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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Book Reviews
A.L.I.E.E.E.N. - Lewis Trondheim
If I accept 'A.L.I.E.E.E.N.'s central conceit - that it is an alien comic book, discovered in a crater in the American Catskills - then the first observation... Read more »| 13 Sep 2006 -
Book Reviews
Clear Water - Will Ashon
Ashon's confident, tragicomic prose never falters Read more »| 13 Sep 2006 -
Book Reviews
Sarah Waters [SKINNYFest 4]
Lesbian historical novels: tits without the tat. Read more »| 14 Aug 2006 -
Features
The Dangerous Words of Ngugi Wa Thiong'o [SKINNYFest 4]
A dictator fears people who think for themselves. So when you get the ordinary, working people no longer singing about the leader but singing about themselves - what they have done in history, what they can do; what they have done before, what they can do again àthat kind of awareness can make a dictator nervous. Read more »| 14 Aug 2006 -
Features
Pure Dead Brilliant, By The Way [SKINNYFEST 3] [PRINT VERSION]
I was this zonked-out hippie trying to write poetry and figure out what was going on in the universe. This guy's out there starting the revolution and making a million pounds and losing it and making another million pounds. Read more »| 14 Aug 2006 -
Book Reviews
Sam Leith and Hufo Rifkind [SKINNYFest 4]
They appear far more comfortable as journalists than novelists: their awkward readings do not suggest that their prose is suited to extended descriptions. Read more »| 14 Aug 2006
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Book Reviews
John Mortimer SKINNYFEST4
It is a measure of the extraordinary affection that John Mortimer evokes that not only was this event sold out, the queue to get in stretched all around the ... Read more »| 14 Aug 2006 -
Book Reviews
Doris Lessing [SKINNYFest 4]
It was the questions from audience members about her rich back catalogue that were really engrossing. Read more »| 14 Aug 2006 -
Book Reviews
My Father's Notebook - Kader Abdolah [SKINNYFest 3]
Kader Abdolah weaves Sufi myths, political intrigue and biography into a charming meditation on the relationship between father and son Read more »| 14 Aug 2006 -
Features
District and Circle - Seamus Heaney [SKINNYFest 4]
Seamus Heaney exposes the immense fragility of our daily existence Read more »| 14 Aug 2006 -
Features
Heir to Gormenghast [SKINNYFest 1
SF: Sebastian Peake talks about his father's life and work
PQ: Sixty years since Titus Groan was first published, Mervyn Peake remains one of the most original and underappreciated writers and artists of the 20th Century. Read more »| 14 Aug 2006 -
Book Reviews
Overexposure - Hugo Rifkind [SKINNYFest 1]
The frothy tone undermines serious intent. Read more »| 14 Aug 2006 -
Features
Heir to Gormenghast [SKINNYFest Issue 2]
SF: Sebastian Peake talks about his father's life and work
PQ: Sixty years since Titus Groan was first published, Mervyn Peake remains one of the most original and underappreciated writers and artists of the 20th Century. Read more »| 14 Aug 2006 -
Events
Doris Lessing (skinnyfest)
Still going strong after six decades of creative output. Read more »| 14 Aug 2006 -
Events
Francis Fukuyama (skinnyfest)
One of the most influential and controversial political theorists of our time discusses the failure of American neoconservatism and the war in Iraq. Read more »| 14 Aug 2006