Tibby and I were in Edinburgh from 11 – 18 August 2025, our first trip back to the festivals since before COVID. We attended 19 events at the Edinburgh Book Festival, that focused on recent books of authors, but we also attended two Fringe Festival events. And of course we had to attend the Edinburgh Military Tattoo.
Paula Akpan – author of When We Ruled – This was a disappointing start to our Book Festival experience this year. Akpan has written a book about twelve African queens and warriors south of the Sahara. This sounds like a fascinating subject, and I plan to read the book. However, Akpan showed no discipline when answering questions and even forgot what the question was a few times. She was not helped by a similarly undisciplined interviewer who expressed too many of her opinions. Akpan was insistent that her work be considered a serious academic writing, yet budget constraints meant that she spent an average of only four days doing research in the area where each queen or warrior was based. 4/10
Steve Crawshaw – author of Prosecuting the Powerful – interviewed by Philippe Sands, writer and international lawyer – This was a hugely informative and disciplined discussion of the development of the International Court of Justice and their challenges in prosecuting leaders of countries and governments. There was a sense that while most democracies supported the work of the Court, there was a reluctance to pursue the friends of major western countries. The USA, not a member of the Court, fully supported the indictment of Putin but sanctioned members of the Court when they indicted Netanyahu. The questions from the audience were thought provoking. 10/10
Ruth Jones – author of By Your Side, and also co-creator of the sitcom, Gavin and Stacey, and actor of the part of Nessa in that production. The Book Festival has a variety of venues ranging from intimate sixty-seater rooms to the 1,100 capacity McEwan Hall, the latter of which was used for this event with every seat taken. The adoring audience lapped up every description of the collaboration with James Corben and the writing and production of Gavin and Stacey. Jones was an actor first, then a writer for TV and finally a novelist. She is open, empathetic, lacks arrogance and was a delight to listen to. 9/10
Sam Dalrymple – author of Shattered Lands brought home to us that the British Raj in India at one time included the Indian subcontinent and Burma, Nepal, the Trucial States and Oman. They all used the Indian Rupee. His book describes the five partitions that separated the original India, with first being the separation of Burma. Gandhi encouraged the separation of the Gulf States because he viewed them as an economic drain. Dalrymple also helped us understand Ghandi, Jinnah and Mountbatten. I learnt a lot. 7/10
Isabel Allende – author of My Name is Emilia, was interviewed remotely from her home in the US. Eighty-three-year-old Allende was born in Peru but considers herself to be Chilean and now considers herself exiled in the US. She was open that many characters in her books contain elements of herself and that she repeatedly uses the character of her stepfather in her books. She explained how she now writes simultaneously in Spanish and English and using the ideal word in one language often creates a challenge to create the same meaning in the other language. In answering questions from the floor she insisted that an author must be vulnerable and express their deepest feelings and fears in their writing. She expressed worries about herself as a Latino in a Trump led USA. Allende is a remarkable author and woman. 10/10
Back stage tour of The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. This tour is only available to ticket holders of that night’s show. There were about twenty participants with a non-dynamic, but very knowledgeable Mike as the guide. We started on the esplanade where Mike explained how the purpose-built stands were introduced about fifteen years ago to accommodate a larger audience of 8,800. The stands cantilever over the edge of the mountain and are erected and removed each year. We climbed the steps to walk by the production studios, high above the stands. These include TV production, sound, images, light and performance control. As we sat in the Royal Box fifteen coaches drove on to the esplanade below us to deliver all the performers to site. Mike pointed out that a tent in the moat contains a live orchestra, a fact missed by me up to now. We ascended the walkway into the castle and then witnessed the amazing sights and sounds of the pipes and drums practicing. A pipes tuner checked each pipers’ three pipes. As we moved higher into the castle we came across other groups of performers preparing. It was a beautiful summer summer’s evening and from time to time we had the most beautiful views over Edinburgh. After two hours we returned to the esplanade and were offered a drink from a mobile bar. This was a unique experience related to a show that we love. 10/10
The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is celebrating its 75th anniversary. Tibby attended the 15th anniversary and about a further fifteen shows in between. The core of the ninety-minute show is the massed pipes and drums, which always impresses me and makes me very happy. There were marching bands from Ukraine, Poland and the USA, drummers from Switzerland, the US Air Force Honor Guard Drill Team throwing rifles with fixed bayonets to each other and Scottish and other country dancers. A tour de force. 10/10
