The first 9 days of the EIBF have been busy - very busy, if you consider that I travelled into Edinburgh 6 times, attended 15 events and spent 2 days decorating the hall. Also read 2 books. No wonder the blog has been unable to keep up. In fact, put into context, my 3 posts to date look like a sterling effort.
The final 8 days are going to be even busier. So busy that when I drive in tomorrow morning, I’m not going to go home until Thursday evening! I will have mobile technology with me so I may post in the meantime. Most likely I shall be tweeting, technology permitting. (Let’s not talk about that embarrassing moment during Thursday’s story shop ….) The blog will catch up in more detail when time permits.
In the meantime, here are 5 6 top memories and associated pictures from Week One.
6) Release of Elsewhere – an anthology in 4 volumes of short stories written especially for Edinburgh Book Festival. OK – so the stories were first published on the Edinburgh Book Festival Site but I’ve been hankering after the printed page since forever. I hanker no longer.
5) Laughing till I cried at A L Kennedy’s event as she read an essay of the trials of writing in a wooden summerhouse with only demented woodpeckers for company. She has written a series of essays about the writing life which will be published next year. Something to look forward to. And it was so good to see her looking well again after a period of ill health.
4) The Classics theme. I had some good teachers but none of them made literature as much fun as did Simon Callow (Dickens), John Mullan (Austen) and Alexandra Harris (Virginia Woolf).
3) The Edinburgh Book Festival Mindmap (I need to find the person who designed this. It is a work of genius.)
1) The Sunshine! It has rained but only on what were supposed to be my rest days. In the main, however, umbrellas were used as sunshades this week! Herewith may I put in an order for more of the same during the next 8 days at least.
Strange Weather in Tokyo - Hiromi Kawakami
Northanger Abbey - Val McDiarmid
On Glasgow and Edinburgh - Robert Crawford (2013)
All The Rage - A L Kennedy (2014)
Unfashioned Creatures - Lesley MacDowell (2013)
Reasons She Goes to the Woods - Deborah Kay Davies (2014)
The Lowland - Jhumpa Lahiri (2013)
The Mussel Feast - Birgit Vanderbeke (1990)
Sense and Sensibility - Joanna Trollope (2013)
The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion (2013)
Medium Level (Twice round a world of 7 continents)
Wallaby (3 books)
Your commentary on the book festival is the next best thing to being there.Thanks for the photos too, now I can attach a face to names I know. Thanks too for having some tech talent so we can follow you about.
Alexandra Harris rang a bell, but I had to look her up and just added her book Romantic Moderns, English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper, to my wishlist. Thanks, Lizzie.
Wow, you’re busy with the festival! Glad the weather is good, that really helps to make it a good festival. I like your pictures – hope to read more about your next adventures at the festival.
wow, quite impressed (and envious) by the big names you managed to catch – enjoying your impressions and infos and keen for more.
May I recommend an event on Tuesday on BEST European Fiction 2012
2pm, time and energy permitting.
keep up the good work.
Glad to see you’re having fun :)
The mind map really looks good!!! Anyway you can share the entire map? I tried Googling it, but could not find it anywhere.
Many thanks for your kind words about the festival, and specifically about the mind map.
It was an incredibly time consuming piece of conceptual design work, but to see it in-situ with so many people interacting with our work makes it all worthwhile. We are all very proud of the mind map and it’s role in this year’s brand identity.
Here’s to another week of fantastic events!
Tangent Graphic
Love reading the blog -enjoy the rest of the book festival!
hope you’ve had fun ,all the best stu