Day One: Edinburgh. The book shelves are stuffed with referendum books - What is Britishness? The
Scottish and English Union and Disunion; The
Road to Yes. So many questions? Yet also the fact we are asking them is a good
thing in itself. I hope after the Referendum that both Scotland and the rUK we are still
asking the important questions - challenging and still actively engaged.
I always
feel I have to come back down to earth after the whirlwind that is Edinburgh International Book festival 2014 (EIBF). For two and a half weeks each August
Charlotte Square becomes a haven for book lovers, philosophers, poets,
economists, and very much more. So many
creative and artistically challenging people attend - both on the stage and in
the audience.
I often
think I'd like to photograph those attending also in their low key or laid
back, academic or intellectually inclined creamy linen jackets and casual hats.
This is a cultured crowd!
Some days there
are themes - on one day several strong minded women - Kate Adie, Germaine Greer
and Val McDermid. Other days political or economic figures. There is also a big
children's section to the festival. The signing tent is lined with today's
books and the cafe was full of home baked custard creams, shortbread and
layered cakes and queues waiting for the authors signing. The oddest sight was
when Huraki Murakami came as he didn't wish for any photos and he signed behind
a red curtain.
The
festival offers an informed blend of the old and new where the retro and the
modern sit side by side here - imaginative fantasy with factual history,
romantic poetry and detailed economy, the surreal novel, the researched
biography alongside hard hitting political thought. The festival allows all
voices a platform to be heard and to exchange ideas and aspirations and celebrates
diversity of thought.
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| Irving Finkel |
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| Martin Amos |
In Edinburgh the windy
weather can be often dramatic - one moment brilliant sunshine the next
torrential downpour for an hour. It keeps us alert for sure! I watch the sun on
the elegant Georgian new town with the dark skies beyond.
It is my
last day now. The girl in front of me has a strange blue skull tatoo on her
back. Anything goes. I am both sad and tired too. Sad that's another EIBF and
Edinburgh festival over, as festivals are intense by their very nature and they
need to come to and end. It is also a
time of reflection for me - I have
visited my usual haunts over the festival, and walked the ancient cobbled
streets of my home town memories and I wonder how much the festival effects the
authors that attend.
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| Jim Sillars |
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| Bonnie Greer |
EIBF 2014 BOOKS
Authors that caught my attention
were mostly poets, journalist or
professors
Lesley
Riddoch - Blossom
Tom Devine
- The Scottish Nation
Linda
Colley - Acts of Union and Disunion
Ian Bell -
Time out of Mind (on Bob Dylan)
Kate Adie -
Fighting on the Home Front
Paul
Henderson Scott - Scotland:
A Creative Past, An independent Future
Haruki
Murakami - Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki
A Bird is
not a Stone - Palestinian poets
