Covers to covet

Here at the Book Festival we love books. Of course we do. But it’s not just what’s inside that matters - we think that some book covers are pretty special too. Here is a small selection of some of our favourite covers from books that have featured in the Festival this year.

Just my type

This year we have invited a number of guest bloggers to write about the Book Festival. Today’s post is Toni Freitas who came to see Simon Garfield. Toni is part of the ESRC Genomics Forum Writers team.

 

Do you know what your font choice says about you? Have you ever really thought what people might feel when they read a letter or email that you have typed without considering the font? Do you just use the default setting? Or have you carefully chosen your font?

On Friday 19 August the Edinburgh International Book Festival hosted Simon Garfield, author of Just My Type. You might think a presentation and discussion about fonts would be quite a geeky, specialist talk, but you would be wrong! Fonts influence our lives every day: every email, billboard, newspaper article, junk flier through your mail slot, and wedding invitation you read has used a font that, no matter how subconsciously, evokes an emotional response.

Simon gave a fantastic presentation, giving examples of the stories about fonts that he tells in his book. He even interviewed Sir Paul McCartney. What does Sir Paul have to do with fonts? Just think of that particularly long ‘T’ in the Beatles logo. And did choosing Gotham as THE font for his campaign get Barack Obama elected President? Read Just My Type for the full story.

This event made me really think about how much fonts influence our lives. You may not be able to name more than two or three fonts (Times New Roman, Arial, and Helvetica perhaps) but you will feel something when you see a font. How does this make you feel? For example, Comic Sans may be the most controversial and emotional of all. There are campaigns and documentaries about Comic Sans; many want to ban the font from the world, others think it is the greatest font out there. You can also take someone back in time by using fonts that are iconic of the 1920’s or the 1960’s or a Ye Olde English font.

Many of the world’s biggest brands have logos that don’t have any symbols, but rather an iconic font that is recognised by everyone. Just think Coca-Cola or Disney, or even Gap. I’m sure you can instantly conjure up what these logos/fonts look like. These companies and thousands more know how fonts can make people feel. You may be aware of the furore that Gap encountered when it tried to change its logo in October 2010. ‘Tried’ being the operative word; after only one week, the company ‘listened’ to the public, who resoundingly ridiculed the change, and reverted back to its original logo/font. Many companies have run into outcries due to font choice. The London 2012 Olympics is another one everyone loves to disparage. (It took me two days to figure out that the shapes in the background were supposed to read ‘2012’.)

More things I learned from Simon Garfield: do you know why the phrase ‘the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’ exists? It’s a pangram used by typesetters and font makers to display all the letters of the alphabet. Ironically, thanks to YouTube, there is now actually a video of that very thing happening.

But more than anything, I learned that fonts aren’t to be taken lightly. When writing anything, I certainly don’t want to choose a font that someone may find offensive, or even worse, boring! So do you have a favourite font? Or is that pull-down box at the top of your Word document gathering dust? Go on, you know you want to play around…And if those don’t satisfy your font craving then there are thousands of fonts out there on the internet just waiting to be downloaded.

If you were a font, what font would you be?


As the Events Manager at ESRC Genomics Forum, Toni Freitas is responsible for conferences, exhibitions, seminars, workshops and public lectures. Originally from Washington State, USA, Toni has a Masters in Creative Writing and has had several short stories and poems published.

The best of Asian literature showcased at the Book Festival

On Thursday the Book Festival hosted some of the best writers from Asia including Chinese authors Chan Koonchung and Bi Feiyu, as well as Tabish Khair and Manu Joseph from India. 

During his event in the Writer’s Retreat, Chan Koonchung reflected on the work of creatives in contemporary China, commenting that ‘many writers are able to work within the limits of censorship and produce very good novels’. He went on to describe how many journalists ‘rush the yellow light’ before alerting the red light of the state, particularly in journalism.

