Just one week (and two days) to go until the Book Festival officially kicks off! (Literally as we type, our site team are popping up tents, building bookshops, and stringing up lights above the lawn of Edinburgh Futures Institute.) We 👏🏽 can’t 👏🏽 wait 👏🏽!
Bring on reading in the Festival courtyard! Bring on mind-blowing conversations you’ll be thinking about for weeks! Bring on meeting your favourite author in the signing queue, or high-fiving the Gruffalo while he’s out and about!
If you haven’t decided what to come to yet (or are looking for some extra inspiration for your Festival itinerary), we’re here with some more event recommendations. This week, you’ll find:
If you like your Festival events to involve “a small smackerel of something” (as Winnie the Pooh might say), then these foodie events are for you. From conversations with food writers and full on feasts prepared by incredible chefs to everything in between (think whisky tastings, coffee tastings, chic evening socials with a little glass of something lovely). Check them out below:
Have you tried spicy harissa lasagne? Or added sesame oil to a sundae? In Flavour Heroes, Gurdeep Loyal combines his expertise as a food and travel writer to dissolve the imaginary borders around culinary cultures. In this special event, join him at Elliott’s Studio as he prepares a flavour-rich, globe-trotting meal that will get your synapses (and tastebuds) firing on all cylinders.
Hungry for some hearty food chat? Peter Simpson, editor of The Skinny’s food magazine GNAW, hosts a spirited round table with Times restaurant critic Chitra Ramaswamy, founder of Fare magazine Ben Mervis, and Rebecca May Johnson, editor at Vittles and author of Small Fires for a chat on the ever-expanding ways that writers share their thoughts on what we eat, and why.
A little bit more than our usual ‘in conversation’ events, this immersive event with Natalie Jayne Clark – author of The Malt Whisky Murders and also a poet and expert whisky ambassador – features a special whisky tasting alongside a chat about her darkly comic new tartan noir debut novel.
Lizzy Hadfield has long been a tastemaker, but with Buffy’s Book Club she took London and New York’s literary scenes by storm. Join her at this special event to sip, socialise, and compare TBR lists with other discerning book lovers in celebration of Vintage Classics’ Brief Encounters collection.
Feast on Your Life sums up Tamar Adler’s philosophy: that cooking can be a devotion, a way to bring life-affirming joy to even the most mundane days. In this Table Talk event, she whips us up something delicious as she shares her meditations on food as self-love, the power of a passed-down recipe, and the most meaningful meals of her life.
In The Book of Coffee, philosopher Julian Baggini (author of How the World Eats), dives into the steamy depths to uncover how coffee worked its way into the fabric of our culture and what it can teach us about living. Join him for a talk and tasting (hosted by Edinburgh roasters Santu Coffee) that’ll leave you feeling more alive – and alert – than ever.
Staff picks: Choose your Book Festival vibe
Each week throughout August, we’ll be asking our teammates to hand-pick a few events you might have missed, and we’re starting things off strong with these recommendations from Lilidh and Siân:
“If you want to inspire young minds…”
Then Siân Bevan (Head of Children & Young People) says to bring the young people in your life along to these events:
In a world of misinformation and alternative facts, the Book Festival brings you thoughtful conversations from experts in the world of journalism, economics, business, and beyond to discuss the systems and structures that shape our world. This week, we’re spotlighting some of the fascinating conversations happening around the theme of money, from deep-dives into corrupt systems to conversations around truly sustainable alternative:
Former US State Department official Edward Fishman (author of Chokepoints) and Oxford academic Carl Benedikt Frey (author of How Progress Ends) take us right into the real-life thriller that is the global struggle for power and progress. Join them to discover the intersecting arenas where 21st century geopolitics really plays out.
Political economist, director for PRIME, and author of The Global Casino, Ann Pettifor is famous for predicting the 2008 global financial crash. Hear her unpick how the cost of your weekly shop, monthly bills, car, house, and holiday aren’t just linked, they’re fixed by faceless firms and funds operating in the shadows.
What if our economy served the whole planet, and not just the few? Mariana Mazzucato is an acclaimed Professor of Economics and policy advisor who’s been honoured by both the Pope and King for her work (!). She joins us to talk about The Common Good Economy and the practical, scalable ways we can collectively fix our broken systems and work towards a purposeful future, together.
