well fed on the proceeds, while many people trying to shed pounds are left wondering why nothing seems to work. Meet Giles Yeo, geneticist and presenter on BBC’s Trust Me, I’m a Doctor, who has spent 20 years researching the brain’s relationship to food intake. In his book Gene Eating, he describes his work and why he’s determined to break this cycle. Hear all about it in this live recording from the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 chaired by Ruth Wishart.

‘Heartbreaking stories of heroism’ set against a backdrop of ‘political cynicism and scientific ignorance'. That’s how judges described the winner of 2018's Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction – Serhii Plokhy’s Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy. The Harvard history professor and expert on the 1986 nuclear disaster presents a specially commissioned paper linking Chernobyl to the demise of the Soviet Union. Hear him shed light on the incredible book in a live event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 chaired by James Crawford.

‘It’s official. We’ve fallen (back) in love with poetry’ the Metro declared earlier this year, reporting a 12% increase in poetry book sales in 2018. Underpinning the boom are bold new voices exploring issues from politics to mental health on page, stage and social media. Three of the most exciting new talents – Charly Cox, Theresa Lola and Tayi Tibble – perform from their well-received debut collections at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 in an event chaired by fellow poet Becky Fincham.

Meet two British writers of cleverly conceived and suspenseful stories, Louise Doughty and Stuart Turton, who come together to talk about their new novels at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019. The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle, Turton’s 2018 Costa First Novel Award-winning debut, sees its central character killed afresh daily until her would-be saviour tries to solve the riddle. Doughty, author of the hugely successful Apple Tree Yard, talks about Platform Seven, which has her protagonist trying to prevent people taking their own lives at a railway station. Their conversation is chaired by Lee Randall.

The modern world can make us feel like the walls are closing in, but a vanguard of writers are here to help us cope – and none more so than Matt Haig. After the storming success of Reasons to Stay Alive comes Notes on a Nervous Planet, a wise and witty guide to kicking the habits around everything from sleep to social media to work that are making us less happy. Enjoy an hour of conversation at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 that will soothe your 21st century anxieties. Chaired by Lennie Goodings.

Meet two authors chronicling the off-kilter experiences of upbeat millennials. Candice Carty-Williams’s novel Queenie sees a Jamaican British woman search for identity. Jojo Moyes called it ‘brilliant, timely, funny, heartbreaking’. Annaleese Jochems’s classy debut Baby made waves back home: fellow New Zealander Eleanor Catton called it ‘sultry, sinister, hilarious and demented’. Their lively conversation at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 is chaired by Sasha de Buyl-Pisco.

It’s clear that antisemitism remains a problem for British society. But recent headlines have brought more confusion than clarity in debates about the definition of what is understood by the word ‘antisemitic’. Westminster peer and West London Synagogue’s Senior Rabbi Julia Neuberger makes a vital intervention with her book Antisemitism, a succinct study of where it comes from and what it is now. She shares her expertise in a lively conversation with Richard Holloway at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019.

Joint winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, Venki Ramakrishnan’s work has gone past the whys and wherefores of DNA and on to the ribosome, the structure which helps decode our genetic make-up. In a live event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 the President of The Royal Society and Gene Machine author shares stories about his first uncertain experiments and making genuine scientific breakthroughs. An enlightening hour of conversation with Steve Brusatte.

The vile practice of upskirting wasn’t an offence in Britain until activist Gina Martin came along. With no legal or political background, Martin changed the law within 18 months. Now, she wants to help others do the same. Be the Change is a campaigning handbook written to advise and empower. Listen to an inspiring force of nature live at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 in conversation with Heather Parry and learn how to follow in her footsteps.

The Booker Prize-winning Australian author of Schindler’s Ark, Thomas Keneally comes to the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 having woven another masterpiece in The Book of Science and Antiquities. Ancient human remains are found in Western Australia, causing controversy: was the man Aboriginal, or does he signify an even older culture? Documentary maker Shelby investigates, sure that ‘Learned Man’ connects the planet’s earliest inhabitants with our troubled environmental future. Hear Keneally discuss the novel live with Lesley McDowell.

