Book Week Scotland 2015!

10.08.2015 by Nicola //

Book Week Scotland is a week-long celebration of books and reading that takes place every November.

This year’s it’s taking place on Monday 23 – Sunday 29 November 2015.

It’s a wonderful week of events covering all types of reading, writing and books with events happening across Scotland. Check out the full programme here.

Meantime, here are some of my personal highlights (aka events I might attend)! As you can probably tell, there were too many things to choose from, so I’ve grouped together some events to help you navigate the programme, too.

A Brew, A Book and a Banter

Glasgow Libraries, various times, FREE

There are a whole host of these events taking place at local libraries, many of them with special guests in attendance – and they’re free! Click through to find out if there’s one at your local library.

Bring and Borrow a Book Bonanza

Glasgow Women’s Library, 2–4pm on Thursday 26 November, FREE

Become a Borrower during Book Week Scotland and you could become GWL’s 3000th borrower and win a prize!

To participate in this event, you just come along and bring along a preloved book gift for us that you think GWL readers might like to add to the lending collection. Tea, cake and fantastic book recommendations will be provided. I’m excited for this one!

The Glasgow Women’s Library is also offering some of their brilliant guided tours, so check those out too.

Electronic Publishing & Writing in the Digital Age

City of Glasgow College, 7pm on Thursday 26 November, FREE

A Q&A panel of writers and publishing professionals who’ll be discussing the implications of the digital marketplace on writing and publishing.

I attended a similar event a couple of years ago and am curious to see how things have changed since then. This year’s panellists include Ed James (bestselling digital novelist), Adrian Searle (Freight Books), Kyle MacRae (Blasted Heath Publishing).

Space and Lit with Michel Faber

Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 7.30pm Saturday 28 November 2015

A reading from Michel Faber along with the modular synths and tape delays of band Found. Music, books, food and drink. Sounds good to me!

Vote for a Quote

As always, Book Week Scotland comes along with an online promotion. This year you can Vote for the Quote You’d Most Like to Share. What will yours be?

Spoken word events

Some particularly fun-sounding ones include Afternoon Tea & Scottish Tales, A Night in the Gutter, and What We Wrote.

Author events

There are loads of events with Scottish authors throughout Book Week, including ones with Janice Galloway, Kirsty Logan, and comic book artist Mark Millar.

Ongoing Book Week events

As well as scheduled events, there’ll be some fun things going on throughout Book Week. I love this one: you can also put the Scottish Book Trust to the test with their drop-in Staff Book Off where a member of the team will chat to you about your bookish tastes and give you some book recommendations.

Your turn! Have any Book Week Scotland events taken your fancy? Let me know in the comments below or tweet me @robotnic.

See you there!

My Autumn TBR

10.07.2015 by Nicola //

I’m an impulsive reader and tend to select which book to read next by mood. This means I don’t usually take a lot of time to plan my reading. But sometimes I make an exception.

As much as I’m irritated by the waxing lyrical that Autumn tends to inspire, it is a great time for reading. We all know why. Over the past couple of years I’ve come to embrace the seasonal read, too.

With all that in mind, I wanted to share some of my upcoming seasonal reads. Some are buddy reads, and others are books that I think will just be most fun to read during the Autumn (or Fall) months.

Fancy checking them out in my latest video?

Autumn TBR

September Reads | 52 Books 2015

10.06.2015 by Nicola //

53. The Dumb House by John Burnside
★★★★★ – A creepy, educated, sinister unreliable narrator and a twisted set of events give me so much to mull over here. The prose is delectable, the story unravels in sick and horrifying ways, and yet it’s an absolutely compulsive read. Highly recommended (if you like that sort of thing).

54. The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma
★★★★★ – Let’s just say: The Dumb House was a tough act to follow. This Cain and Abel story has a lot of heart, and I loved spending time with the characters. It gets off to a slow start, though, and I found my interest waned between dramatic turns. Pretty good, but not outstanding for me.

55. The Bind by William Goldsmith
★★★★★ – A gorgeous watercolour and ink graphic novel. The artwork is stunning and the story is a family drama about book-binders that manages to balance earnestness and drama with wry wit. I gave this 5 stars because I don’t know what else I could want from a graphic novel – except maybe for it to be longer.

56. Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
★★★★★ – This book is quite experimental, and some types of writing worked well while others left me a little cold. Rankine lays out situations in a second person narrative, largely extolling microagressions, and I found them to be really well-written and hard-hitting. On the other end of the spectrum, the edited TV scripts didn’t form in my mind, and I’d rather have seen them visually. Either way it’s a really important book for our time, and I’d urge you to give it a go.

57. Jellyfish by Janice Galloway
★★★★★ – Probably one of the most viscerally engaging short story collections I’ve ever read. Galloway covers family, relationships, and life in its quiet moments with an incredible and unique observation.

58. Morvern Callar by Alan Warner
★★★★★ – Readers will either love or hate spending over 200 pages in Morvern’s mind. I found her difficult to get along with at first, but ultimately utterly engrossing. A distinctive voice, a haunting subject and an excellently observed slice of life.

59. My Dear Bessie by Chris Barker / Simon Garfield
★★★★★ – I’ve been reading this very gradually over the course of almost a year. It’s very sweet and warm with some great gems, and the family afterwords are lovely too. It could definitely have been edited down more, though, and there’s far less Bessie than billed. I imagine this one would be a better experience on audio.

60. Satin Island by Tom McCarthy
★★★★★ – My Goodreads review got a lot of love. It read simply, “Flashes of brilliance amid interminable shite.” The more I think about this book, the less impressed I am by it. This piece also points out how McCarthy distilled down the entire book into one short article, which she in turn boiled down to a few key paragraphs. It’s less death of the author, more death of the character – and how dull he is. While there are some glimmers of great ideas, overall this book is utterly tiresome.

61. Sidewalks by Valeria Luiselli
★★★★★ – A wonderful essay collection that I can’t describe as well as I’d like. She’s concerned with maps, travel, and movement around cities with a healthy dose of voyeurism. If we share a taste in non-fiction, you really ought to read this.

62. The Guilty by Juan Villoro
★★★★★ – 3 nudging towards 3.5. I love Villoro’s style of writing, His descriptions and phrasings. I short story paints characters in surprising detail – but I Could not quite get to grips With them Because they were so concerned With almost celebrating and preserving masculinity. There’s more to this in hindsight, but in the reading I struggled to spend time with His Men. It’s a good collection, and an antidote to a lot of ubiquitous American thinking, but something fell short for me.

63. Barbara The Slut and Other People by Lauren Holmes
★★★★★ – A fantastic wee collection focusing on, but not pandering to, twenty-something life. I loved the characters, the incidental nature of their troubles, the unapologetic approach to their flaws and uncertainties. Holmes does a great job of making the mundane engaging and putting the reader into the mindset of the character. Highly recommended.

Your turn: read anything good this month?