In Everybody Loves Our Dollars, Oliver Bullough hangs the world’s dirty money out to dry. He reveals that there’s never been a better time to be a criminal in the UK as moving and hiding money couldn’t be easier; despite efforts to legislate, it’s estimated as much as 5% of world GDP is on the grubbier side. In this conversation, hear Bullough bring a murky underworld into razor-sharp focus.
Reflecting on the way profit is prized above people, this urgent conversation looks at the human and cultural impact of using fossil fuels to power our lives. Talking about Blood Will Flow, investigative journalist Alex Perry illuminates the dark underbelly of the oil industry, while The New Yorker writer and author of The Elements of PowerNicolas Niarchos examines the bloody history of cobalt.
Tim Wu (author of The Age of Extraction) is a professor at Columbia Law School, inventor of the term ‘net neutrality’, and previous special assistant to President Biden for technology and competition policy. Hear him talk about the cutting edge of legal and ethical questions about the new information age, the accelerating quest to extract data, attention, and profit from us all, and how to break the tech monopoly and bring prosperity for all.
Reading List: Brilliant Fiction
Crime dramas, sci-fi thrillers, meditations on yearning… enjoy these incredible fiction reads (and come along to their events at the Festival too 😉).
A powerful depiction of contemporary Black British manhood by writer, poet, and podcaster Derek Owusu. This ‘disarmingly poignant’ novel, shortlisted for the 2026 Dylan Thomas Book Prize, examines what it means to be a young Black man navigating contemporary society and how to love and be loved. Candice Carty-Williams calls it a ‘rare and compulsive read’. | Discover the book.
‘A piercing study of yearning, and of the modern condition of feeling perpetually on the verge of one’s own life’ write Emma Loffhagen of this novel in The Guardian. What Am I, A Deer? follows a young woman seeking reinvention – it’s a story about obsession, authenticity, and karaoke that is at once compelling, gorgeously written, and bitingly funny. | Discover the book.
In The Cut Up, Louise Welsh – Scottish literary legend and author of cult classic The Cutting Room – takes us back into the shady world of Rilke’s Glasgow. Following a ‘central character who feels like an old friend’ (Guardian) – a queer auctioneer-turned-accidental-detective – Welsh always writes with razor-sharp wit. | Discover the book.
Nominated just last week for the 2026 Booker Prize for Fiction, this post-apocalyptic, satirical adventure from the master of science fiction imagines Europe after an unnamed crisis. In it, a man collects a mysterious shapeshifting object washed up from the Channel that threatens to destabilise everything he thinks he knows. Confounding, brilliant, beautiful, and haunting – read it! | Discover the book.
The author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes brings us a thrilling new novel told with a fierce combination of incendiary wit and political nerve. Rebel English Academy fuses slapstick with state-of-the-nation reckoning to hilarious, harrowing effect in a story set in late-70s Pakistan. ‘It’s alive throughout with a sense of death’s-head mischief’ (New York Times Book Review). | Discover the book.
Carnaval Fever by Yuliana Ortiz Ruano, translated by Madeleine Arenivar
In Yuliana Ortiz Ruano’s Carnaval Fever, a girl’s coming of age in the Afro-Ecuadorian community of Esmeraldas pulses with music, dance, and the fierce love of the women who raise her. But beneath the celebration, shadows press in: poverty, migration, and the threat of male violence. One of Latin America’s most exciting voices, and an English PEN Translates Award-winner. |Discover the book.
LNER is proud to be sponsoring the popular children’s area at this year’s Festival. The newly-named LNER Kids’ Zone makes up the Children’s Tent, where you’ll find free activities and different themes each day, and The Families Hangout, which is the perfect spot to relax between events. There will also be giveaways, readings, and appearances from red-haired, fun-loving LNER brand mascot Eleanor!
LNER connects more than 50 stations between London, West Yorkshire, the North East of England and Scotland along the East Coast Mainline. Through its modern Azuma fleet of trains and its dedicated colleagues, LNER is focused on delivering safe, reliable, and enjoyable journeys for customers.
The LNER mission is to transform rail travel, connecting people, businesses, and communities, and helping the places it serves to grow and thrive while making rail an attractive, sustainable choice for future generations.
…with some exciting sneak peeks of what you can expect around the Festival site (spoiler: there will be ice-cream) and of course some more top tips and recommendations for what to see! In the meantime, keep up with all the latest from the Book Festival on our social media (@edbookfest) and grab your Festival tickets!
