Book Talk

In this edition of Book Talk host Ryan Van Winkle takes us on a literary trip around the world, stopping off in Roman Britain, on the River Nile and in the Middle East.

Charlotte Higgins is the author of Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain. Having travelled around Britain in a campervan, Charlotte talks to Ryan about how the idea of Roman Britain has resonated throughout British culture since the end of Roman rule and what it means to us now.

If you'd like to head out on your own journey of discovery, she gives some suggestions of where to find some of the best Roman remains in Scotland and where you can find out more about the Roman history in Scotland.

We then move to Eqypt to talk to Robert Twigger, author of Red Nile: The Biography of the World's Greatest River. Robert talks about the challenges of writing an autobiography of an inanimate object and, given the phenomenal history of the subject, how to decide what to focus on. Robert tells some of the stories associated with the Nile, including Caliph Al-Hakim’s unconventional approach to keeping his neighbourhood quiet and free of dogs.

Finally, we head to the Middle East to look at two new anthologies of Palestinian and Kurdish/Iraqi contemporary poetry translated into Scots and English. Poet Liz Niven discusses A Bird is Not a Stone, featuring Scots and English translations of Palestinian poetry from some of Scotland’s most acclaimed poets and Iraqi Kurdish poet Awezan Nouri and Scottish poet William Letford discuss This Room is Waiting is an anthology of contemporary poetry from Iraq.

Podcast contents

00:00-01:04 Introduction01:04-11:06 Charlotte Higgins interview 11:06-18:52 Robert Twigger 18:52-22:56 Liz Niven interview 22:56-29:12 Awezan Nouri and William Letford interview

In this edition of Book Talk Scottish author Barry Hutchison and journalist and critic Chitra Ramaswamy join host Sasha de Buyl to talk about The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins, the new novel by Irvine Welsh.

Trainspotting may have been named as the nation’s favourite Scottish novel, but The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins is proving much more divisive, with our Twitter followers calling the novel everything from “brilliant” and “amazing” to “boring” and “utter rubbish”.

The book follows the intertwined stories of Lucy Brennan, a personal trainer with her sights set on media stardom and Lena Sorensen, an overweight artist who accidentally catapults Lucy into the spotlight. Unusually for Welsh, the book features a female protagonist – how well has Welsh managed developing a female character?

Listen now to discover what our panel thought about the book. Does the book achieve what it’s trying to say about the extremes of body imagine culture in modern American society? And can Irvine’s natural ability as a storyteller make incredibly an unpleasant protagonist appealing to the reader?

If you’ve read The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins let us know what you thought about the book. Join the discussion by adding a comment below, by sending us a message on Twitter @ScottishBkTrust or on our Facebook page.

In this edition of Book Talk, Ryan Van Winkle speaks to Chris Ware, Dilys Rose and Michael Fry about stories, memories and histories.

Chris Ware is an American graphic novelist whose latest book is Building Stories. The book, which has no beginning or end, is designed to reflect the non-linear way we remember our lives. Chris talks about why he decided to focus the intangible world of memory and how he develops work that can be read in multiple ways.

“It’s like composing music. You have a sense of a feeling you’re trying to get to but the second you start playing a note or hearing the notes that you’re playing you think, ‘oh that doesn’t sound right’ or ‘that sounds better than what I had in mind’.”

Scottish poet and novelist Dilys Rose picks up the thread of memory and its deception. The narrative of her new novel Pelmanism developed from the interconnected and fragmented nature of remembrance. Is there such a thing as a real memory when “once you start remembering, you start inventing as well”? Dilys also reads the homage to RD Laing she wrote for the novel as a creative solution to copyright clearance!

Finally, we finish our tour of the past by speaking to historian Michael Fry. The title of Michael’s newest book A New Race of Men: Scotland 1815-1914 references a contemporary description of Scotland at a time of huge progress.  How did Scotland transform a country and its people?

By looking at the past, Michael identifies how old Scotland connects to a new Scotland, “we don’t have to assume our history has been lost... People in Scotland are too unaware of the facts of their history, how those facts hang together, how they have survived, and how they still influence us in the present day.”

