EIBF - Sunday 21st August

A L Kennedy may have regenerated herself in recent years as a stand-up comedian of some note, but there are few things more exciting for her army of fans than the impending news of another publication. It is with great pleasure that we play host to the launch of The Blue Book, her first novel since 2007. Described as 'a fiction which may not always be lying' the novel seems to be a love story involving a fake medium. Both the story and its characters drift constantly between truth and deception.

Like most men in their early 30s, Lazarus has plans that don't involve dying. Then he falls ill. His sisters think Jesus can help, but given the history of their friendship, Lazarus disagrees, and he soon discovers that returning from the dead isn't easy. Beard's thrillingly inventive novel, Lazarus is Dead, has a perfect Festival partner in Niven's The Second Coming, in which God shows up on Earth in 2011 and is not best pleased with the scene he surveys.

This month Tom Devine launches the third and final volume of his acclaimed trilogy on modern Scottish history (after the bestselling The Scottish Nation and Scotland's Empire), entitled To the Ends of the Earth. In this event, the man widely acknowledged as his country's leading historian explores some of the themes considered in his new epic study of the global migrations of the Scottish people since the 18th century. Chaired by Sheena McDonald.