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 ReviewsThe First Blast to Awaken Women Degenerate by Rachel McCrum
There is a particular thrill at getting your hands on the book of a poet you normally encounter in more impermanent, intangible forms: readings, podcasts, in... Read more »| 01 Aug 2017 -
Book ReviewsSuch Small Hands by Andrés Barba
Children can be so cruel. Easy when there's no perception of consequence. Perhaps that’s why they're a tool horror uses to tap into primal fears: we la... Read more »| 31 Jul 2017 -
Book Reviews
Petite Fleur by Iosi Havilio
In endings, there are perhaps new beginnings. Starting with the explosive end to his job at a fireworks factory, this new novel from Argentina's Iosi Havilio... Read more »| 31 Jul 2017 -
Book ReviewsSo Happy It Hurts by Anneliese Mackintosh
Roping together Ottila McGregor’s struggle to quit alcohol, recover from her father’s death, support her mentally ill sister and form a relations... Read more »| 26 Jul 2017 -
Book ReviewsTin Man by Sarah Winman
It starts with a painting, selected as a prize at a small town raffle, mainly to the disarray of the men shouting for the whisky. A seemingly innocuous event... Read more »| 21 Jul 2017 -
Features
Women in Wartime Literature
A English translation of Svetlana Alexievich’s The Unwomanly Face of War got us thinking about representations of women in wartime Read more »| 14 Jul 2017
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Videos
Watch Neu! Reekie!'s Anywhere But The Cities film
Available online for the first time, watch the travelogue of multi-art noisemakers Neu! Reekie!'s 2015 tour of rural Scotland Read more »| 11 Jul 2017 -
Book Reviews
How Saints Die by Carmen Marcus
Ellie is ten years old. She learns five new words a week and knows that stories can keep you from drowning. She doesn’t know where they have taken her ... Read more »| 07 Jul 2017 -
Features
To Live & Die in LA: Ryan Gattis on new novel Safe
Ryan Gattis's Safe pulls readers once more into the violent slipstream of his LA riots novel All Involved; the author talks safecracking, turf and the interpersonal skills of the LA underworld Read more »| 07 Jul 2017 -
Book ReviewsThe Secret Life by Andrew O'Hagan
How does the internet disrupt our sense of self? Where does human personality and contradiction fit into the big stories of the age – and does it matte... Read more »| 05 Jul 2017 -
Book Reviews
Swimmer Among the Stars by Kanishk Tharoor
Short stories have a tendency to titillate but ultimately disappoint; by their very nature, they seem designed to be unfinished fragments of another world. W... Read more »| 05 Jul 2017 -
Book Reviews
Broken River by J. Robert Lennon
"A small house, in the woods, far from anything fun." When Karl and Eleanor uproot from Brooklyn for a fresh start in upstate New York, their new fixer-upper... Read more »| 04 Jul 2017 -
Festivals
Unbound 2017: Stornoway to India
When virtuoso artists from Indian and Scottish folk traditions combine, the results are rich and rewarding. We speak to musicians Dalbir Singh Rattan and James Yorkston to find what they will bring to two sides of the same night at Unbound Read more »| 04 Jul 2017 -
Festivals
Unbound 2017: A Taste of Babble On
A taste of what you can expect over Unbound's riotous middle weekend, from three performers from the Babble On section of the programme Read more »| 04 Jul 2017 -
Festivals
Unbound 2017: Introducing Fun Lovin' Crime Writers
Six of the UK's top crime writers will try not to kill a tune when they hit the Unbound stage as The Fun Lovin' Crime Writers, so we asked them each to soundtrack murder scenes from their own books Read more »| 04 Jul 2017