Books
The Skinny book guide – bringing you book reviews, features, events, reviews and author interviews. Find previews and on the ground reporting from festivals of literature and poetry in Scotland and beyond.
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Features
It Started With a Cough: words with Louise Welsh
Serial literary monogamist Louise Welsh is looking more long term with the publication of the second of her Plague Times trilogy. She talks to crime author Russel D. McLean about extending this post-pandemic world Read more »| 02 Jun 2015 -
Features
The Dark Horse: Cantering into the Literary Limelight
After being edited for a period from Hugh MacDiarmid's cottage, boasting Seamus Heaney as a lifetime subscriber, and publishing high calibre contributors including George Mackay Brown, The Dark Horse is a thoroughbred. It's now 20, and its time to party. Read more »| 02 Jun 2015 -
Book Reviews
The Good Dark by Ryan Van Winkle
There are certain buttons a writer can push for any individual reader that initiate a simple, powerful 'yes to this' response and pretty much destroy the pot... Read more »| 01 Jun 2015 -
Book Reviews
Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen
Joshua Cohen has put together something really hefty in Book of Numbers. It’s work, though it’s enthralling work if you can get it. We start with... Read more »| 29 May 2015 -
Book Reviews
In the Enemy Camp by William Wantling
‘Things never became easy’ for William Wantling, wrote Charles Bukowski, and ‘that’s why he continued to write well.’ And remai... Read more »| 29 May 2015 -
Features
Memories of Murder: Aly Sidgwick on Lullaby Girl
Author Aly Sidgwick has created a work of contrasts - existing between Scotland and Scandinavia, literary skills and genre thrills. Here she talks to The Skinny about her debut novel Lullaby Girl. Read more »| 29 May 2015
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Book Reviews
The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan
‘But when he said to her, we are the sea – that made the most perfect kind of sense. She was the sea, and so was everyone else. We all come from ... Read more »| 14 May 2015 -
Events
Rap Lyrical: Word Up! on LightNight
This Friday, as part of LightNight, Liverpool’s Writing on the Wall festival (WoW) invites two artists from different sides of the Atlantic to perform under the stars in a celebration of spoken word. The Skinny talks to Shayshahn MacPherson and Blue Saint Read more »| 12 May 2015 -
News
BBC Scotland launches Poet In Residence search
The Scottish Poetry Library and BBC Scotland have teamed up to search for an upcoming poet to take on a three month paid residency at the BBC. The residency... Read more »| 11 May 2015 -
Book Reviews
Don't Try This at Home by Angela Readman
What if one summer your mum was Elvis? What if you met yourself in the future and you were homeless? What if you were born with the face of a dog, or became ... Read more »| 04 May 2015 -
Events
Culture at Cervantes – May 2015
Your guide to this month's highlights at the Cervantes Institute Read more »| 03 May 2015 -
Book Reviews
The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall
Rachel Caine moves back to Cumbria after a decade spent protecting wolves on an Idaho reservation. Thomas Pennington – an earl – owns lots of the... Read more »| 01 May 2015 -
Features
James Kelman: On Form
As his Lean Third short story collection is polished and republished, James Kelman, our grand master of literary fiction reflects on the craft and slog of experimental writing, class, culture and the high profile controversies surrounding his great works Read more »| 01 May 2015 -
Book Reviews
Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman’s latest publication is a collection of fanciful stories and poems designed to rivet and excite the reader with tales of transdimensional p... Read more »| 01 May 2015 -
Features
Sour Soul: Stuart Cosgrove on Detroit ’67
Stuart Cosgrove on his stunning new book Detroit '67, documenting the most significant 365 days in soul's history, which saw racism and riots rage, and commodified musicians come to tragic ends. Angry parallels to our current times become easily apparent Read more »| 01 May 2015