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JACKIE KAY - WAKE UP TO WORDS
Saturday 12 August 2006, 10.15am at the Highland Park SpiegeltentThe 2006 Edinburgh International Book Festival opens with one of the most life-enhancing of writers, the award-winning Scottish novelist and poet whose new stories explore love and humanity. Ebullient, moving, compassionate, always utterly involving, Jackie Kay's readings are delight itself. A luminous start to our literary carnival. Free coffee and pastries. Sponsored by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters - Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
KATE ATKINSON - THE HERALD & SUNDAY HERALD MEET THE AUTHOR SESSIONS
Saturday 12 August 2006, 11.30am at the RBS Main TheatreAcclaimed, award-winning, bestselling Kate Atkinson here launches her brand new novel, One Good Turn - set in Edinburgh, at festival time, with an entire sequence set at the Book Festival itself. Murder, mystery and the most perfect literary pleasure. - Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
IRVINE WELSH
Saturday 12 August 2006, 4.30pm at the RBS Main TheatreOne of Scotland's most iconic novelists, still filled with the scatological energy which made Trainspotting such a cultural phenomenon. Once again he reveals a hidden Edinburgh as he reads from his dark and hilarious new novel, The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs. - Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
ALICE GREENWAY, JANE HARRIS & ALISON MILLER - FIRST FICTION
Saturday 12 August 2006, 8.30pm at the Peppers TheatreThree of the most compelling new Scottish novels in a truly exceptional year for debut fiction. Respectively conjuring up the exotic heat of Hong Kong, a nineteenth century Scottish 'Castle Haivers' and a teenager attending her first political demonstration, all three create gripping female narrators feistily coming of age. - Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
JOOLZ DENBY & ALLAN GUTHRIE - CRIME
Monday 14 August 2006, 7pm at the Scottish Power Studio TheatreContrasting stars of the crime scene. Allan Guthrie is Scotland's newest crime sensation and has signed a major publishing deal for his gritty tales of Edinburgh murder. Orange Prize shortlisted Joolz Denby uses her poetic gifts to evoke infatuation in a Cornish village. - Tickets �8/�6 concessions, available - here
STEWART CONN & JOHN SAMPSON - POETRY
Tuesday 15 August 2006, 10.30am at the Scottish Power Studio TheatreA musical wake-up to the day as leading Scottish poet Stewart Conn is joined by ebullient musician John Sampson (in period costume) in a joyous recreation of Roull of Corstorphine, one of Edinburgh's earliest fifteenth century poets. - Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
LAURA HIRD & EWAN MORRISON - WAKE UP TO WORDS
Friday 18 August 2006, 10.15am at the Highland Park SpiegeltentMore morning stories with two distinctive and compelling Scottish authors, energetically engaging with the contemporary urban world. Award-winning Laura Hird reads from a hugely anticipated new collection; while Ewan Morrison made a stylish debut last year with The Last Book You Read.BOOKCASE EVENT Free coffee and pastries. Sponsored by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters - Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
KARIN ALVTEGEN, MATTI JOENSUU & CHRISTIAN JUNGERSEN - INTERNATIONAL FICTION: CRIME
Friday 18 August 2006, 2.30pm at the Peppers TheatreA scintillating line-up of major Scandinavian crime novelists in a very special Book Festival treat. Karin Alvtegen from Sweden writes brilliantly of revenge and betrayal, recalling Patricia Highsmith. Matti Joensuu is a senior criminal investigator with the Helsinki police as well as one of Finland's most respected writers. Danish Christian Jungersen's psychological thrillers are the equal of Peter Hoeg. - Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
TARAS GRESCOE & JENNY DISKI - TRAVEL
Saturday 19 August 2006, 4pm at the Peppers TheatreWhat happens if a travel writer doesn't really want to travel? Jenny Diski ranks happily as 'uncategorisable'. Skating To Antarctica was a caustic, haunting, personal account of a journey of sorts; On Trying To Keep Still might be described as an anti-travel book, full of razor-sharp perception and unexpected, suddenly illuminating thoughts. Canadian Taras Grescoe has a sharp political edge: here he travels in search of the forbidden - food and drink banned by governments - and personal liberty. - Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
JANICE GALLOWAY - SCOTTISH LITERATURE
Sunday 20 August 2006, 12 noon at the Scottish Power Studio TheatreBe prepared to be pinned into your seats. Janice Galloway, electrifying, enlightening, a stunning performer, is one of the most mesmerisingly multi-talented authors in Scotland: novelist, poet, storyteller, librettist, working with music and art as well as words. Miss this at your peril. A BOOKCASE EVENT - Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
MANSOURA EZ-ELDIN, JOUMANA HADDAD, ALA HLEHEL, ABED ISMAEL & SAMUEL SHIMON - EAST AND WEST
Sunday 20 August 2006, 12.30pm at the Peppers TheatreCome and hear Arab writing at its finest - a rare chance to be seized. This tour of novelists and poets from Palestine, Egypt, Syria and the Lebanon brings to Book Festival audiences, courtesy of the British Council, a powerful taste of the Middle East. Introduced by Samuel Shimon, Iraqi writer and editor of great talent and passion. A BOOKCASE EVENT - Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
