Author Event: A L Kennedy

A L Kennedy
The RBS Main Tent and A L Kennedy appeared on stage a slight of her former self, confirming reports that she had indeed been very ill since the completion of her latest novel, The Blue Book – her first since the Costa winning novel, Day published in 2007.

Visibly not herself, she appeared rattled and offended after a woman in the audience left after only five minutes. Kennedy stopped her and asked if it was something she had done, to which the woman replied: “this wasn’t what I was expecting.”

“What were you expecting?” asked Kennedy, as the woman toddled off to the mutterings of a disgusted crowd, and leaving Kennedy unable to complete the first selected reading she had prepared.

She picked herself up, however, and before long was churning out jokes and sarcastic quips like the old days but even then these only came in patches. The main focus became political as she delved into the manipulation of the government, and it was a much quieter audience she held under her spell until Jamie Jauncey called an end to the event.

The Guardian Book Club with Neil Gaiman

The Guardian Book Club with Neil Gaiman
I bagged myself a last minute ticket for this event thanks to the very kind and lovely staff in the Press Office, and boy was I glad to get a seat. John Mullan chaired this star-studded analysis of Neil Gaiman’s novel, American Gods, and I found myself sitting with Amanda Palmer behind me, Canongate publishers to the left of me, and Ian Rankin and Frank Skinner to the right of me.

As for the event, Gaiman is the master of selling while remaining everyone’s bet pal. “I like the way the people who have read this book are already ahead of the pack,” he explained, “but that you don’t quite know all that’s still to come,” referring to his new agreement with HBO to create a television series from the book.

He also revealed he will be writing the pilot episode for the new series, as well as the final episode and “very possibly one in the middle.” So for die-hard Gaiman fans it was already a memorable event—and there were more than a few of those in the audience, many from the U.S.A. it appeared.

Gaiman spoke at length of the process he went through to create American Gods, such as when the idea came for it, he had been letting it brew for some time but it hadn’t completely formed in his mind. “It was like this gooey black substance that hadn’t yet congealed in my brain,” he explained to his mesmerised fans. “It finally crystallised while I was on a layover in Iceland at about three in the morning. I wrote up a 3-page summary, slapped a temporary title on it—which was American Gods—and sent it to my agent and publisher. Three weeks later I got an email back with the design of the front cover of the book and the title right there so that was that.”

Following the event Gaiman entertained another very lengthy queue that wrapped itself around the innards of Charlotte Square. Always smiling, always joking, and always personal to all his fans, Gaiman is the ultimate example of how even the biggest stars can keep it real and down to earth. It’s no wonder his fans love him so much.

I spoke to Giulia Sandelewski who had travelled north from Stratford-upon-Avon without being able to get any accommodation, not caring about anything so long as she could get her book signed—which she did.

She looked like her smile would be enough to carry her home!

Author Event: Robert Levine

Journalist Robert Levine came to his event at the Edinburgh Book Festival on the back of a provocative Observer article, and began by explaining the rationale behind his claim that, “the current model of internet commerce is unsustainable.”

Not dissimilar, I thought, to the original Ford Prefect of Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, he began by explaining that fundamentally, “we tell ourselves stories in order to understand the world,” and that in this, his first book, Free Ride: How the Internet is Destroying the Culture Business, he attempts not to slam the old model, but to ask if the current one is at all sustainable.

While not a major critic of Shawn Fanning, who he insists “didn’t create Napster for money, but rather to develop a new way of distributing music,” he took issue with Fanning’s claims that his invention redefined music. “He didn’t,” said Levine. “What he really did was redefine the trucking industry.”

On Google, seen by many as a pretty good thing for the Internet, his opinion was less than glowing. “Google will not give you advice that is good for you or what you want, it will give you advice that is good for Google.”

Levine cited Bjork’s latest album that comes with an iPad app for every track. While this may well be “pointing the way for the future of the music album, it is not something that could have been done under Google’s Android operating system. It could only have been achieved under Apple’s model because it is closed.”

