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Bookish Soundbites

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Aye Write

I love books, and I really enjoy attending book-related events.

Some events I regularly attend include Aye Write in Glasgow, the Edinburgh International Book Festival, and various book launches.

Over the years, I’ve been recording a lot of these events. Not for any real purpose – either for my own amusement, or for looking back on, or that perhaps they’d become useful eventually. Occasionally I’d put one on Dropbox and send a link to friends so they could listen later. That was about it.

This week, with the same lack of foresight, I began uploading the clips to my SoundCloud account to share with the rest of you. (Legally, anything said publicly at an event like this is public domain, so I assume my personal recordings are too. But if you have any better legal advice, fire away.)

So, here are a couple of highlights to get you started:

Janice Galloway at Aye Write
This event with Janice Galloway took place only a few nights ago, on 29 September. Aye Write takes place in April, but they also host a handful of events throughout the year. This time Freight Books hosted and Galloway discussed her new short story collection, Jellyfish. Honestly it’s one of the odder book events I’ve ever been to – you’ll see what I mean when you reach the Q&A session – but she’s always a fantastic source of insight.
 

Yuri Herrera at Edinburgh International Book Festival
I’ve been remiss in blogging about the Edinburgh Book Festival this year – so here’s a recording of one of my favourite sessions to make up for it. The festival often pairs up authors for events, and I find it’s an excellent way to discover new authors whose work fits your tastes, or a new book that chimes with a recent release that you’ve already read. This year their pairing power was on another level. Herrera’s Signs Preceding the End of the World is one of my favourite books I’ve read this year, and here the festival put him in conversation with Julie Rochester.

Want to hear more? Pay my Soundcloud a visit.

Aye Write: Patrick Ness & Matt Haig

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On Tuesday I was most pleased to attend the wonderfully titled Aye, Write! – Glasgow’s book festival – to see Patrick Ness and Matt Haig at an in-person event.

I was never a fan of authors doubling up for these kinds of events because it seemed to take away time from the author I was there to see – but last summer’s event with Junot Díaz led me to Nathan Englander, and this event – which I attended for Patrick Ness – has introduced me to Matt Haig, so I’m going to have to admit defeat on this one. Turns out these events are actually kind of great.

I haven’t read any of Matt Haig’s books yet, but I’ve spent the past week poring over his brilliant blog on the Book Trust website. His title is ‘online writer in residence’ – which is basically my dream job.

Patrick Ness is the author of the wonderful A Monster Calls (which I reviewed here) and the Chaos Walking trilogy (of which I’ve read the first so far).

Both authors new books out, published by Canongate, and since they’re contemporaries and share a publisher, it seemed pretty natural for them to be teamed up. They each write adult and YA novels, contemporary with a fantastical bent, and neither are enamoured with that distinction. Haig’s concerned with the state of snobbery within literary fiction, while Ness is anti-snark and pro-wonder. It was great to hear about their experiences in writing and publishing, as well as more about their upcoming books.

I’ve uploaded a recording of the whole hour, which you can download (right-click, save-as) or stream (just click) here.

I brought along my copy of The Crane Wife to have it signed, and we were able to pick up an early copy of Haig’s The Humans, which is released next month – so I had that signed too.

I’ve just started The Humans and plan to dig in to The Crane Wife next – so I’ll have reviews of both up soon.

Here’s a link to my latest video. What are you reading this weekend?