‘Given the right conditions, any society can turn against democracy. Indeed, if history is anything to go by, all of our societies eventually will.’ Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Anne Applebaum’s bleak prognosis for liberal democracy lies at the heart of her intriguing new book, Twilight of Democracy, which blends deeply-felt memoir with cool political analysis. Applebaum’s personal approach carries weight because she’s witnessed the rise and fall of democratic sentiment first hand in her...

In the words of the Kirkus review: ‘You will never forget Shuggie Bain. Scene by scene, this book is a masterpiece.’ This astonishing debut is a powerful and heartbreaking story about the love between a boy and his mother, about poverty and addiction, about Thatcher’s Glasgow, about sexuality, coming of age and finding one’s way. Roaming through public housing, wandering in and out of pubs and neighbourhoods, it asks how we might protect those we love most of all, and at what...

At last year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival, bestselling author Val McDermid and professor of geography Jo Sharp were inspired by the festival theme, We Need New Stories. So inspired, in fact, that they turned to a loveable rogues gallery of Scottish cultural folk to submit a piece of writing about their dreams for a better future. Edited by McDermid and Sharp, Imagine A Country is the fascinating, eclectic and often inspiring result. In this event, recorded live at the 2020 Book...

How do you get the upper hand on a world you don’t yet understand? That’s the burning question at the heart of two striking debuts that scrape away the coming-of-age clichés, breathing through the aches and pains of growing up. With echoes of early Baldwin, Paul Mendez’s Rainbow Milk, one of the Observer’s top 10 debuts of 2020, mines the author’s upbringing as a lapsed Jehovah's Witness and, later, sex worker, to tell an intergenerational story of two men stalled at an impossible...

Since 2010, the award-winning blog MsAfropolitan has connected feminism with critical reflections on contemporary culture from an Africa-centred perspective. Its founder is Nigerian-Finnish writer and lecturer Minna Salami, a powerhouse of feminist thinking and organising whose first book of essays is Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone. Salami joins our event alongside writer and activist Lola Olufemi, author of Feminism, Interrupted. Olufemi is an organiser with...

In May 2019, Jokha Alharthi became the first Arabic language writer to win the Man Booker International Prize for her searing novel Celestial Bodies. She also became the first female Omani novelist to be translated into English thanks to Marilyn Booth, with whom she shares the prize. Alharthi joins the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2019 to discuss her path to success as well this work of incredible depth, which follows the lives of three sisters in the village of al-Awafi through...

Warnings of looming environmental catastrophe rain down on us with increasing frequency, and only the most ardent climate change sceptics deny we live at a crucial point for the Earth's future. Join sustainability expert Mike Berners-Lee in a live conversation with WWF’s Tanya Steele at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019, as he cuts through the noise with practical advice on how we can avoid calamity, drawn from his book There is No Planet B, a ‘Handbook for the Make or Break Years’.

In a pair of moving memoirs, Guyana-born Canadian writer Tessa McWatt and Zeba Talkhani, who was raised in Saudi Arabia, explore themes of race, feminism, heritage and belonging. McWatt’s Shame On Me is a journey through the multiple threads of her identity. In My Past Is a Foreign Country, Talkhani charts her experiences as a British Muslim feminist with nuance and generosity. They come together at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 to share their stories in an event chaired by...

While the realities of climate change are not always visible, the realisation that our grandchildren will live in troubled times can catalyse action. After becoming a grandmother, former Irish president and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson travelled the world to learn about the fight back. In her book Climate Justice, she describes the people working to overcome the threat. In a live event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 she shares her hopeful account in...

Whenever the latest dieting fad comes along, those promoting new theories are well fed on the proceeds, while many people trying to shed pounds are left wondering why nothing seems to work. Meet Giles Yeo, geneticist and presenter on BBC’s Trust Me, I’m a Doctor, who has spent 20 years researching the brain’s relationship to food intake. In his book Gene Eating, he describes his work and why he’s determined to break this cycle. Hear all about it in this live recording from the Edinburgh...

‘Heartbreaking stories of heroism’ set against a backdrop of ‘political cynicism and scientific ignorance'. That’s how judges described the winner of 2018's Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction – Serhii Plokhy’s Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy. The Harvard history professor and expert on the 1986 nuclear disaster presents a specially commissioned paper linking Chernobyl to the demise of the Soviet Union. Hear him shed light on the incredible book in a live event at the Edinburgh...

‘It’s official. We’ve fallen (back) in love with poetry’ the Metro declared earlier this year, reporting a 12% increase in poetry book sales in 2018. Underpinning the boom are bold new voices exploring issues from politics to mental health on page, stage and social media. Three of the most exciting new talents – Charly Cox, Theresa Lola and Tayi Tibble – perform from their well-received debut collections at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 in an event chaired by fellow poet...