The author later answered questions about his novel The Fat Years. Set in China in the year 2013 at a time when one month of official records have gone missing, The Fat Years has not yet been officially published in mainland China, but it has been circulated as a PDF download for the past year or so, causing great interest amongst Chinese intellectuals. The author said that the English translation was 99.9% accurate from the original and praised his translator Michael S Duke for doing such a great job.

The topic of translation was discussed again in the Voices of Asian Literature event, with three authors shortlisted for this year’s Man Asian Literary Prize, including the winner Bi Feiyu. Indian author Manu Joseph, whose novel Serious Men was written in English, joked that ‘I have even been translated into American!’. The three authors discussed the influence of their mother tongues and traditional languages on their writing with chair and co-founder of Jaipur Literary Festival Namita Gokhale. Author of The Thing About Thugs, Tabish Khair described how his writing has been influenced by European literature, ‘especially Russian literature’. All three writers commented on the growing importance of Asian literature and the attention it is receiving through events such as the Man Asian Literary Prize and the Jaipur Literary Festival, which is part of the Word Alliance of literary festivals, along with the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

This weekend the Book Festival will host China’s first winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Gao Xingjian who won the prize for his novel Soul Mountain, and Costa shortlisted writer Aatish Taseer who will be appearing in an event with Libyan novelist Hisham Matar. 

The Museum of Acquired Authors’ Artefacts

If you’ve visited the Book Festival signing tent in the last few days you may have been lucky enough to catch a glimpse of our unique pop-up museum. Only one shelf in size, it was, for a brief time, home to a small but precious collection of author ephemera. Our photographer managed to capture it, before it was gone…

The entire collection - small but perfectly formed

Exhibit A: Sarah Brown's wine glass

Exhibit B: Arlene Phillips's herbal tea

Debate: The future of culture

Our popular debate series looks at familiar things that we often take for granted but which are threatened by change. Our reporter Charlotte sat in on the recent debate exploring culture, and the challenges it faces in the future. 

The participants were:

Robert Levine – Author Free Ride
Sam Leith – Former Literary Editor of the Daily Telegraph
Claire Armitstead – The Guardian’s Literary Editor
Chaired by Stuart Kelly, Literary Editor of Scotland on Sunday

The Chair, Stuart Kelly, opened the debate by declaring that the entire panel agreed that there was a future for culture. 

 

How will creators create?

Kicking off, Robert Levine examined the culture business, its rises and its declines. In the past ten years the music business has been cut by half and film budgets have suffered dramatically especially those of small and medium sized movies. Book budgets also are decreasing as are cable TV and newspapers. Whilst online distribution is growing, it doesn’t pay well and Levine doesn’t believe it ever will.
 

All of these declines won’t kill culture but will change it, says Levine. New emerging forms of culture include blogs and multi-level video games but he cautions against crowd sourcing as the only form of innovation. 

The internet as a cultural medium

When Sam Leith took up the debate baton he announced that the internet is the greatest and most powerful medium for the communication of culture. He also claimed that there is more entertainment and more entertaining entertainment (yep it was a mouth full!) than ever before, citing the example of printed books as objects of beauty which are becoming increasingly valuable and not competing against electronic reading devices.
 

Acknowledging that music was the first industry to experience the negative consequences of the internet, Leith continued by noting that the internet is helping to revive communal TV viewing through Twitter and reality TV shows. Multi-player games are spaces for people to be creative and 3D is the next big thing. The constraints of the 350 page book or the three minute pop song no longer exist and Leith believes that ‘culture will find a way’.

The role of the cultural critic

Claire Armitstead argued that all art is an act of transmission. She said that the critic lies between the reader and the buyer, and that whilst this hasn’t changed, there is a new model emerging. Young people have an expectation to receive culture for free, often downloading music and films for no fee, and many people who download material will then write short critiques on websites such as Rotten Tomatoes.
 