In summarising what was a very provocative hour of thinking and promotion of a new approach to internet commerce, Levine simply said: “I’m not defending legacy business, but we have a broken market that now makes it difficult to create something and then sell it.”

Author Event: Sam Leith and Simon Lelic

Sam Leith and Simon Lelic
The sun was well and truly out in Charlotte Square by 15.30 and already the day had been long, chilled, hard work, but very enjoyable.

Attendance in the Square looked to be very good with the sun brining people into the book festival to lie about (avoiding the mud), socialise and read in the shade. Summer was very much here for the Edinburgh Book Festival yesterday.

My final event of the day involved two new writers for me, Sam Leith and Simon Lelic. Both writers have written quite remarkable novels in that they are very much satirical and often, judging by the readings, fantastical. “Sometimes reality is more absurd than fiction,” said Leith.

To quote from the book festival programme: “Leith’s, The Coincidence Engine, mashes up a gaggle of fantastical characters in a tale of an imaginary America haunted by madness, murder, mistaken identity and unhealthy snacks. Lelic’s, The Facility, features a man tasked with running a secret government prison, where he has to deal with frightened inmates, the sinister Dr Silk and his own conscience.”

Interesting stuff, and as both writers read for their novels and then explained their backgrounds and what prompted them to write them, it became apparent that we may well have a couple of potential cult novelists on our hands.

Leith, in particular, cited Douglas Adams as a major influence, although he admitted that he “doesn’t know nearly as much science as Adams knew, which perhaps the novel could have done with.”

The comparisons between both writers are interesting also, in that Lelic and Leith were both journalists now turned fiction writers. “I much prefer creative writing,” said Lelic absolutely, whereas his contemporary admitted that he “really enjoys journalism and wouldn’t want to give it up.”

Debate: The Joy of Literature

Joseph Brooker and Ray Ryan
Mid-afternoon and I fond myself in Peppers Theatre for a discussion between a Scotsman, an Englishman and an Irishman. No joke, and nor was the discussion.

The event had been billed especially for bibliophiles, in which Brooker’s analysis of British literature since the 1980s in a collection of essays called The Good of the Novel, co-edited by Ray Ryan, which “brings together some of the most strenuous and perceptive critics of the present moment, and puts them in contact with some of the finest novels of the past three decades.”

Chaired by the literary editor of The Scotsman, Stuart Kelly, we had the potential for a really interesting discussion. Brooker and Ryan provided a new angle on publishing, with the latter relating how “each novel sets its own constitution; the truth of fiction cannot be rendered in any other form.”

Ryan remains convinced that “small presses take chances on making reputations of authors whereas large ones are more cautious,” and I have to agree with him. In my experience this has been important in opening the door  to the proliferation of self-publishing.

On the question as to whether Shakespeare is a great writer, Brooker argued that “It’s far too early to say—maybe in another 400 years or so but how are we supposed to guess that now?” And bringing the discussion back (or forward) to the 21st century and the introduction of e-readers, Ryan commented that he was “amazed that these things still only display mainly text, and that even in the 21st century with all the technology available to use, people who use them still only want them for that sole reason.”

As for hyperlinks within text to websites and informative articles, “these things are a distraction,” says Ryan. “But for the publisher and critic alike,” explained Brooker, “they mean much more work!”

Author Event: Robin Robertson

Robin Robertson
I dashed off from talking with Paul to hear another poet read, this time in the Spiegeltent and the darker poems of Robin Robertson.

It was an astounding hour of poetry, so deep and beautiful and sad, that even the festival director Nick Barley tweeted after the event how he had been reduced to tears by Robertson’s reading of At Roane Head.

Robertson’s work is very dark, often with a cruel edge of humour, but always thoroughly gripping. One does not need to concentrate during a reading of his in order to appreciate the picture he is painting—it is crystal clear, as though one were standing within the very poem itself.

