Wigtown Book Festival 2008
Wigtown
Scotland's National Book Town
The 10th Wigtown Book Festival is launched on Friday 26th September with an anniversary party at the specially constructed Festival Marquee. The party begins a two-week programme of events featuring around 150 authors and performers. We pick out the Scottish highlights from the programme.
Saturday 27th September
10.30am - Billy Kay The Scottish World
From Bangkok to Brazil, Warsaw to Waikiki, Scots have transformed the world to a degree completely out of proportion to their nation’s size.
12noon - Richard Holloway Between the Monster and the Saint
One of Britain’s most original writers and thinkers, the former Bishop of Edinburgh ponders how to withstand the monster’s power and draw closer to the saint’s compassion.
12noon - Aline Templeton Lamb to the Slaughter
Set in Galloway, Aline Templeton’s Marjory Fleming series offers a strikingly authentic portrait of rural life.
12noon - Chris Hannan Missy
Why does the American West continue to inspire writers?
12noon - Glasgow University Creative Writers Read it Here First
Since 1995, Glasgow University’s masters course in creative writing has nurtured a stream of authors including Louise Welsh, Anne Donovan, Rachel Seiffert and Zoë Strachan.
1.30pm - Janice Galloway This Is Not About Me
One of Britain’s finest writers, Janice Galloway temporarily sets aside fiction to describe her Ayrshire childhood during the 1950s and 1960s.
1.30pm - Tom Pow Dear Alice
Tom Pow uses his new collection to explore the imaginative legacy of the 19th-century Crichton lunatic asylum in Dumfries.
3pm - Douglas Dunn with Jane Weir Wigtown Poetry Competiton
Dumfries and Galloway Arts Association and Wigtown Festival Company invite you to join them for a glass of wine to launch Scotland’s pre-eminent poetry competition.
3pm - Bill Paterson Tales from the Back Green
In this warm and witty memoir he evokes that 1950s childhood in Glasgow’s East End.
4.30pm - James Kelman Kieron Smith, Boy
James Kelman’s new novel brilliantly evokes post-war Glasgow and a society undergoing profound change.
4.30pm - Kenneth Cox and Raoul Curtis-Machin Garden Plants for Scotland
The definitive book for anyone wishing to garden in Scotland.
4.30pm - Susan Irvine Muse
When Naomi goes to Paris to style a fashion shoot, she gets more than she bargains for.
6pm - David Robinson In Cold Ink
Stuart Kelly talks to Robinson about his perceptive collection of essays.
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Add to BasketBetween The Monster And The Saint: Reflections On The Human Condition - Hardback -
£14.99
Provocative, wide-ranging and full of wisdom, this book provides a challenging and heart-felt study of the human capacity for good and evil. -
Add to BasketDear Alice: Narratives Of Madness - Hardback -
£12.99
This collection of poetry explores the imaginative legacy of a nineteenth-century lunatic asylum, the Crichton in Dumfries, drawing on the richly-documented history of the site. -
Add to BasketGarden Plants For Scotland - Hardback -
£25.00
In this book, Scottish gardeners will find accurate information and hundreds of plants ideally suited to where they live. -
Add to BasketIn Cold Ink: On The Writers' Tracks - Paperback -
£9.99
Tracing the blurred line between life and literature has taken David Robinson to places as far afield as west Kansas and the edge of the Kalahari. It's also taken him on journeys of discovery into the minds of some of the most gifted writers alive. This collection of essays and interviews is a record of those fascinating encounters. -
Add to BasketKieron Smith, Boy - Hardback -
£18.99
Rejected by his brother and largely ignored by his parents, Kieron Smith finds comfort in the home of his much-loved grandparents. But when his family move to a new housing scheme on the outskirts of the city, a world away from the close community of the tenements, Kieron struggles to find a way to adapt to his new life. -
Add to BasketLamb To The Slaughter - Hardback -
£19.99
A sunny evening, a tranquil garden - and an old man brutally gunned down on his doorstep. When a second victim is killed, DI Fleming will not accept that the crimes are motiveless. -
Add to BasketMissy - Hardback -
£12.99
California, 1862. Dol, an irrepressible young girl, hitches a wagon with a gaggle of friends, headed east for new adventures. But on the road an act of kindness saving a man from suicide invites her own destruction. The man is a murderous pimp, who resents being rescued, and decides to take revenge. Dol has problems aplenty. -
Add to BasketMuse - Hardback -
£14.99
'Muse' is a joyride of a novel. Careering from the world of fashion magazines to drug-taking and promiscuity, its pratagonist, Naomi, is on a collision course with disaster. -
Add to BasketThe Scottish World: A Journey Into The Scottish Diaspora - Paperback -
£9.99
Travelling the world from Bangkok to Brazil, Warsaw to Waikiki, the author found ringing endorsements for the Scottish people and their contribution in every country he has visited. He uncovers remarkable stories of a wealthy merchant community in Gdansk and of national geniuses of Scots descent such as Lermontov in Russia. -
Add to BasketTales From The Back Green - Hardback -
£12.99
Scots actor Bill Paterson was brought up in those halcyon days of post-war Britain when a child could still play happily and safely in his own back green and the streets beyond. In this book, he evokes his boyhood and youth in Glasgow's East End during the 1950s, full of intriguing characters and extraordinary events. -
Add to BasketThis Is Not About Me - Hardback -
£16.99
One of Scotland's greatest contemporary writers turns her focus, in luminous prose, to her Ayrshire childhood in the fifties and sixties.
Friday 26th to Sunday 5th October 2008
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