Richard Dawkins

Matt Haig at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 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… Tony Benn Passionately dedicated to politics and to ordinary people, Tony Benn is a highly engaging speaker. He speaks in this 2008 event about his warm, funny, feisty diaries which record his trenchant views on the political landscape of the past seven years… Jennifer Rohn & Neal Stephenson (2012 event) Science fiction writing is readily dismissed as mindless escapism but in fact it is a hugely influential and creative genre… Carol Ann Duffy (2010 event) We welcomed Britain's Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy to the Book Festival in 2010 for three remarkable events. In this beautifully-received event she read new work from The Bees which will be published in 2011, and was joined by chair Don Paterson and… David Vann reading Bain de Soleil Young award-winning US author David Vann reads his story on the theme of Elsewhere… Mark Haddon (2016 Event) First he found literary acclaim with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, then he struck gold with a National Theatre play based on the bestselling book. Now, Mark Haddon turns his hand to short fiction, and in this event recorded live at… Jo Nesbo (2018 Event) A former footballer, financial analyst and the lead singer of a chart-topping band in his homeland, Norway’s Jo Nesbo struck gold with the crime-writing career which has made his name. His latest bestseller, Macbeth, is a fresh take on… Joe Sumner & Evie Wyld (2015 Event) Evie Wyld is fast shooting to international fame as a novelist. Already the winner of Australia’s prestigious Miles Franklin Prize for All the Birds, Singing, her writing career takes a thrilling new turn in a graphic memoir, Everything Is Teeth… Alan Johnson (2015 Event) Amid a slew of politicians’ memoirs in recent years, Alan Johnson’s This Boy was comfortably among the finest: one critic called it ‘the best political testament I’ve ever read’. The former Home Secretary returns to the Book… Christine Otten & The Last Poets (2017 Event) The Last Poets were formed in the US in the late 1960s, a period full of hope and a time when the Black Panthers were at the height of their power. Their performance poetry has influenced generations of musicians, securing them the title of ‘the…