In this edition of the Book Talk podcast Ryan Van Winkle interviews bestselling Chocolat author Joanne Harris, biologist and science writer Aarathi Prasad and Dr Karin Kukkonen, an academic specialising in the history of graphic novels. Peaches for Monsieur le Curé is the third in Joanne Harris's series of books about Vianne Rocher, the chocolatier first introduced in her bestseller Chocolat. Joanne talks to Ryan about the challenges of revisiting a familiar character and explains why "if you wa...
Feb 06, 2014•32 min
One of Britain's favourite narrative non-fiction writers is back with a fast-paced, often hilarious look at the events and people that shaped one eventful summer during the Roaring 20's. With his usual wry humour, Bryson details an enormously eventful five month period in the late 1920s when America reached the zenith of Jazz Age exuberance and fully took its place on the world stage. Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St Louis to France and became an instant celebrity (much to his chagrin), Prohibiti...
Jan 22, 2014•23 min
An exciting new year has begun, and, appropriately, we're looking to the future in this, our first edition of Book Talk for 2014! Host Ryan Van Winkle sits down with three very different people to chat about what the future may hold for books and for Scotland. To get things started, literary critic and Man Booker Prize judge Stuart Kelly discusses the most recent Booker winner, Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries and why it should be on everyone's to-read list this year. Find out how considering the...
Jan 07, 2014•36 min
Book Talk is seeing out 2013 with a bang, tackling Eleanor Catton's 800+ page Man Booker Prize Winner, The Luminaries. Sasha de Buyl is joined by Lois Wolfe, head of development at the National Library of Scotland, and literary critic and Man Booker judge Stuart Kelly to discuss Catton's challenging tome. Set in the New Zealand goldfields in the mid-1860s, the story follows Walter Moody, a prospector who hopes to make his fortune but instead stumbles into a complex series of unsolved crimes, inc...
Dec 18, 2013•21 min
What did you get up to during Book Week Scotland? Did you meet some of your favourite authors, try our Literary Personalities app, or grab your copy of Treasures? In this instalment of Book Talk, Ryan Van Winkle takes us on a quick tour of the week, sitting down with two authors and staying up all night at the Fruitmarket Gallery. First up, Ryan meets Glasgow-based author Louise Welsh for a talk about her latest book, A Lovely Way to Burn, the first instalment of the Plague Times Trilogy. Set in...
Dec 04, 2013•36 min
Book Week Scotland 2013 kicks off next week, and in this special edition of Book Talk, host Ryan Van Winkle gives us a preview of just a few of the exciting events to come! Scottish Book Trust's Head of Reader Development, Philippa Cochrane, and Reader Development Administrator, Sasha de Buyl get things started by sharing where you can find out about the events happening near you and which events they're most looking forward to attending. Next, award-winning author Ewan Morrison (whose latest no...
Nov 20, 2013•34 min
Close Your Eyes, Ewan Morrison's award-winning fourth novel, is the subject of our panel's scrutiny in this month's Book Talk. Moderated by Danny Scott, guests Nick Barley, director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, and cultural critic and New Writers Awardee Lucy Rochester peel away the layers of this onion-like work, searching for the soft centre of this complex book, which tackles a wide range of topics including depression, parenthood, New Age ideals and deep-seated narcissism. T...
Nov 13, 2013•22 min
Journeys - both literal and literary - weave through the latest edition of Book Talk, which sees host Ryan Van Winkle sit down with authors Olivia Lang, Sarah Hall, Pedro Lenz and translator Donal McLaughlin to talk about their latest projects. Granta Best Young British Novelist Sarah Hall reads a creepy excerpt from her new short story collection, The Beautiful Indifference, and discusses the very human need to fight, and how modern-day living has stripped us of the opportunity to do so. Find o...
Oct 30, 2013•34 min
MaddAddam, Margaret Atwood's highly anticipated conclusion to the 'disturbingly credible' dystopian trilogy begun with Orynx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, has finally arrived and gets the Book Talk treatment this month, at the hands of Paul Gallagher, freelance writer Lee Randall and Book Riot contributor Edd McCracken. Bringing together the parallel stories covered in the first two books, MaddAddam follows a small tribe of survivors of a man-made plague, focusing mainly on former God's G...
Oct 16, 2013•30 min
Joe Sacco's comic-based journalism broke ground in establishing graphic novels as a serious art form, so we were very excited to get the chance to speak to him at this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival. The resulting conversation didn't disappoint, as he gave us his thoughts on reportage ("truth is always just as interesting as any fabrication could be") and the challenges of objectivity ("as a journalist you need to keep some distance; as a human being that is almost impossible"), am...
