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 ReviewsStone Soup by Paula Rego and Cas Willing
Uncountable variations already exist of this tale of supposed Portuguese origins, with popular retellings coming from China and Ireland and ‘Nail Soup&... Read more »| 24 Nov 2014 -
News
2014 Saltire Literary Awards handed out in Edinburgh
The Saltire Literary Awards for 2014 have been awarded at a ceremony in Edinburgh, with an academic work on 18th century urbanisation scooping the £10,... Read more »| 12 Nov 2014 -
FeaturesPulp Fiction: An Interview with Lawrence Block
With Liam Neeson bringing booze beaten ex-cop Matt Scudder to the screen in A Walk Among the Tombstones, we have coffee with bestselling author Lawrence Block in the New York diner which doubles as his fictional series setting, The Flame Read more »| 07 Nov 2014 -
Book Reviews
The Land Agent by J. David Simons
The Land Agent is a story of diaspora. In 1919, a young Polish Jew named Lev flees persecution while an idealistic Scottish woman looks to begin again. Like ... Read more »| 05 Nov 2014 -
Features
The American Nightmare: An interview with James Ellroy
The L.A. Confidential author and 'demon dog of American crime fiction' discusses his new book Perfidia, alongside kilts, addictions, Beethoven, and exactly why James Franco will not be adapting his work for the big screen. Read more »| 04 Nov 2014 -
Book ReviewsThis is Scotland: A Country in Words and Pictures by Daniel Gray and Alan McCredie
Photographer Alan McCredie and writer Daniel Gray have merged talents to bring you the travelogue This is Scotland. It’s a flirty glance at a dozen are... Read more »| 03 Nov 2014
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Book ReviewsBy Night the Mountain Burns by Juan Tomas Ávila Laurel
This reads a bit like a short story cycle. An episode swells and lapses, another swells in turn. By Night the Mountain Burns is told orally, through some lit... Read more »| 31 Oct 2014 -
Book ReviewsPerfidia by James Ellroy
Corruption, racism, murder, misogyny: Perfidia is a 700 page thrasher of a novel, delivered in Ellroy’s feverish staccato sentences and telegrammatic s... Read more »| 31 Oct 2014 -
Book Reviews
Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor
Nnedi Okorafor has previously suggested that Nigerian storytelling requires no separation of the mystical and the mundane, perhaps explaining the potent blen... Read more »| 28 Oct 2014 -
Features
Unto The End: Michel Faber on his last masterpiece
Michel Faber's The Book of Strange New Things is with us. A haunting imagining of love divided by an endless void, completed in the most unbearable personal circumstances and significantly inscribed – I am with you always, even unto the end of the world Read more »| 27 Oct 2014 -
Book Reviews
The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
Michel Faber’s latest and, according to the author, last novel – following Under the Skin, which was recently adapted into a celebrated film star... Read more »| 24 Oct 2014 -
News
Book Week Scotland programme unveiled
The Scottish Book Trust has unveiled the programme for this year’s Book Week Scotland, which takes place next month. The programme of events take plac... Read more »| 17 Oct 2014 -
Events
Dundee Literary Festival: An Offering of Strange New Things
The famous city of jute and jam looks at the printed word beyond its famous form of journalism, delivering a literary festival with a broad and ambitious programme - punks, pubs and Picoult. Read more »| 15 Oct 2014 -
Features
Cast Aside: John Updike's posthumous reputation
As John Updike biographer Adam Begley appears at Manchester Literature Festival this month, we consider the posthumous reputation of one of America's best-known writers. It's arguably never been at a lower ebb, but should this be so? Read more »| 07 Oct 2014 -
Features
True Blood: Author’s Fans Bite Back
In what is for her a post-Sookie Stackhouse era, author Charlaine Harris looks past crazed fans and forward to her ongoing Midnight Texas series of novels and the resurrection of Aurora Teagarden for a major new TV series Read more »| 06 Oct 2014