Aye Write! Glasgow’s literary festival, has ended. The festival has broken its own ticket sales targets and expected to attract over 25,000 people to events in its week-long run.
HIGHLIGHTS
Andrea Levy (FEBRUARY 16) Watch the video Read the Herald story
Her novel Small Island won the Whitbread and Orange and Commonwealth Writers prizes, and was recently distributed free throughout the city.
William Boyd (FEBRUARY 17)
His latest novel, Restless, takes a classic spy theme and twists it into a modern form.
Chick Lit Debate (FEBRUARY 17) Watch the video
Chick-lit has been one of the great bookselling success stories of the past decade. Three leading writers discuss this success.
Kate Adie and Jonathan Kaplan (FEBRUARY 18) Herald story
Jonathan Kaplan escaped from apatheid South Africa and became a surgeon. His books, The Dressing Station and Contact Wounds, show the reality of war. Kate Adie veteran of battlegrounds from Libya to Iraq, whose next book is on why and how people work in highly dangerous occupations.
John Banville (FEBRUARY 18) Herald story
One of Ireland’s leading writers, he won the Booker Prize in 2005 for The Sae, but also writes crime novels under the moniker Benjamin Black.
Will Hutton (FEBRUARY 19) Herald story
The re-emergence of China as a superpower constitutes the biggest challenge the world has had for more than a century. Will Hutton and David Blunkett (FEBRUARY 19) Herald story
Debate (FEBRUARY 20) Watch the video
Should we apologise for the past and what will the future generations apologise for on our behalf?
Want to be a great writer? It’s easy. Sometimes
The beauty of smaller festivals is that contrasts between writers are more marked: the vibrant, energetic, entertaining fusion of Glasgow-based writers more...
George Monbiot (FEBRUARY 22)
The passionate environmental activists will talk about is his latest book, Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning.
John Ronson (FEBRUARY 22) Watch the video
Journalist and broadcaster Jon Ronson's previous books looked at the lunacy of the modern world. In Out of the Ordinary, he shows that nuttiness is much closer to home: in his own life, in the courtroom and in the world of celebrity.
Andrew Motion (FEBRUARY 22) Herald story
Thursday night's audience with the poet laureate, conducted by academic Michael Schmidt - who, Andrew Motion confided, had been first to publish his poems - was a genteel, gentlemanly affair, so much so that we had to be warned in advance of one or two poems that might contain "some bad language".
Julian Baggini (FEBRUARY 24) Watch the video The Simpsons lays claim to being not just the most significant popular cultural production of the late twentieth century, but the most important cultural production, full stop.
Iain Banks (FEBRUARY 25) Watch the video Read the Herald story Iain Banks pursues dark family secrets, a long-lost love affair and a multi-million pound gaming business in his new novel full of his trademaprk warmth, humanity and ingenuity, The Steep Approach to Garbadale.
Michael Buerk/Lynne TrussHerald story
About eight years ago at another book festival, Andreas Whittam Smith confidently predicted the demise of the printed book at the hands of the internet. What he couldn't have foreseen was the rise of a phenomenon called the book group.