Meet two British writers of cleverly conceived and suspenseful stories, Louise Doughty and Stuart Turton, who come together to talk about their new novels at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019. The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle, Turton’s 2018 Costa First Novel Award-winning debut, sees its central character killed afresh daily until her would-be saviour tries to solve the riddle. Doughty, author of the hugely successful Apple Tree Yard, talks about Platform Seven, which has...

The modern world can make us feel like the walls are closing in, but a vanguard of writers are here to help us cope – and none more so than Matt Haig. After the storming success of Reasons to Stay Alive comes Notes on a Nervous Planet, a wise and witty guide to kicking the habits around everything from sleep to social media to work that are making us less happy. Enjoy an hour of conversation at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 that will soothe your 21st century anxieties....

Meet two authors chronicling the off-kilter experiences of upbeat millennials. Candice Carty-Williams’s novel Queenie sees a Jamaican British woman search for identity. Jojo Moyes called it ‘brilliant, timely, funny, heartbreaking’. Annaleese Jochems’s classy debut Baby made waves back home: fellow New Zealander Eleanor Catton called it ‘sultry, sinister, hilarious and demented’. Their lively conversation at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 is chaired by Sasha de Buyl-Pisco.

It’s clear that antisemitism remains a problem for British society. But recent headlines have brought more confusion than clarity in debates about the definition of what is understood by the word ‘antisemitic’. Westminster peer and West London Synagogue’s Senior Rabbi Julia Neuberger makes a vital intervention with her book Antisemitism, a succinct study of where it comes from and what it is now. She shares her expertise in a lively conversation with Richard Holloway at the Edinburgh...

Joint winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, Venki Ramakrishnan’s work has gone past the whys and wherefores of DNA and on to the ribosome, the structure which helps decode our genetic make-up. In a live event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 the President of The Royal Society and Gene Machine author shares stories about his first uncertain experiments and making genuine scientific breakthroughs. An enlightening hour of conversation with Steve Brusatte.

The vile practice of upskirting wasn’t an offence in Britain until activist Gina Martin came along. With no legal or political background, Martin changed the law within 18 months. Now, she wants to help others do the same. Be the Change is a campaigning handbook written to advise and empower. Listen to an inspiring force of nature live at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 in conversation with Heather Parry and learn how to follow in her footsteps.

The Booker Prize-winning Australian author of Schindler’s Ark, Thomas Keneally comes to the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 having woven another masterpiece in The Book of Science and Antiquities. Ancient human remains are found in Western Australia, causing controversy: was the man Aboriginal, or does he signify an even older culture? Documentary maker Shelby investigates, sure that ‘Learned Man’ connects the planet’s earliest inhabitants with our troubled environmental future....

One of Britain's best loved poets, Lemn Sissay is a performer of rare passion. But growing up with foster families and in care homes, Sissay struggled with his identity. The discovery of his birth name and Ethiopian background is the catalyst for reflection in his memoir My Name is Why. At the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 he meditates on home and identity as he discusses his insightful book with Jenny Lindsay, exuding the creative energy that's made him a literary phenomenon.

Spend an hour with master of suspense Stuart MacBride as he introduces his latest dark, thrilling novel at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 in conversation with Lee Randall. With the nation at boiling point, someone’s sending messages in blood. Inspector Logan Macrae is back after a year off, but there’s no rest when a high-profile anti-Independence campaigner disappears amid growing tensions between those fighting for Scotland’s future. Can Logan survive in the cauldron of...

We all occasionally do things that are racist, yet often fail to recognise them. Ibram X Kendi is a founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center in Washington DC. How To Be an Antiracist is his extraordinary, inspiring guidebook which helps build a vital new understanding of racism – and how to work against it. As part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 this superb teacher and storyteller talks to educator and activist DeRay Mckesson, a key figure in the Black...

The publishing world is finally waking up to the barriers that have prevented working class voices from being heard in books. Kit de Waal grew up in Birmingham’s Irish community and she has successfully broken into the mainstream with two highly acclaimed novels. At the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 she talks to Damian Barr about Common People, her book of essays by working class writers, featuring coruscating pieces by authors including Barr himself.

To celebrate Tim Winton’s first visit to the Edinburgh International Book Festival since 1993, he looks back over an oeuvre that includes classics such as Dirt Music, Cloudstreet and Breath, live in conversation with John Williams, Daily Books editor and writer for The New York Times. Plus, hear them examine his latest masterful work The Shepherd’s Hut in which a lonely boy attempts to cross the vast saltland deserts of Western Australia.

Returning to our roots can be tough, revealing and, as Tracey Thorn discovers in Another Planet, inspiring. The singer-songwriter behind Everything But The Girl follows up her bestselling Bedsit Disco Queen with a wonderfully witty walk through the maligned suburbia of her youth. In this event recorded live at the 2019 Edinburgh International Book Festival, Thorn shares hilarious recollections of the physical and emotional cul-de-sacs of her Green Belt upbringing and its lasting impact.