Podcast contents

00:00 – 00:51 Introduction00:55 – 13:05 Chris Ware13:05 – 21:52 Dilys Rose21:52 – 33:00 Michael Fry

In this edition of Book Talk we’re discussing The Humans by adult and young adult novelist Matt Haig. When Professor Andrew Martin solves the Riemann hypothesis, one of the world’s greatest mathematical problems, the inhabitants of planet Vonnadoria panic.

Fearing what warmongering, greedy humans will do with this mathematical knowledge, the Vonnadorians kidnap Martin and replace him with their very own man who fell to earth - an assassin masked in the Professor’s body. Tasked with destroying all evidence of his discovery, including his wife Isobel and son Gulliver, the alien assassin strays from his original mission and attempts to better understand humans.

Host Danny Scott is joined by fellow Earthlings Lynsey Rogers of the Scottish Book Trust and Leith librarian Colm Linnane to discuss the novel. Is Haig able to make the tried-and-tested sci-fi trope of an alien coming to Earth work and make it readable for sci-fi refusers? Can a book that has been as well reviewed as The Humans ever meet the expectations of readers? And what does the book say about what it is to be human in the 21st century?

The Humans was one of the books given away on this year’s World Book Night – if you were lucky enough to receive a copy, let us know! How well do you think the novel worked? Join the discussion by tweeting us @scottishbktrust or commenting on Facebook!

In this edition of Book Talk, host Ryan Van Winkle talks to author Scott Westerfeld about steampunk and zeppelins, discusses the myths of modern Scotland with commentator and academic Gerry Hassan, and looks at how crime and science work together in fiction with Lin Anderson and Doctor Kathy Charles.

Scott Westerfeld, author of the Uglies trilogy, gives an insight into how he researched and created the steampunk World War One setting of Leviathan. Loved by teenagers and military history buffs alike, the book showcases a world that blends accurate military detail with fantastic creations including airships made of whales.  

Scott discusses the benefits of writing for a young adult audience. “Adult readers are very fragile and very easy to alarm and scare off, whereas teenagers are incredibly robust readers who can keep going. If you see a teenager who’d really into a book you could drop a brick on their head and they’ll keep reading!”Gerry Hassan, commentator and academic in Cultural Policy discusses his latest book, Caledonian Dreaming: The Quest for a Different Scotland. Inspired by the work of Fintan O’Toole following the crash in Ireland, the book looks at the myths Hassan argues are inherent in Scottish identity. What are these stories we tell ourselves about modern Scotland and where did they come from?

Finally, Ryan chats to crime writer Lin Anderson, creator of fictional forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod, and forensic psychologist Dr Kathy Charles about how crime and science work together in fiction.  Lin and Kathy discuss the use of psychology to develop strong characters, how to effectively depict the biological differences of psychopaths in fiction and the challenge of ensuring potential scenarios in the novel are scientifically plausible while keeping a novel entertaining. 

Podcast contents

00:00-00:51  Introduction00:52-12:08  Scott Westerfeld interview12:09-22:26  Garry Hassan interview  22:27-32:05  Lin Anderson and Dr Kathy Charles interview

This month, host Paul Gallagher is joined by two Scottish writers, Kirsty Logan and Gavin Inglis to discuss Tenth of December, the new collection of short stories from George Saunders. 

Saunders has received many awards and accolades for his short story writing, most recently  the inaugural Folio Prize, yet he is far from a household name. Tenth of December is a dark collection of stories with a sci-fi feel that explores a near-dystopian American society and the lives of those living in it. But did it divide our panel as much as it divided reviewers, whose opinions ranged from “the best book you'll read this year” to “rather insubstantial”?

Listen now to find out what our panel thought about this collection, and whether short stories can ever match the literary experience of a novel.

In this edition of Book Talk, host Ryan Van Winkle interviews bestselling American author George Saunders and Scottish crime writers Alex Gray and Doug Johnstone.

Tenth of December, the sci-fi infused short-story collection by George Saunders was recently awarded the inaugural Folio Prize. George reads ‘Sticks’, a story from the collection and talks to Ryan about having the freedom to focus on writing fiction, how he applies lessons from his career as a scientist to develop his characters and how he has learnt to write about family without drifting into sentimentality: “The trick is to try to be honest and say ‘at this moment in the story, what’s the most truthful, bighearted thing to do?’”

