TSS: EIBF 2009: My Events by Regi Claire

I am so happy that Regi Claire agreed to this interview.   Because her events were  on those days that I stupidly agreed to work!   Her anthology of short stories, Fighting It, inspired by a recent battle with cancer, was published by Two Ravens Press earlier this year.  There is a very personal account of her illness on the [...]

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EIBF 2009: In which Lizzy hits the bookshops

Monday 24.08.2009 The sun is shining and so the time has come for the annual tour of Edinburgh’s bookshops.  The score at the end of  the first half of the EIBF, if you have been following the journals so far, was Lizzy 2: Bookshops 5.  Should Lizzy simply turn up for the second half for a trouncing or [...]

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EIBF 2009: My Events by Esther Woolfson

Esther Woolfson was born in Glasgow. She studied at Edinburgh and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and has a degree in Chinese. Her short stories have been broadcast by the BBC and published in many collections. A non-fiction account of living with birds, Corvus, was published by Granta in August 2008 and her novel, Piano Angel, [...]

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EIBF 2009: In which we meet homo narrans and Lizzy has a senior moment

Saturday 22.08.09 Event 1 – Henning Mankell Meet homo narrans – the man who tells stories – or crime-writing superstar, Henning Mankell, visiting the EIBF to discuss his novel “Italian Shoes”, allegedly.  There was no reading.  He spent 10 minutes maximum talking about the novel he wrote in 2004, the purpose of which is to [...]

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EIBF 2009: In which not everything goes to plan

Thursday 20.08.2009 Another early start in order to avoid the rush hour chaos of driving into Edinburgh.  Arrive at Charlotte Square at 9:30 and head straight to the book shop.  Find some signed Ian Rankins on the shelf and snap two titles.  A novella entitled A Cool Head and a full length non-Rebus novel set [...]

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TSS: EIBF 2009 – My Event by Maggie Gee

This is the third year that I  have taken you to the Edinburgh Book Festival and I was aware that my view from the audience might begin to feel a little bit sameish.  So this year I’ve invited some EIBF authors to tell you the story from their chair on the stage.  I’m absolutely delighted that [...]

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EIBF 2009: Highlights Monday 17.08.2009

My family have been saying this for years and I’m beginning to see their point.  I have gone round the twist.  Somehow I have decided that I will attend this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival, keep this blog up-to-date AND go to work.  Well, something had to give and I’m afraid for the last three days [...]

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My Cleaner – Maggie Gee

I have been reading Maggie Gee’s fiction, on and off, for the last 10 years. I first read her 1997 novel The Ice People, a dystopian novel set in a frozen world where where children are rare, child-size robots run out of control and homosexuality is the norm.  Relationships between men and women are as [...]

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TSS: EIBF 2009 – Book Festival in A Box

My spy in Edinburgh took this photograph on Friday.  The fact is we’re still counting down on Lizzy’s Literary Life, for I have shown a modicum of remarkable constraint in not attending for the first two days.  I have been preparing.  Assembling the survival kit, and the books that I hope to get signed over the next two [...]

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The Illustrated Brighton Moment

Today Lizzy relives stepping out onto Brighton Beach courtesy of a recent business trip.  The glorious evening was my own.  How though would I make best use of 4 free hours in a town I had never visited?  1) Head for the deckchairs on Brighton Pier.  Spend a leisurely hour in the company of a book that had [...]

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