Top Picks: Book Festival 2024

Lemn Sissay: Morning Song
EFI Venue T, Sun 11 Aug, 10.30am

In conversation with activist Salena Godden, poet Lemn Sissay explores his dawn inspired poetry collection Let the Light Pour In.

Adania Shibli: Against Forgetting
EFI Courtyard Theatre, Sun 11 Aug, 2.15pm

Adania Shilbi’s novel Minor Detail, set during the 1948 Palestine War, was longlisted for the International Booker prize. She is talking to writer Esa Aldegheri.

Lone Tree
EFI Spiegeltent, Fri 16 Aug, 6pm

Exclusively commissioned for the Book Festival, pianist and composer David Paul Jones sets the work of Scotland's National Poet Kathleen Jamie to music.

Confessions of a Justified Sinner: New Myths
EFI Spiegeltent, Tue 20 Aug, 9pm

Storyteller Kirsty Logan, folk-singer Kirsty Law and harpist Esther Swift draw on folk, feminism and the work of Naomi Klein to revamp James Hogg’s masterpiece on religious fanaticism into the modern era. 

Mona Chalabi: Humanizing Data
EFI Venue T, Fri 23 Aug, 5pm

The Pulitzer Prize-winning data journalist Mona Chalabi is turning her grief for Palestine into a work which raises awareness. She talks to novelist Heather Parry.

The Big Friendship Fandango
EFI Spiegeltent, Fri 23 Aug, 9pm

Are friendships the true love story of our lives? Poet Michael Pedersen hosts an uplifting conversation with musicians Bee Asha & The Band Tees, satirist Blindboy Boatclub, and comedians and writers Greg McHugh and Jack Rooke.