With the Finns, Swedes, Norwegians and Danes making their mark in book circles, we pick a quintet of cool Scandinavians.
Helena Christensen The Dane with the brain isn't just another Uber-model, having done a bit of moody photography in her day. But her greatest feat is surely having a short friendship with the Arab Strap boys and escaping with her liver intact.
Bjorn Borg The cooler-than-cool Swede hardly sweated a bead during his record-breaking reign as Wimbledon champion in the 703. His policy of not shaving during the fortnight until he lost a match usually meant a very beardy Borg come Men’s Final day.
Roald Amundsen With a nice line in parkas. the NOrwegian explorer led his men to South Pole glory in 1911. The fact that he beat someone with a middle name of Falcon is good enough for us. Henrik Larsson The Parkhead King of Kings may have shorn his mad locks off but he's still a striker to dread. The Swede regularly offers the sharp end of his tongue to those who reckon he’s past it. Finn MacCool We couldn't actually think of a cool Finn. So. the hairy Irish myth will have to do.
I Nordic Crime Special, Field and Lawn Marquee, 77 Aug, 72.30pm. £7 (£5); Children '3 Theatre, 18 Aug. 7.30pm, £8 (£6); Nordic Writing Special, Field and Lawn Marquee. 17 Aug, 2.30pm, £7 (£5).
Andrew Lownie on John Buchan Children's Theatre. 5pm. £7 (£5). Lownie's biography ponders the true man behind the fictions of The Thirty- Nine Steps and Huntingtower.
Luke Sutherland & Patrick Neate Studio Theatre. 5.30pm, £7 (£5). The music industry has been the backdrop for these two writers III the past. though Sutherland's latest. Sweet/neat. Is a tasty tnp Into the world of cullnary London.
Imprisoned Writers Field and Lawn Marquee. 5.30pm, free but ticketed. Muriel Gray inust on folk belng put away for thelr sexuality.
Libby Purves Consignia Theatre.
6. 30pm. £8 (£6). Here's another wrlter wno's seen her falr share of the world. The exconvent glrl was educated in
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is now an acclaimed broadcaster described as having ‘a wonderful knack for making people feel good about themselves. '
The Writing Business Field and Lawn Marquee. 6.45pm, £5 (£3). How to market a book. The easy way.
Joan Lingard Studio Theatre. 7pm, £8 (£6). Kids and adults hold this Edinburgh-born, Belfast-bred writer with equal affection and her latest. The Kiss is set in the murky world of art history. Animal Experimentation: Good or Bad? Spiegeltent. 7.30pm, £8 (£6). It‘s an age-old argument. but conclusions appear further away than ever. Carl Djerassi. Richard Ryder. Stuart Derbyshire and Tom Regan will be chewing the fat on this one. Everybody’s Business? Consignia Theatre. 8pm, £8 (£6). Can the market place and ethics ever be friends? Mark Urban Studio Theatre. 8.30pm. £8 (£6). The Newsnight reperter gives us his particular take on Napoleon. Wellington and code-cracking.
Sara Wheeler Field and Lawn Marquee. 8.30pm, £8 (£6). More travel and exploration with thoughts on Scott's doomed march to the South Pole. Spiegelbar Spiege/tent. 9pm. free. See Thursday.
Tuesday 2O
Ron Butlin, John Herdman & Matthew Fitt Spiege/tent, 70.30am. £7 (£5). A trio of Scots who have broken ground in their own ways. Butlin is perhaps the most lauded. wrth his short tale. The Sound of my Voice being re-issued to great acclaim. with Irvine Welsh talking it right up with a new foreword.
Rosalind Miles Studio Theatre. 70.30am, £7 (£5). Her Return to Eden hit the best-seller list in Russia while /. Elizabeth touched a nerve In Portugal. Find out the secret of her particular success.
Richard Hamblyn Field and Lawn Marquee, 77am. £7 (£5). Meteorology and science are at the heart of Hamblyn's thoughts today.
Ian Rankin Consignia Theatre.
I 7.30am. £7 (£5). See The Write Stuff. page 10.
Ken McClure 8. Jed Mercurio Studio Theatre. noon, £7 (£5). Former medics who write novels ab0ut hospitals which may make thumping great reads but do little for our trust in doctors.
AC Grayling 8: Richard Ryder Field and Lawn Marquee, 72.30pm, £7 (£5). Philosophers doing what they do best: pondering over the ethical dilemmas of the day.
Mary Warnock Consignia Theatre. 7.30pm, f.‘ 7 (£5). More moral issues tackled. this time In the ever- contentious field of fertility and embryology.
Stevie Davies, Jay Basu 8- Michael Mail Field 8 Lawn Marquee. 2.30pm, £7 (£5). Writing about Nazis
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has never been more popular. but how does touching on such dark subjects effect the writer?
Ian Buruma 8. Yang Lian Consignia Theatre. 3pm. £7 (£5). What is the future of China and how will its development impinge on the rest of the world?