One of Britain's best loved poets, Lemn Sissay is a performer of rare passion. But growing up with foster families and in care homes, Sissay struggled with his identity. The discovery of his birth name and Ethiopian background is the catalyst for reflection in his memoir My Name is Why. At the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 he meditates on home and identity as he discusses his insightful book with Jenny Lindsay, exuding the creative energy that's made him a literary phenomenon.

Spend an hour with master of suspense Stuart MacBride as he introduces his latest dark, thrilling novel at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 in conversation with Lee Randall. With the nation at boiling point, someone’s sending messages in blood. Inspector Logan Macrae is back after a year off, but there’s no rest when a high-profile anti-Independence campaigner disappears amid growing tensions between those fighting for Scotland’s future. Can Logan survive in the cauldron of Scottish politics?

Returning to our roots can be tough, revealing and, as Tracey Thorn discovers, inspiring. The singer-songwriter behind Everything But The Girl follows up her bestselling Bedsit Disco Queen by writing Another Planet, a wonderfully witty walk through the maligned suburbia of her youth. At the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 Thorn shares hilarious recollections of the physical and emotional cul-de-sacs of her Green Belt upbringing and its lasting impact with Serena Field.

We all occasionally do things that are racist, yet often fail to recognise them. Ibram X Kendi is a founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center in Washington DC. How To Be an Antiracist is his extraordinary, inspiring guidebook which helps build a vital new understanding of racism – and how to work against it. As part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 this superb teacher and storyteller talks to educator and activist DeRay Mckesson, a key figure in the Black Lives Matter movement.

The publishing world is finally waking up to the barriers that have prevented working class voices from being heard in books. Kit de Waal grew up in Birmingham’s Irish community and she has successfully broken into the mainstream with two highly acclaimed novels. At the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 she talks to Damian Barr about Common People, her book of essays by working class writers, featuring coruscating pieces by authors including Barr himself.

To celebrate Tim Winton’s first visit to the Edinburgh International Book Festival since 1993, he looks back over an oeuvre that includes classics such as Dirt Music, Cloudstreet and Breath, live in conversation with John Williams, Daily Books editor and writer for The New York Times. Plus, hear them examine his latest masterful work The Shepherd’s Hut in which a lonely boy attempts to cross the vast saltland deserts of Western Australia.

The Edinburgh International Book Festival was thrilled to welcome back Fatima Bhutto in 2019 to discuss her second novel The Runaways with Roanna Gonsalves. Published against the backdrop of the Shamima Begum controversy, Bhutto’s novel could hardly feel more topical: set between Portsmouth and Karachi, it charts the lives of three vividly drawn characters from contrasting backgrounds, offering compelling reasons why jihadis are able to lure rootless, marginalised people into terrorism.

Among our finest crime writers and funniest speakers, Chris Brookmyre is back with one of his best stories yet. He talks to Brian Taylor live at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 about his new standalone thriller Fallen Angel. Sixteen years on from the death of young Niamh on a holiday in Portugal, the glamorous Temple clan hold a fateful family reunion. For Amanda, a neighbouring nanny, fascination gives way to suspicion – what did happen to the girl?

At the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 Arundhati Roy discusses her works and her astonishing experiences with Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon. What did she do between the publication of her Booker-winning debut The God of Small Things in 1997 and her extraordinary follow-up, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness two decades later? In a stunning new book of essays, we have the definitive answer. My Seditious Heart is much more than a series of illuminating observations on justice, rights and freedoms: it’s a memoir of the Indian author’s life – as a writer and as a citizen.

Footballer Mark Walters is remembered for his wing wizardry, but while he’s revered by the Rangers faithful who cheered him for four trophy-laden years, he also endured racist chants – an issue he campaigns against now. At the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 Walters talks to Pat Nevin about new memoir Wingin’ It, working for Graeme Souness, great moments at Liverpool and Aston Villa, and his views about the modern game.

Thirteen years since his multi-million bestseller The Book Thief, Markus Zusak joins us at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 with his much-anticipated follow-up, Bridge of Clay. In a conversation with author and presenter Janet Ellis, Zusak discusses his ambitious portrait of a family, introducing us to the Dunbar brothers, who are living and fighting in a house with no parents, and no rules. To find peace and beauty, one brother, Clay, sets out to build a bridge, unaware of the secrets he will uncover.