Sep 25, 2013•39 min
This month, host Sasha de Buyl is joined by Graphic Scotland's Ariadne Cass-Maran and Scottish Book Trust's own Michael Merillo to discuss Neil Gaiman's latest novel for adults, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. But is this book, about a man who looks back on his childhood haunts and adventures and his friendship with a very unusual girl, really meant for adults, or is it a children's book masquerading as something for the older crowd? The question is a surprisingly complex one, as the novel dea...
Sep 11, 2013•21 min
At the end of August, Book Talk packed its bags and made its way over to the white-tented confines of Charlotte Square, for the Edinburgh International Book Festival. While there, we had the chance to have a quick catch up with award winning author and storytelling behemoth, Neil Gaiman. As we only had a few minutes, we chatted a little about Neil’s new book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and then asked him some serious hard hitting questions including ‘Do you have a favourite rodent?’ and ‘...
Aug 30, 2013•14 min
Summer may be winding down but Book Talk is heating up with a lineup of inspiring (and inspired!) authors who join host Ryan Van Winkle to talk about their upcoming books, how they work humour into even the most harrowing stories, their admiration for flawed characters and how jazz wakes up the mind. Genre-defying Helen Fitzgerald gets things started with a discussion of The Cry, her latest novel, which is available on e-readers now and will be released in paperback in September. The Cry, like m...
Aug 28, 2013•31 min
Book Talk host Paul Gallagher is joined by science fiction author Ken MacLeod and editor and literary events organiser Oisin Murphy-Lawless to discuss The Quarry, the final novel from the greatly loved and respected Scottish writer Iain Banks, who sadly passed away in early June this year, just days before The Quarry was published. The Quarry is narrated by Kit, a socially awkward, mildly autistic 18-year-old who lives with and looks after his cancer-stricken father Guy. The story involves a las...
Aug 14, 2013•22 min
Summer is heating up, and we have a sizzling edition of Booktalk to go with the rising temperatures. First up, host Ryan Van Winkle sits down with Ruth Ozeki, whose novel, A Tale for the Time Being, has been longlisted for this year's Booker Prize. The book, about a diary written by a 16-year-old Japanese girl that washes up in British Columbia, inspires a spirited discussion of such wide-ranging subjects as reader-writer relationships, how major world events can impact on a work-in-progress (an...
Jul 31, 2013•39 min
Ghana Must Go, the much-anticipated debut novel of writer, photographer and designer Taiye Selasi, is the subject of this instalment of Book Talk. Host Danny Scott is joined by Ali Bowden, head of Edinburgh City of Literature, and SBT's Writer Development Manager, Will Mackie. Together, they attempt to peer through the clouds of hype surrounding this cross-continental family saga focused on the Sais, a clan of Ghanaian and Nigerian descent that tries to build a new life in Boston. Among the topi...
Jul 17, 2013•24 min
Summer has started, and there's lots to look forward to! Host Ryan Van Winkle takes a few moments to sit down with Irish author Kevin Barry, whose most recent collection of short stories, Dark Lies the Island, was published last year on the heels of his critically lauded novel, The City of Bohane. Barry is as much a poet in speech as he is on the page as he discusses where he finds his inspiration, how he got into writing short stories, how they've improved his writing and what we can expect fro...
Jun 26, 2013•36 min
Guest host Sasha de Buyl is joined by screenwriter, poet and Leith Library's Reader in Residence, Emily Dodd, and Rachel McCrum, performance poet and co-founder of Stewed Rhubarb Press to discuss R J Palacio's bestselling children's novel, Wonder. Wonder tells the story of 10-year-old August Pullman, a boy with a severe facial deformity who faces going to a mainstream school for the first time in his life. The book manages its difficult subject matter with a healthy dose of humour, but does its ...
Jun 12, 2013•21 min
Where do writers find their inspiration? As Ryan Van Winkle discovers in this edition of Bookmarked: pretty much anywhere, and not necessarily where you'd expect. Denise Mina found it in a commonplace object that nobody else wanted, spinning a Treasures tale of surprising emotional depth around a battered tea tin that once belonged to her grandmother. For Damian Barr, author of Maggie and Me, it was in memories so powerful he felt he needed to write the book 'or burst'. For her novel Bear Witnes...
May 22, 2013•30 min
As the new film version hits cinemas, revisit our discussion from May 2012 about the enduring appeal of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel and what makes a book particularly re-readable. In this edition of Book Talk we focus on a classic, which many people would call the classic: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Paul Gallagher is joined by two avowed Gatsby fans - Books critic Keir Hind and Scottish Book Trust’s Head of Programme Sophie Moxon. Later in the podcast the discussion opens out to as...