Author Event: Paul Mundoon

Paul Mundoon
The free ‘Ten at Ten’ event threw up a huge name in world poetry yesterday: Northern Irish poet, Paul Mundoon, a T S Eliot and Pulitzer prize winner for poetry, took to the the small and intimate stage in the Writers’ Retreat tent and wowed the couple of dozen people who had been lucky enough to get tickets.

His poetry was smooth, rounded and pleasant on the ear, like cool water running over one’s neck on a hot day; the perfect start to any weekend, I’m sure you can imagine.

The poems he read were touching to the soul and glistening with imagery, and I was lucky enough to capture one or two of them for my book festival podcast (I just need to get the time to be able to mix and produce it). I spoke to him briefly afterwards and took his picture, and I can honestly say that the rumours about the Irish being famously friendly are totally true!

Author Event: Alexander McCall Smith

My final event of the day was the brilliant, Alexander McCall Smith, back at the book festival again to talk about his latest work Bertie Plays The Blues. McCall Smith is always hilarious: he tells great jokes, but one can also imagine quite easily, him sitting in his office writing and enjoying the process of writing his own fiction so much, he reduces himself to tears of laughter.

And that’s how it was for the audience tonight: reduced to tears of laughter as he went from one tangent to the other making up stories and tales and jokes as he went.

On a more serious note, Smith is planning on writing more Scotland Street and Corduroy Mansion books—he surely has to be Scotland’s busiest writer, churning out more books per annum than anyone else in the in industry.

He also revealed he has commissioned a tapestry of the entire history of Scotland, spanning from the Ice Age to the opening of the Scottish Parliament. At 107 meters long, it will take two years to create, but once complete any organisation can request to show any part of it, particularly if they have some political or geographical connection with that precise segment. “It’s something for the whole nation,” explained Smith.

James Tait Black Memorial Prize

The James Tait Black prize is the oldest prize of its kind in the world. It is also the only one given by a University for works of biography and fiction.

This year’s ceremony was chaired by Sally Magnusson and filmed before a large audience inside the RBS Main Tent.

Hilary Spurling took the biography prize for her work, Burying the Bones, taking to the stage very emotional and admitting it was the achievement that had sparked the tears, but also that, “I became a grandmother earlier today so that might have something to do with too.”

In fiction, the winner was Tatjani Soli for her work, The Lotus Eaters. Promising not to cry, she said: “The lineage of the James Tait Black Prizes speaks for itself, and I am humbled and so proud to be part of it.”

Author Event: Stella Rimington

Here was a woman who needed no introduction: the ex-head of MI5 turned writer of spy fiction, Dame Stella Rimington. If ever there was a full RBS Main Tent more suspicious of itself, this was it. It filled form the back to front!

Rimington gave us an overview of why she turned to writing fiction following her retirement from MI5. To some it may seem a logical step but it would appear she fell into it after a process of trying other things; fiction writing is her sixth chosen career.

Her new novel involving British security office, Liz Carlyle, was vetted like the rest of her novels but was permitted to be released after the security services enjoyed it first. Personally, I think they’re abusing their position in order to get the scoop on a talented writer, but that’s beside the point. “I dread the day I hand them a completed manuscript,” she said, “for them to turn around and say, ‘you’ll have to change the entire plot’.”

Many of the questions asked by the audience deviated from the release of the actual book she had come to promote, Rip Tide, with the audience preferring to try and chip away at her previous career. The impact it had on her family for one, when her daughter only began to suspect her mother was different when two men in Macs turned up at the door one day and snapped a photograph of Rimington in the house; tabloid intrusion not for the first time—but it could have been worse.

On which security agencies were better to work with: “there are various around Europe that are similar to ours but many that are different. The KGB, for example, clearly had no intention on changing to a democratic model when the Cold War ended but we went anyway. The American model is totally different—we’re the only real one that is civilian based.”

It was a fascination encounter with a woman who quite clearly enjoys the release that writing fiction allows, although being a Man Booker judge has been a double-edged sword once the lorries loads of books started to show up. She was pivotal in breaking the male-dominated “industry” as it was when she first joined, though, and her intelligence, seriousness and subtle humour were evident in every chosen word.