She described a new phenomenon in literary circles called fanfiction. These are websites where avid readers of fiction develop their own storylines for established characters, and fellow fanfic writers comment on the newly created storylines. Armistead believes we are the generation of the self educated, that criticism is art and will never go away. 

 

Questions from the floor

 

The questions from the floor generated some interesting discussion. Regarding the relationship between state funding and the production of art Robert Levine called for wider low-level investment in new artists, to help them grow into success stories. Whilst Claire Armitstead believes that poetry needs targeted funding.
 

One audience member asked if we would ever leave our homes again in search of culture. In response Leith noted that there has been a huge return to public performance citing the recent rise in book festivals and music bands touring.
 

Robert Levine later commented that whilst people can make niche art and get it to an audience through the internet, we may end up losing mass culture reference points in the future. Leith said ‘the internet connects us all, our experience of community is changing’ explaining that although you may not know the names of your neighbours, you may have Skype friends in South Korea who share your interests.
 

To close the debate Stuart Kelly asked the panel – if you could change one thing what would it be? Levine called for investment in creating awareness around the cost of creating culture – that just because something is available for free doesn’t mean that it was free to create. Leith asked for audiences to be more grateful, to enjoy what we have and not lament over what is missing. Whilst, Armitstead called for greater investment in the education of children, because they are the future of culture.
 

Nothing beats a nice cup of tea… and a beautiful surprise gift

Over the past few months a number of mysterious and beautiful paper sculptures crafted from the leaves of books have appeared at various literary locations across Edinburgh.

Today we were astonished to discover not one, but two of these wondrous creations in Charlotte Square Gardens.

One sculpture – a gift for the Book Festival – was found in our signing tent. Shaped like a tea cup and cup cake it bears the truism 'Nothing beats a nice cup of tea (or coffee) and a really great book'.

 

The other masterpiece appeared in our entrance tent and was left there for the lovely folk at Edinburgh City of Literature.

 

There has been much speculation about the origins of these beautiful creations. Despite the fact that the Book Festival was buzzing with people today, nobody witnessed the sculptures being left and so, for now at least, the mystery continues. All we do know is that we’re delighted to be the lucky recipient of such a unique and extraordinary gift.

 

A long lunch, with Simon Hoggart

Simon Hoggart is the Guardian's parliamentary sketchwriter. Last week he came to Edinburgh to talk about his memoir, A Long Lunch, which charts his career observing the daily workings of Westminster. We sent Charlotte along…

Originally Simon Hoggart wanted to call his new book Booze, but his clever wife persuaded him that A Long Lunch might be more apt. Revealing a passion for wine drinking, Simon recounted amusing stories with famous authors and politicians, often making fantastic impressions of his subjects. The audience lapped it up, responding with laughter and cheering woops at the saucier tales.

After university Hoggart became a journalist with the Guardian newspaper in Manchester before moving to their Irish base some years later. Following three years in Ireland he requested relocation to London and, in particular, to the politics department where he is today. Through his work he has met every Prime Minister since Harold Macmillan. 

Delivered with impeccable comic timing, Hoggart spoke of many different amusing incidences, such as the time when prolific poet W H Auden sat in his family kitchen and discussed in detail the greatness of Kenwood mixers with his mother. 

Another anecdote was set at the Westminster press gallery Christmas party, where the children of journalists and from the nearby school were invited and the guest of honour was Margaret Thatcher. There was a young boy crying in the corner. The then Prime Minister asked the child what was wrong, to which the boy replied: ‘They’ve given me blancmange, and I don’t like blancmange.’ to which Thatcher responded: ‘That’s what parties are all about, eating food you don’t like.’.

When questions opened to the floor, Simon revealed that phone hacking is very wide spread, especially in the tabloids. He questioned if the MPs were using it as revenge for the expenses scandal and believes that it could eventually collapse the entire Murdoch empire as we know it. 

Hoggart ended the event with a detailed description of David Cameron’s bald spot, comparing it to a goujon of plaice from Marks and Spencer, much to the amusement of the audience.