John O'Donoghue

Ian Rankin - interview Always a favourite and always entertaining, Ian Rankin is the UK's biggest-selling crime author and recipient of countless awards. He is a hot favourite at the Book Festival, where he regularly wins more fans. In this 2007 podcast he chats to Tom Rice… A.C. Grayling 'The Legacy of a Complex Man' (2016 Event) Best known for sci-fi novels such as The Time Machine and The Invisible Man, H G Wells also wrote numerous non-fiction works. His wide-ranging ideas pre-dated many modern concerns, including the internet and the black civil rights movement. Yet Wells was… Allan Radcliffe reading Chicago Edinburgh-based Allan Radcliffe reads his contribution to our Elsewhere series of stories… Kay Ryan (2013 event) Kay Ryan is widely regarded as one of America’s great living poets. Her book The Best of It: New and Selected Poems won her the Pulitzer Prize in 2011… Alan Hollinghurst (2011 Event) It's many years since Alan Hollinghurst's last novel, The Line of Beauty, was published – a story so powerful that it beat David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas to win the 2004 Booker Prize. His follow-up, The Stranger's Child… Blake Morrison (2014 event) Best known for As If, his landmark book about the killing of James Bulger, Blake Morrison is also a poet and novelist. He joined us to read from a new publication, This Poem. Bankers’ bonuses, phone hacking, super-injunctions and Jimmy Savile: these… Michel Faber (2016 Event) The acclaimed author of Under the Skin and The Book of Strange New Things reads from a collection of deeply moving poems entitled Undying. In tender, bittersweet verse, Michel Faber grieves for his wife Eva who died in 2014 after a six year battle with… Joseph Stiglitz (2010 event) A 2010 Book Festival event that will be talked about for some time to come. Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, delivered a thought-provoking event with the words of a real insider. As chair Ruth Wishart said, "Joseph Stiglitz has analysed… Abdel Bari Atwan Good natured chat from newspaper editor Abdel Bari Atwan as he recounts his journey from Palestinian refugee camps to the front page. One of the world's leading authorities on the Middle East, Atwan shares some of his extraordinary encounters… David Vann and Willy Vlautin (2010 event) Another chance to listen to two writers who have produced riveting, heartbreaking and sometimes shocking accounts of father-son relationships. An interesting, intelligent and compelling event, chaired by Hannah McGill, well worth revisiting…