The Skinny The Skinny
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Books, Features

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Edinburgh poet Ali Maloney drops another apocalyptic verse

Allergic To Poetry?

Books :: Feature 06 Nov 2008

Ryan Van Winkle: The man was eating a ham sandwich when I offered him a poem. “No thanks,” he said, “I'm allergic.” He wiped a bit of pickle from the crack of his mouth and continued his chew. “You're allergic to poetry?” I puzzle...

Hardeep Singh Kholi - reckon you've lived enough to impress this man? Aye, probably.

Ever Had a Day Like These?

Books :: Feature 02 Oct 2008

Keir Hind: Here’s one from the department of phenomenally good ideas: The Scottish Book Trust and BBC Scotland have teamed up for a project called ‘Days Like This’, inviting members of the public - yes, that means you and me - to submit a story...

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore: So Many Ways to Sleep Badly

Deviance :: Books :: Feature 26 Sep 2008

Alma Cork: Imagine the scene: you're taking part in a huge Pride march, an occasion where LGBT people can take to the streets, wave their rainbow flags, and celebrate being out and proud - a glorious gathering of gayness. Only, all of a sudden, the march is confr...

I like this film!

Student Life: When comics become movies

Film :: Student Life :: Books :: Feature 10 Sep 2008

Neil D. Walker: Now it’s even easier to apply the cape to your life as Hollywood film studios are currently in feverish cahoots with the major comic houses Marvel and DC to sign up what’s left of their back catalogues of superheroes and legends – rea...

Christopher Brookmyre

A Snowball in Hell...

Books :: Feature 02 Sep 2008

Keir Hind: Christopher Brookmyre’s new book A Snowball in Hell features blackmail, gun battles, magic and the torture of various reality TV stars. All kinds of great stuff. It also sees the return of some familiar characters, namely thief and magician Zal I...

Linn Ullmann

Linn Ullmann: An Island of Her Own

Books :: Feature 25 Aug 2008

Keir Hind: Linn Ullmann has written three previous books, all with a spare prose style that is quietly complex and which masks great depths. Her latest book, A Blessed Child, is a tragic tale of a family on a small Baltic island, Hammarso. There is a father, Isak...

Shane Koyczan

The Skinny Event - Shane Koyczan @ Charlotte Square Gardens, 22 Aug

Books :: Feature 31 Jul 2008

Keir Hind: Grab a ticket quick, because the fantastic Master Poetry Slammer Mr Koyczan was one of the hits of the festival on his last appearance in 2005, so they're in demand. What are his poems like, you say? His poems are varied. He can hold an audience spellb...

Irvine Welsh

The Book Festival of Book Festivals...

Books :: Feature 23 Jul 2008

Keir Hind: The Edinburgh International Book Festival is upon us, and it features the usual massive, yet well-judged, selection of famous names including film stars, poets, news reporters and cult novelists, but mostly just some very fine writers. The really big n...

Mio's Hospital Diary

Mio's Hospital Diary

Books :: Feature 16 Jul 2008

Jack Lynch: In 2002, Mio Matsumoto was an art student in London, with an unrequited crush on a classmate. She decided to write and draw a diary in pictures about this, but soon after she developed tongue cancer. So My Diary became a very different book. I wondered...

Rodge Glass

Rodge Glass: One to Watch

Books :: Feature 29 Jun 2008

Keir Hind: Hope For Newborns is the second book by Rodge Glass, after 2005’s No Fireworks. This was a debut novel which, though never less than a decent read, had a number of excellent passages interspersed throughout, enough to make me want more. Now Gla...

Kenneth Goldsmith

Kenneth Goldsmith on Uncreative Writing

Books :: Heads Up :: Feature 20 Jun 2008

RJ Thomson: Kenneth Goldsmith doesn’t know much about sport. In fact, he tells me 'I know nothing about sport'. So how did he come to be writing an epic tome titled Sports, as part of his ambitiously-titled American Trilogy?(1) The explanation lies in years...

Jackie Kay

The Random Poetry Experiment

Books :: Feature 21 May 2008

Keir Hind: Poetry: it's great. But like music, it comes in many varieties. To explore the form, The Skinny's Books writers were randomly assigned some poetry collections, and asked to try to understand them if nothing else. Here's what happened... Darling by Jac...

Charles Leadbeater

Charles Leadbeater: We Think Therefore We Are

Books :: Heads Up :: Feature 28 Apr 2008

RJ Thomson: Wikipedia gets a bad rep. It is frequently said to be too inaccurate, too amateur, or simply too easy to be a good encyclopaedia. But Charles Leadbeater, the influential author and thinker behind We-Think, a new book on the collaborative potential of t...

Anne Donovan

Being Emily is pure great, but...

Books :: Feature :: Preview 25 Apr 2008

Keir Hind: Anne Donovan has written two previous books, and baith are written in whit ah’d call a ‘pure nifty version’ of the Glaswegian Dialect. Her first wis a short story collection called Hieroglyphics, and the second wis the novel Buddha Da...

Aye Write (2008)

Aye Write! A Most Succesful Festival.

Books :: Feature 01 Apr 2008

Keir Hind: The Third Aye Write! International Book Festival was well run, well attended, and extremely enjoyable. The setting helped - The Mitchell Library is the ideal venue for this event, with its grand Main Hall, smaller rooms for more intimate events, and Th...

Doug Johnstone at Aye Write!

Books :: Feature 06 Mar 2008

Rebecca Isherwood: I quite enjoy having my finger in several different pies at once. Doug Johnstone, who will be appearing at Glasgow's 'Aye Write!' book festival, is not your average pensmith. After gaining a PhD in experimental nuclear physics, he took up a position wi...

The Wondrous World of Junot Diaz

Books :: Feature 05 Feb 2008

Keir Hind: Junot Diaz wrote a very well received book called Drown in 1996. He's taken over ten years to bring out the follow-up novel, but it's out this month, and it's fantastic. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was described by Time magazine as 'an immigra...

Free Books! Or, The Strange Return of Jekyll and Hyde.

Books :: Feature 06 Jan 2008

Keir 'Jekyll and' Hind: This February, Edinburgh's City of Literature scheme will repeat the same nifty trick they pulled last year - the 'One Book, One Edinburgh' reading campaign.This proposed to get as many people in town as possible reading the same book at once – la...

Peanuts: from comic strip to bookshelf

Books :: Feature 07 Dec 2007

Gareth K Vile: From 1950 until the millennium, Peanuts established itself as the longest running, and ultimately most popular, daily comic strip. Declared by The Comics Journal, a magazine more readily associated with underground art, as the second greatest comic of ...

Nobel Intentions

Books :: Feature 07 Nov 2007

Keir Hind: Last month, Doris Lessing became the oldest ever winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, which bothered me slightly because I nearly killed her last year (accidentally) and who'd have gotten it then? But I'll get to that later. Lessing may be the old...

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