Grab yourself a red hot ticket

August is upon us and there’s just 7 days to go before we open so we've created a hand-picked selection of some of the hottest names in publishing – all coming to the Book Festival and all with tickets still available…

(listed in event date order)

Roddy Doyle presents his follow up to The Commitments.
Sat 10 Aug at 8pm, £10 (£8)

George Monbiot gets back to nature with Feral.
Sun 11 Aug, 3pm at 8pm, £10 (£8)

Former Design Museum director AliceRawsthorn offers a life affirming exploration of design as an agent for change.
Sun 11 Aug at 8:30pm, 8pm, £10 (£8)

Much-loved novelist A L Kennedy describes the courage and the crises behind the writing process.
Mon 12 Aug at 11:30am, £10 (£8)

Master Irish writer John Banville returns with his latest novel, Ancient Light.
Mon 12 Aug at 1:30pm, £10 (£8)

Scottish crime writing legend ValMcDermid presents her brand new thriller, Cross and Burn. Mon 12 Aug at 8pm, £10 (£8)

Statistician and political forecaster Nate Silver reveals the art and science of prediction.
Tue 13 Aug at 10, £10 (£8)

Famed neuroscientist Baroness SusanGreenfield shares the story of her remarkable career with Kirsty Wark.
Tue 13 Aug at 6:30pm, £10 (£8)

Joe Sacco casts a light on the power of comic journalism to grasp at the truth.
Tue 13 Aug at 8.30pm, £10 (£8)

Award-winning novelist Jane Gardam presents the final instalment of her bestselling ‘Old Filth’ trilogy.
Wed 14 Aug at 11:30am, £10 (£8)

The popular foodie duo TheFabulous Baker Brothers come to town.
Thu 15 Aug at 3:30pm, £10 (£8)

William McIlvanney presents the gorgeous new editions of Laidlaw, Strange Loyalties and The Papers of Tony Veitch.
Fri 16 Aug at 3pm £10 (£8)

Andrew Wilson explores the intriguing life of Sylvia Plath before she met Ted Hughes.
Fri 16 Aug at 5pm, £10 (£8)

Stand-up funny man Mark Watson brings a tragicomedy in novel form.
Fri 16 Aug at 9:30pm, £10 (£8)

Scotland’s finest, Ali Smith, displays her non-fiction talents.
Sat 17 Aug at 12pm, £10 (£8)

Former US Poet Laureate Kay Ryan presents her Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry.
Sun 18 Aug at 5pm, £10 (£8)

Liz Lochhead, Scotland’s Makar talks about 30 years of Scottish culture.
Mon 19 Aug at 3pm, £10 (£8)

Daniel Rachel takes a look behind the art of songwriting with Idelwild frontman Roddy Woomble.
Wed 21 Aug at 8:30pm, £10 (£8)

Celebrate 20 brilliant years of DCC Bob Skinner with Quintin Jardine
Thu 22 Aug at 4:30pm, £10 (£8)

Get the inside story on the world’s favourite superheroes with Grant Morrison.
Fri 23 Aug at 8pm, £10 (£8)

Paula Byrne presents her brand new biography of Jane Austen.
Sun 25 Aug at 10:30am, £10 (£8)

Poetry and music straight from the heart of the Egyptian revolution.
Sun 25 Aug at 8:30pm, £10 (£8)

Of course the above is but a selection of the programme, there are many more events besides along with some great children's writers andillustrators - you can find them all on the website, searchable by subject, theme, author, age range.... Enjoy!

Record ticket sales on opening day

After much anticipation, our tickets went on sale on Friday 28 June and we have been thrilled with the response to our 2013 programme. Thousands of people booked by phone, on the website and at our Box Office counter at the Roxburghe Hotel in Edinburgh - in fact we sold more tickets this year on our opening day of sales than we have ever done - proving that literature has Wembley Stadium-sized rock-star status in the hearts and minds of anyone who loves a good read, doesn't mind dipping their toes into the unknown and enjoys being part of a great discussion - whether serious or not.

Competition for tickets was fierce: the first customers in the queue for the Box Office at the Roxburghe Hotel arrived at 3.10am and by the time we opened at 8.30am there were already 286 people waiting.

Our new strand of Reading Workshops across both the adult and children’s programmes has proved popular (although they aren’t all sold out yet so have a look at availability) as have talks featuring Caitlin Moran, Andrew Marr, Robert Peston, Kate Atkinson and Rupert Everett, which all sold out quickly. The Independence Debate with Kirsty Walk, the Celebration of Iain Banks and The Phoenix Comic Workshop in the Stripped programme also sold out.

There are literally hundreds of events which haven’t sold-out though – as you would expect with a programme of over 700 events and 800 authorsso plenty of tickets still available for all sorts of wonderful authors, poets, illustrators and graphic novelists.

Here’s a link which you can use to check what’s sold out:

http://online.edbookfest.co.uk/soldout/

This is an active link which updates automatically so you can use it from now until the end of the Book Festival.

A few tips for browsing online:

Have a look at the themes pages – they are a great guide to broad subject areas and give you a good idea of the shape of the overall programme.  

If you just want to know whether we have any events with a focus on a particular subject, for instance ‘Russia’, ‘birds’ or ‘classic novel’, simply type it into the keyword search box.

And use the drop-down category search menu for finding events on a whole variety of subjects such as music, health, science, education, politics, European Fiction, Free events, debates and so on.

And of course you can always just search for a particular author too by using the Author A-Z.

We hope you enjoy browsing the programme – if you prefer to flick through a paper version of the brochure we’d be happy to send one to you, simply email mailinglist@edbookfest.co.uk.

Or you can browse the digital edition of the brochure on screen instead.

We've launched the 2013 programme!

After months of hard work gathering together hundreds of authors from across the globe and crafting over 700 events, we are thrilled to unveil our 2013 Edinburgh International Book Festival programme. Hopefully some of you will have already have had the chance to look through the literary gems on offer - we hope you enjoy choosing what and who to see.

 

 

This year we celebrate our 30^th birthday, looking back over the past three decades to the year we started in 1983 and forwards thirty years to 2043.

 

Use our website search fields to browse events - you can search by author, subject or theme or by the age of your child if you are looking for children's events.

 

You can also view events by looking at the brochure: download a PDF file of the brochure.

 

Or if you'd like us to post you a copy, email your name and address to mailinglist@edbookfest.co.uk with the subject line 'brochure request'.

 

Our Director Nick Barley and Children's Programme Director Janet Smyth pose for the press at the launch of the Edinburgh International Book Festival's 2013 programme.

Transporting the big 30 from the Signet Library in Parliament Square,Edinburgh back to our office on the other side of town.

 

Down the Mound and past the Galleries...

Finally reaching Charlotte Square Gardens a bit puffed, a little bruised but generally intact.

Safely tucked into a corner of our office - waiting for August.