Cheap, cheery stuff for bookworms

I WAS crushed in the milieu to listen to author Ian Rankin talk to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the Edinburgh International Book Festival recently.

More than 300 people bought the £10 ticket for the festival’s curtain-raiser, held at the small but lovely Charlotte Square set in the middle of the city.

A few blue-suited men milled about while Brown, ensconced in a white tent with Rankin and hundreds of bookworms, spoke about things including his books, Courage and Everyday Heroes.

Later, Rankin was surrounded by fans bearing his books (not the event flyer), asking for autographs.

Not too bad for RM62 to catch a reading and question-and-answer session, I thought, when the cheapest Avril Lavigne concert ticket is RM98, for seats so far from the stage that I will only see the big TV screens.

“The book festival prices have gone up only £1 in the last seven years,” points out the festival’s Press manager Frances Sutton.

It started 25 years ago, when Edinburgh hosted the first book festival in Scotland and one of three in Britain. That event saw 120 authors. Today, there are 300 book festivals in the UK.

This year, 800 authors turned up for the August festival, including Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, 80-year-old Alan Sillitoe and Hanif Kureishi.

It was a simple affair, with white tents to house the many talks and a well-stocked bookshop.

The festival, says Sutton, allows writers to exchange ideas with the public and, of course, brings them together.

The public also gets the chance, for 30 minutes, to rub shoulders and debate with such famous names as former British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, Robert Preston, Jonathan Powell, and Lord David Owen.

Tomorrow’s closing, sadly missed, will feature sexy Sir Sean Connery in the world exclusive launch of his memoirs, Being A Scot. Sir Sean will be in discussion with his co-author, Scottish film-maker Murray Grigor.

That event, says Sutton, sold out in an hour. “We charged a mere £9. We could have charged more, yes, but we want people to come.”

And the opening event with Brown? “Oh, that took much longer to sell,” she says with a chuckle.

The book festival is also a time to catch major books as or before they are published. Some hot-off-the-press titles this year are Being A Scot, Hardeep Singh Kohli’s Indian Takeaway and Ian Fleming’s authorised biography, For Your Eyes Only.

Sutton believes these literary events encourage debate, leaving the public better informed and so better able to make choices of societal and even political impact.

“The impact books have on society is unbelievable. And we are reaching out to the younger people, aged 16-25. We are having literary events centred around graphic novels, for instance.” One such event has Bryan Talbot and Barrie Appleby with The Beano (the comic marks its 70th year in print).

Sutton seems equipped to handle change as she went through a midlife crisis a decade or so ago, chucked in her public relations job and set off for South America. She returned revitalised, she says, to work for the growing book festival in Edinburgh, the first and permanent Unesco City Of Literature.

Melbourne is bidding to be the next City Of Literature, followed by Calcutta.

The Edinburgh book festival sees a satellite link-up with the Melbourne Writers’ Festival.

Rushdie reads from his book in Scotland and it’s beamed to Australia. In Australia, Vietnamese-born Nam Le reads The Boat and it is beamed to Scotland.

The audience at the free event in Edinburgh is able to take part in the question session with Nam Le while those in Melbourne can discuss Rushdie’s The Enchantress Of Florence with him.

For more information on Scotland and its events, check out VisitBritain.com.my.

If you want to a taste of literary events nearer home, and hear Preeta Samarasan as well as Tampin-born Tei Chiew Siah (Little Hut Of Leaping Fishes) discuss their books, you need to get to the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival in Bali, Oct 14-19.