1) The Edinburgh Book Festival has begun in earnest this week. The festival is one of the lengthiest in the country, running from 13-29 of August. The festival was originally launched in 1983 and staged every two years before becoming a yearly feature in 1997. The Book festival links in with the other festivals in Edinburgh – the Jazz festival, International festival, the Art festival, the Fringe, the Film festival and the Edinburgh Mela – and is thus able to claim to be part of ‘the biggest and best arts festival in the world.’
2) Many of the UK’s best known authors are due on the festival stage this year. Writers already sold out include A.C. Grayling, Alexander McCall Smith, Evan Davis, Simon Callow, Wendy Cope and Ian Rankin. The festival also has numerous pieces of new writing online from fifty commissioned authors writing on the theme of ‘Elsewhere’. This joins the Newton First Book Award, a prize for debut novelists voted on by the general public. You can cast your vote here.
3) An attempt to create a new Guinness record for the world’s longest reading chain will be staged this Friday. Fans of children’s author Theresa Breslin will each tackle a single sentence of her novel Prisoner in Alcatraz. The event will be held at Sighthill library at 2pm in partnership with the Book festival and Edinburgh libraries with the participants aiming to trump the current world record of 290 readers. As a small incentive, there’s a free book for all participants.
4) This year the Guardian has joined forces with the Book Festival. As well as a specially-themed festival podcast, there are also numerous blogs and videos on the Guardian website including a piece from festival director Nick Barley on what it’s like to direct such a big event alongside a generous series of updates festival courtesy of their festival Twitter team.
5) The Book Festival has moved into the digital age with its own app. The app allows punters to perform a variety of festival-related activities on their mobiles, including nabbing tickets for their event of choice, purchasing e-books and checking out which books decorate the stands of the festival bookshops. Speaking about the app, administrative director Andy Coulton claimed: ‘This is a major innovation for the Book Festival, and, by designing it as a web app – usable on any smartphone – we are making it as accessible as possible for our audiences.’
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