ALI SMITH - FINE FICTION
Sunday 20 August 2006, 7pm at the Scottish Power Studio TheatreThis has been an annus mirabilis for the sublimely talented, Inverness-born Ali Smith: winner of the Whitbread Novel prize, shortlisted for everything in sight. Her haunting The Accidental, in which a strange spirit enters a fractured family home, again shows one of the most truly original literary voices in Britain. A BOOKCASE EVENT - Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
JAMES MEEK - THE SCOTTISH PEN LECTURE
Sunday 20 August 2006, 8.30pm at the Scottish Power Studio TheatreAn important and award-winning Scottish novelist and journalist, James Meek talks in this special event on Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Ignorance: From the Gulag to Guantanamo: the remarkable story behind the founding of Afghan PEN and the imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay of the Sudanese Al-Jazeera journalist Sami al Hajj, seized on the Afghan-Pakistan border in 2001 and still in US custody.A BOOKCASE EVENT - Tickets �8/�6 concessions, available - here
GLEN DUNCAN & SUHAYL SAADI - WAKE UP TO WORDS
Monday 21 August 2006, 10.15am at the Highland Park SpiegeltentBegin the week with two fascinating fictional explorations of the deep connections between Britain and the subcontinent. Glasgow Asian and writer of brilliance Suhayl Saadi pours Scottish Pakistani experience into astonishing prose. Acclaimed Glen Duncan creates an English novelist researching his family's Indian past - and finding ambiguous mysteries. A BOOKCASE EVENT Free coffee and pastries. Sponsored by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters - Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
RON BUTLIN, JENNI DAICHES & ANDREW DRUMMOND - WAKE UP TO WORDS
Tuesday 22 August 2006, 10.15am at Highland Park SpiegeltentA magnificent hour of Scottish writing to pep up the day. Ron Butlin has received great acclaim for his recent fiction, as well as his poetry. We are delighted to launch his brand-new novel, Belonging. Jenni Daiches embarks on her debut novel, about letters to and from China. They are joined by Andrew Drummond, whose second novel Volapuk is a witty tour-de-force on an invented language and nineteenth century Edinburgh. Free coffee and pastries. Sponsored by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters - Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
ALAN BISSETT, NICK BROOKS & MICHAEL CANNON - WAKE UP TO WORLDS
Wednesday 23 August 2006, 10.15am at the Highland Park SpiegeltentAn invigoratingly varied hour of new Scottish fiction to start the day, ranging from the super-energetic to the subtle and measured. Michael Cannon's debut Lachlan's War is an involving story of a wartime doctor in a remote village. Nick Brooks follows his own lauded debut with a darkly witty and sinister tale of a mortician, The Good Death; while Alan Bissett's linguistic spark flares off the page. Free coffee and pastries. Sponsored by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters - Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
PATRICIA DUNCKER & KATE PULLINGER - FINE FICTION
Thursday 24 August 2006, 6pm at the Writers' RetreatA gorgeous hour of the very best fiction. Patricia Duncker is never less than captivating, and her new novel Miss Webster and Cherif beautifully explores confluences of east and west as an English spinster becomes entangled with a young Moroccan. Canadian Kate Pullinger's A Little Stranger movingly evokes what happens when an apparently happy young mother walks out one day. - Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
BETTANY HUGHES & VANESSA COLLINGRIDGE - HISTORY
Friday 25 August 2006, 11am at the Peppers TheatreRemarkable accounts of two of the most powerful women in history and mythology from two charismatic and adventurous young historians and broadcasters. Bettany Hughes gives a vivid and eye-opening account of Helen of Troy; Vanessa Collingridge brings Boudicca back to energetic life. - Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
COLUM McCANN & DAVID MITCHELL - FINE FICTION
Thursday 24 August 2006, 5pm at the Scottish Power Studio TheatreA dream pairing of two of the most dizzyingly gifted novelists writing today. Irishman Colum McCann, now an international star, evokes the harsh world and haunting songs of persecuted Romany gypsies; while David Mitchell, catapulted to bestselling acclaim by Cloud Atlas, now writes beautifully of a boy in an English village, waiting for the world to change. - Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
LOUISE WELSH - FINE FICTION
Sunday 27 August 2006, 8.30pm at the Scottish Power Studio TheatreA major new novel from Louise Welsh is a cause for great happiness. Her first book The Cutting Room established her as a highly distinctive Scottish talent. Now The Bullet Trick also evokes murder and shady goings-on, as a down at heel Glasgow conjuror winds up on the seamy side of Berlin - Tickets �8/�6 concessions, available - here
JOHN BURNSIDE & KATHLEEN JAMIE - WAKE UP TO WORDS
Monday 28 August 2006, 10.15am at the Highland Park SpiegeltentThere could be no more enticing combination for the final morning of the finest words. These two Scottish poets are amongst the most gifted writing anywhere. They irresistibly open up the mind and sense to the world - natural and human - around us. Come and succumb. Free coffee and pastries. Sponsored by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters
Tickets �7/�5 concessions, available - here