May 17, 2013•32 min
This month, Paul Gallagher gathers freelance writer and blogger Nicola Balkind and SBT's Head of Reader Development, Philippa Cochrane, to discuss Jonas Jonasson's bestselling novel, The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared. The book, which details the hijinks of a centenarian who escapes from his old people's home, drew mixed reviews from our Twitter followers, with one saying it made them want to go on a romp of their own and another giving up on it entirely. What...
May 08, 2013•20 min
On this edition of Bookmarked Ryan Van Winkle goes in search of essential interviews from the world of books and comes back with two gems - writer Kirsty Gunn talking about the long long process of development and writing of her just-published novel The Big Music, and TV broadcaster and author of A Down to Earth Guide to the Cosmos Mark Thompson (pictured) talking about how he got into astronomy and why it's so fascinating. And nestling between these two interviews is newly-crowned Granta Young ...
Apr 24, 2013•27 min
Paul Gallagher is joined by Peggy Hughes, City of Literature’s Communications Executive and Duncan Wright, Senior School Librarian from Stewart’s Melville College in Edinburgh to discuss and review Boxer Beetle, the acclaimed debut novel from Ned Beauman, a part absurd historical comedy, part present-day mystery-chase story. Following their in-depth discussion of the book Paul interviews Ned Beauman about where he got the inspiration for the many and varied themes and characters in this striking...
Apr 17, 2013•32 min
This month, Paul Gallagher hosts a discussion of Kate Atkinson’s new novel, Life After Life. Joining him are Kirsty Logan, books editor with The List, and Peggy Hughes, communications executive with Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust and member of the League of Extraordinary Booklovers. Together, they delve into a book that trips backwards and forwards through time, reliving the main character’s life (and many deaths) over and over and question whether the novel is a literary dream come t...
Apr 10, 2013•24 min
After a trip to the Middle East last month, Bookmarked host Ryan Van Winkle is back in the UK and ready to talk about crime, poetic inspiration and the extraordinary history of how one London landmark ended up in the Arizona desert. Highlights include: * Crime writer Sophie Hannah discussing her new book, The Carrier, motives that aren't so black-and-white and how success both helps and hinders her writing * A trip to the StAnza poetry festival in St Andrews, where Ryan talks about family and so...
Mar 20, 2013•33 min
Book Talk branches out into both non-fiction and graphic novels with the unconventional biography Dotter of her Father's Eyes. Mary and Bryan Talbot's book follows two life stories: that of Mary, the daughter of a pre-eminent scholar of James Joyce, and of Joyce's own daughter, Lucia. The unique approach to the biographies helped make this the first graphic novel to win the Costa biography award earlier this year. Host Paul Gallagher sits down with Keir Hind, books section editor for The Skinny,...
Mar 06, 2013•19 min
In this episode of Bookmarked Ryan Van Winkle introduces four interviews that take us all over the world: Gavin Francis, author of Empire Antarctica, talks about ice, silence and Emperor Penguins; we visit the Erbil Literature Festival in Kurdistan to hear from young Iraqi writer Sabrin Qadi and her Scottish counterpart Krystelle Bamford; Closer to home, we speak to Glasgow crime author Caro Ramsay about her new book The Blood of Crows, which The Guardian called a "bleak, black and brilliant" re...
Feb 20, 2013•35 min
Following on from the last Book Talk podcast which featured a discussion of James Robertson's hugely accomplished 2010 novel And the Land Lay Still, we were delighted to have the opportunity to hear directly from James about his process of developing and writing the book. He talks about the entire four year process, from initial ideas, to developing characters, to figuring out how to put it all together, and how it felt to finally complete the book.
Feb 07, 2013•8 sec
Described by its blurb as being “epic in every sense”, James Robertson's 2010 novel And the Land Lay Still is an expansive, ambitious and at times breathtaking tome offering a survey of life in Scotland in the second half of the 20th Century. On this edition of Book Talk host Paul Gallagher talks with Duncan Wright, Senior School Librarian from Stewart’s Melville College in Edinburgh, and a member of The League of Extraordinary Booklovers, and Jeanette Harris, Scottish Book Trust’s General Manag...
Jan 30, 2013•23 min
Ryan Van Winkle gets 2013 off to a great start with his third Bookmarked podcast, which has him talking about kids' wild imaginations with author and illustrator John Fardell, discovering the world of football with Rodge Glass and rubbing shoulders with the League of Extraordinary Booklovers. Podcast highlights: Somerset Maugham Award-winning author Rodge Glass talks about sports and his new book, Bring Me the Head of Ryan Giggs John Fardell takes a break from creating a mural at the Mitchell Li...
Jan 23, 2013•35 min
