Alastair Reid

Hanif Kureishi One of the most distinctive and fearless writers in Britain, Hanif Kureishi has been a major and vital presence since Buddha of Suburbia. Sex, middle-age, love, longing, race, regret and psychoanalysis are all wholly present in his latest novel, Something… Ben Rawlence (2016 Event) Dadaab Refugee Camp in Northern Kenya has existed for 25 years. Originally created for 90,000 Somalian refugees it now contains over 350,000 people, including 10,000 third-generation inhabitants. Over a period of four years, Ben Rawlence explored this… Lionel Shriver American author, journalist and critic Lionel Shriver talks, in this 2007 event, about her new novel The Post-Birthday World which imagines two parallel lives for a woman… Bonnie Greer (2014 event) Best known in the UK as a dispassionate commentator on BBC Newsnight Review and Question Time, even when sitting beside the leader of the BNP, Bonnie Greer has now written the first volume of her memoirs, A Parallel Life. In this event, recorded live at… Val McDermid One of Scotland's great masters of the crime genre was welcomed back to the Book Festival by capacity audiences. Great chat and some more tales from the casebooks of Dr Tony Hill and Detective Carol Jordan. A festival favourite if ever there was one!… Reggie Nadelson in conversation with Ian Rankin (2010 event) In this event crime writing extraordinaire Reggie Nadelson discussed the ventures of her brilliantly believable detective, with Edinburgh’s own favourite crime writer, Ian Rankin. The charismatic pair are well worth a listen – and another listen after… Andrew O'Hagan: Heydays in the Haçienda (2020 Event) 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… Seamus Heaney A chance to hear Seamus Heaney, the great Nobel Prize winning poet, reading his own work in this 2006 event, including his major new volume District and Circle. Pure pleasure… Lucy Hawking Lucy Hawking talks about teaming up with her father Professor Stephen Hawking to create George?s Cosmic Treasure Hunt, the second in a trilogy of books designed to explain physics to children in a fun way… David Millar (2016 Event) Those lucky enough to witness David Millar’s spellbinding Book Festival event in 2011 will recall the athlete’s forthright admissions about calorie counting, secret doping and quirky camaraderie on the pro cycling circuit. Now he's back with The Racer, a…