The latest novel from Doug Johnstone, The Dead Beat, is a thriller set in an Edinburgh newspaper. As Martha, a journalism student, begins an internship on the newspaper obituaries desk, she takes a call from an ex-employee of the newspaper who appears to commit suicide. This chilling echo of Martha’s own life forces her to unravel the mysteries of her parents’ past. Music and gigs feature heavily in the book, and Doug discusses the future of journalism and music, during a time of increasing uncertainty for both industries.

Finally, we catch up with Alex Gray, whose book The Bird That Did Not Sing, the 11th in the Lorimer series, has just been released. Set in Glasgow at the start of the 2014 Commonwealth Games, Gray describes the novel as “my most ambitious book to date”. The book deals with themes including people trafficking and terrorism, and Alex discusses the inspiration behind the book and her experiences of writing such a complex novel.

Conceived by filmmaker J.J. Abrams and written by novelist Doug Dorst, S has been hailed as a brand new reading experience, but does it live up to the hype? Joining host Sasha deBuyl are Nicola Balkind, freelance writer and books blogger and Iain Morrison, Enterprise Manager at Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery.

S is an ambitious and complex work with multiple strands fighting for the reader’s attention. The core text, Ship of Theseus, is the final work of fictional author V. M. Straka, presented with footnotes from the translator. Additionally, a multi-coloured sprawl of notes in the margins reveals an unfolding relationship between two readers as they try to decipher the mysteries of the book and its author. A feast for the senses, S comes stuffed with with paraphernalia, including maps, letters, photocopied articles and a code wheel, making it a truly tactile experience.

The book is certainly beautiful, but does the story meet the high standards set by the design? Is the intrigue created by S enough to keep readers hooked, or is the challenge of the book’s structure too much? Have a listen and find out what our panel thought, and join in the discussion in the comments or by tweeting us @scottishbktrust or leaving a message on our Facebook page.

In this edition of the Book Talk podcast Ryan Van Winkle interviews Kirsty Logan about her debut collection of short stories, discusses parkour with novelist and poet Tim Sinclair and imagines the Scotland of the future with sci-fi author Ken MacLeod.

The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales is the debut short story collection from former New Writers Award recipient Kirsty Logan. Written over the course of five years, the stories are set in locations as diverse as 1920s New Orleans, the Australian Outback and Paris.

Kirsty reads her moving short story The Light Eater and discusses how writing helped her to process difficult emotions.

Australian novelist and poet Tim Sinclair talks about his latest young adult novel, Run. Written in concrete poetry, where words function both linguistically and visually, the book explores the world of parkour, where participants “move through the urban environment in a way that doesn’t allow for boundaries”. But when ego gets involved, trouble quickly follows.

Finally, acclaimed sci-fi writer Ken MacLeod discusses his new book about “flying saucers, hidden races and Antonio Gramsci’s theory of passive revolution”. Descent follows the teens and twenties of an ordinary Greenock man whose bad behaviour is blamed on a possible alien encounter.

Moving from science fiction to science fact, Ken also explains his involvement with Hope Beyond Hype, a comic book he wrote in collaboration with OptiStem, an EU-funded stem cell research project. It was downloaded over 100 000 in times in the first few days following release - listen now to discover how the book was developed.

Podcast contents

00:00-00:53 Introduction

00:53-09:20 Kirsty Logan interview

09:20-16:30 Tim Sinclair Interview

16:30-30.00 Ken MacLeod interview

This month, Book Talk cranks up the heat and settles in for a chat about Michel Faber's creepy sci-fi-meets-horror debut, Under the Skin, soon to be released as a film starring Scarlett Johansson. Joining host Danny Scott are Sarah Stewart, a senior editor at Floris Books, founder of the Lighthouse Children's Literary Consultancy and soon-to-be-published children's author; and Doug Johnstone, novelist, journalist, musician and co-founder of Scotland Writers FC.

Under the Skin tells the unsettling story of Isserley, an alien sent to earth to harvest male hitchikers for an intergalactic corporation, which fattens them up and turns them into food. The macabre story is a dark satire on intensive farming, big business and environmental decay, as well as an examination of such issues as sexual identity and humanity.

Find out how Faber managed to make Isserley a character readers could empahtize with, which parts our panel found most disturbing and whether they'd recommend the novel to a friend in this spine-tingling podcast.

BookTalk is produced by Colin Fraser of Culture Laser Productions.