A Feast of a Fest

My first Edinburgh International Book Festival was in 1988 - it was one of the first times I'd ever been to the capital, and I was only there because I'd won a competition I barely remember entering – though I still have the copy of Treasure Island I won. These days they don't even have to bribe me to go, since they consistently put on a vast number of hugely interesting author events - so many that it's a task to even touch upon the highlights.

What follows is, therefore, a highly personal selection – there really is something for everybody, and please do explore the programme for yourself - so I'll put most of the big names aside for a second and begin with Robert Louis Stevenson. Obviously he's not at the festival, but his legacy proved popular this year when writer Alan Grant and artist Cam Kennedy adapted Kidnapped into a graphic novel as part of the 'One Book - One Edinburgh' campaign. Grant and Kennedy will be appearing on 16 August to discuss this adaptation. Kennedy follows this with an artist's Masterclass on 17th and on the same day Grant will be taking part in a discussion on the graphic novel form with Ian Rankin and Denise Mina.

Scottish writers will also be well represented at the event celebrating the words and music CD Ballads of the Book. Alan Bissett, Rodge Glass, AL Kennedy, Ali Smith and Louis Welsh will all be present, and have their own events scheduled too. Other big names are James Kelman, whose early work is being re-released, Alan Warner, and the ever popular Iain Banks and Christopher Brookmyre.

Some big names attending from what I'm going to call 'other lands' will not be attending at all. There's been a good deal of publicity about the appearance of literary heavyweights Norman Mailer and Alice Munro via videolink, but even more fascinating is that they'll be signing books via 'the LongPen'. This is the invention of the author Margaret Atwood, who will be chairing the discussion with Alice Munro, and it's basically a way of duplicating hand movements at the other side of a modem – the signatures are said to be so accurate as to be legally binding. It'll be fascinating to see how well this works. It certainly shows up William 'Neuromancer' Gibson, who invented the term 'cyberspace' but who, being present in Edinburgh, will be signing with his own hand. Nice to see him anyway.

Who else to see? Well, Alan Bennett will be making a rare appearance, as will Richard Ford, of The Sportswriter fame. Ian McEwan, author of The Cement Garden, Atonement, and lately On Chesil Beach, will be there. But the hottest tickets could possibly be for Richard Dawkins, discussing The God Delusion. My favourite events are often of that sort – a great author on a favoured topic – and so Sven Lindqvist should be great on Australian history, and so should John Pilger on human rights, Clive James on culture, Xinran Xue on China, Germaine Greer on Ann Hathaway (Shakespeare's wife, not the actress), Anthony Holden on Poker, George Monbiot on the Environment, Deborah J Miller on fantasy writing, John Ronson on modern life, and the dark horse that is Tim Harford - a man who manages to make economics interesting.

I've barely grazed the highlights, and I've run out of space. See you there, then?