Sarah Moss – author of Ripeness, a novel spanning decades of family and migration. She is the most eloquent of the authors we have listened to so far, to the point where my simple mind could not keep up. Tibby enjoyed her more than me. My rating 7/10
Paula Hawkins – author of The Blue Hour and also of The Girl on a Train interviewed by Val McDermid. Hawkins helped us understand how she had made the transition from being a financial journalist to a writer of crime fiction and what the genesis was of The Blue Hour. At times interviewer and author got too cosy, chatting about their craft. 8/10
Sophie Elmhirst – author of Maurice and Maralyn has won amazing awards for this, her first book. This nonfiction book tells the story of a couple shipwrecked and left floating for 118 days in the Pacific in 1973 and then of their life thereafter. Both interviewer and author are inexperienced in this format and spent too much time retelling the story rather than providing any depth about the writing and research. This was boring. 3/10
Amazons is a one woman show in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Gaël Le Cornec, from the Amazon, described how the Amazon was claimed by Europeans with no concern for the people living there or the sanctity of the forest, with that story continuing down the ages to today. A theme was the role of women in opposing the changes. Tibby and I disagree over the quality of the show. While we both agree that Le Cornec is an outstanding actor I feel that the delivery mechanisms used to explain the story were disjointed, loud and confusing, Tibby feels that they were effective. My rating 4/10
Piaf and Brel is a one woman show in the Fringe Festival. Melanie Gall, a classically trained singer, sang both parts of ten songs. Piaf was born in 1915 in Paris and Brel was born fourteen years later in Brussels. They never met each other, and both died before they were fifty. Gall told us about the lives of both singers and the background to the songs she sang. It was a professional show but both Tibby and I would have preferred Brel’s songs to have been sung by a man. 7/10
Nicola Sturgeon – author of Frankly, interviewed by Kirsty Wark. The 1,800 capacity McEwan Hall was packed with supporters on the day Sturgeon’s memoir was released. Extracts have been serialised in The Times last week, so the most controversial issues are now in the public domain. Wark first interviewed Sturgeon over thirty years ago, well before she became Scotland’s First Minister, but no quarter was now given with challenging questions. Tibby and I do not agree with Sturgeon’s policy of independence for Scotland and abolition of the monarchy, but we admire her professionalism and her compassion. 10/10
Jenny Kleeman – author of The Price of Life explores how different organisations value a life including the NHS NICE unit when determining whether new medications are worth paying for, charitable giving trying to maximise the value of donations, governments paying bereaved families after their loved ones are killed in terrorist events and even the price paid to a contract killer. Kleeman did not come to definitive conclusions and noted that if all charitable giving followed this pattern there would be no donations to mental health or cultural charities. A fascinating subject explained well. 9/10
Alexander McCall Smith – author of Bertie’s Theory of Ice Cream and In the Time of Five Pumpkins and 100 other books. McCall Smith is deservedly treated like royalty at the Book Festival. He is a hugely successful author who does not take himself seriously, loves Edinburgh and Scotland and is loved by his audience. Always a delight. 10/10
Maggie O’ Farrell – author of After You’d Gone. Tibby loves the writing of O’ Farrell but she is not dynamic in person and with a poor interviewer this was a disappointing session for me. 4/10
Laurie Bristow – author of Kabul: Final Call, was the UK ambassador to Afghanistan in 2021 when the Taliban took over. This was a fascinating talk. 10/10
Anne Sebba – author of The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz which tells the story of some inmates of Auschwitz who lived because they were members of the orchestra including interviews with a few survivors still alive. Extraordinary story in an inhumane environment. 8/10
Ta-Nehisi Coates – author of The Message. Coates feels a never-ending responsibility to his ancestors to fight for rights for Black people. He sees no hope in that fight and so his life is one of perpetual outrage. He has recently taken on the Palestine cause and he will therefore never be at peace. 8/10
Suzanne O’ Sullivan – author of The Age of Diagnosis, argues that the medical profession is over diagnosing. She agrees that someone on the far end of the Autistic spectrum needs a diagnosis to be properly cared for, but believes that another person, who is just on the spectrum should probably not be so diagnosed as their life my be more complicated with a diagnosis than without. She quoted many other interesting examples. 10/10
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