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60 more incredible events available to watch online!
Exciting news! 60 additional events from our 2025 Festival have been newly released to watch online. This expanded digital collection brings you a diverse range of conversations with some of the world’s leading literary voices – it also takes the total of this year’s events available to watch online to almost 150!
If you missed them this summer, you can now hear Pulitzer Prize-winner Ta-Nehisi Coates in dialogue with historian David Olusoga, novelist Ben Okri exploring heartbreak and renewal, local crime writing duo Ambrose Parry unpacking their latest mystery, culinary icons José Pizarro and Sami Tamimi spilling secrets on food’s cultural importance, Tony Juniper and Friederike Otto discussing climate justice, and Rachel Charlton-Dailey reflecting on 30 years of disability rights activism, among many, many more.
Wherever you are in the world, watch the events back on a Donate What You Can basis.
Explore the full list here
Five event highlights
Click on the image or title to go straight to the on demand event
The Front List: Ta-Nehisi Coates, in conversation with David Olusoga
Ta-Nehisi Coates is an award-winning, uncompromising commentator on race relations, truth, and justice, especially in America. Author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Between the World and Me, his new book, The Message, unflinchingly explores race and conflict from South Carolina to Gaza at a pivotal moment. In this powerful conversation with historian and film-maker David Olusoga, he discusses the urgent need for the West, and particularly America, to free itself from the myths it tells itself, and how pushing for truth is the only way to reckon with injustice.
Ash Sarkar: Immigrants Aren’t Eating Your Pets
In this absorbing conversation, one of the UK’s most exciting and bold political commentators, Ash Sarkar, chats to Heather Parry. Hear Sarkar wade right into the middle of the cultural wars as she unpacks her book Minority Rule and exposes how a strategic misdirection of blame over who is really screwing everything up has kept us in a cycle of inequality, insecurity, and disconnection.
Michael Mullen & Len Pennie: Sparkling Scottish Poetry
Two effervescent voices in Scots poetry have burst into the scene in recent years with joyous impact: Sunday Times bestseller Len Pennie and Edwin Morgan Award-winning Michael Mullen. Pennie’s Poyums Annaw and Mullen’s Goonie demonstrate the fun, versatility, and depth possible in contemporary Scots. Hear them performing and chatting with Beth Cochrane.
Raymond Antrobus: The Quiet Ear
The first poet to win the Rathbones Folio Prize, The Perseverance author Raymond Antrobus provided a compelling insight into the d/Deaf experience. Watch back the launch his debut work of non-fiction, The Quiet Ear. Part memoir, part call to action, it tells of Antrobus’ experience growing up as deaf child to Jamaican and English parents, searching for acceptance, and ultimately finding his people. Chaired by Colin Grant.
Ece Temelkuran: Coming Together to Fight Dictatorship
How did things get so bad, and how can we begin to make them better? Turkish political commentator, novelist, poet, and winner of the El Mundo International Journalism Award, Ece Temelkuran latest two books attempt to answer both sides of this question: in How to Lose a Country, she outlines the slide from democracy to dictatorship, while Together emphasises community as a means of instigating positive change. Hear her talking to Talat Yaqoob.
Support the Book Festival
by donating what you can
Our on demand events are offered on a Donate What You Can basis, making them accessible to all book lovers and idea devourers. You can select how much you can pay either before or after watching the event.
If you are able, donating ensures that we, as a charity, can widen access to our events in August as well as supporting our year-round work in the community, including our recently launched Paper Trails library project taking place across Edinburgh.
And if you’re watching with friends or family or as part of a group, we encourage you to consider paying a little extra. Doing so helps pay forward the joy of stories and help transform lives through the power of words. Every penny counts, and we’re grateful to all those who are able and choose to donate. Thank you.
Explore the full list of events here