Nicola Barker & Andrew Miller
Studio Theatre. 3.30pm, £7 (£5). Two of
Britain's brightest talents with Miller's 1996 Ingenious Pain marking him out as a talent to watch. while Barker's short story collections such as Love Your Enemies has gained acclaim. Norman Lebrecht & Paul Bailey Field and Lawn Marquee, 4pm, £7 (£5). Music biography has a chequered histOry as Lebrecht knows while Bailey puts music into his fiction.
Brenda Maddox Consignia Theatre. 4.30pm, £7 (£5). DNA has been described as the 20th century's last great scientific advance and a less than flawless development in criminal investigation. See what Brenda thinks. Indra Sinha Children '3 Tent. 5pm. £7 (£5). Race. sex and passion all merge in Sinha's writings.
Imprisoned Writers Field and Lawn Marquee, 5.30pm, free but ticketed. Paul Johnston is one of today‘s writers. reading out loud in support of those being racially perseCUted.
Stephen Poliakoft Consignia Theatre. 6.30pm, £8 (£6). See prev1ew. page 15.
The Writing Business Field and Lawn Marquee. 6.45pm, £5 (£3). How do you start out trylng to be an author? Here‘s how.
Justin Hill Studio Theatre. 7pm, £8 (£6). Born in the Bahamas but raised in Yorkshire. Hill loves to write without too many flourishes. He'll similarly race to the point today.
Designer Babies: Where Should We Draw The Line? Spiege/tent, 7.30pm. £8 (£6). Are we getting too close to the scary sci-fl world of Cloning?
Colin Thubron Consignia Theatre. 8pm, £8 (£6). The travel writer turned novelist has clocked up a fair number of miles in his time. Five years ago. he trekked 15.000 of them into Siberia. Kenneth White Studio Theatre. 8.30pm, £8 (£6). Owing much to Whitman and MacDiarmid. White has spent much of his life in France. where his poetry has shaped into a vivid Euro force.
John Harding 8. John McCabe Field and Lawn Marquee, 8. 30pm, £8 (£6). Authors of good old comic romps come together for a laugh and a half. Spiegelbar Spiege/tent. 9pm. free. See Thursday.
Wednesday 21
Orange Labyrinth with Kate Mosse Consignia Theatre, 70am. £7 (£5). Check out wwworangelabyrinth.co.uk before you attend this event and get some advice on being a part of a reading and writlng fraternity from Ms Mosse.
Andrew O’Nagan 8- Jamie O’Neill Spiege/tent, 70.30am, £7 (£5). O'Hagan was the last Scottish writer to be nomlnated for the Booker (until All Sfl‘llh
for his forthcoming Personality. O'Neill has simultaneously received the compliment and had the albatross swung over him of being favourably compared to the Irish greats.
Paul Johnston 8: John Connolly Studio Theatre. 10.30am, £7 (£5). Crime solutions from Johnston. who scripts a futuristic Edinburgh while Connolly sets his law-breaking tales in the US with his mixed-up cop. Charlie ‘Bird' Parker. Jeremy Seal & Bella Bathurst Field and Lawn Marquee. l 7 am. £7 (£5). Chatting about shipwrecks has never been more entertainmg. with the authors of Treachery at Sharpnose Point (Seal) and The Lighthouse Stevensons (Bathurst).
Louis de Bernieres Consignia Theatre, 77.30am, £7 (£5). Having gained universal acclaim for Captain Core/li’s Mandolin (he can be forgiven for the film), it may come as a surprise that he has actually written other books. The latest of which Is the mythical Red Dog. for both children and adults. Deborah Moggach 8: Kate Jennings Studio Theatre, 72pm, £7 (£5). A pair of writers who have knocked up novels about broken women fighting back.
John Burnside 8. Michael Redhill Field and Lawn Marquee, l2. 30pm, £7 (£5). Loss COuld be one thematic link between these two. Find out if there are any others.
John Simpson Consignia Theatre, 7.30pm, £7 (£5). Having been forgiven for trying to claim that the BBC liberated Kabul (hey, he was probably misquoted). the intrepid foreign correspondent shares his many memories with an enrapt Edinburgh.
Nigel Williams 8. Mick Jackson Studio Theatre, 2pm, £7 (£5). You want a funny book about growing up during wartime? These writers have done it for you.
Gianni Riotta & Gunnar Kopperud Field and Lawn Marquee, 2.30pm, £7 (£5). Love and war from the authors of Prince of Clouds (Italian Riotta) and Longing (Norwegian Kopperud).
Peter Hennessy 8. Douglas Hurd Consignia Theatre. 3pm, £7 (£5). The Cold War has been over but a while. but its secrets tell us just how close we came to all-out war on several occasions. The author of The Secret State is joined by the former TOry cabinet minister and novelist to chat about security.
Daniel Snowman Studio Theatre. 3.30pm, £7 (£5). With the debate of asylum seeking raging. this is a good time to reflect on Britain's past reliance on immigrants.
Ronald Frame Field and Lawn Marquee. 4pm, £7 (£5). The man who won the Saltire Prize for The Lantern Bearers has won further acclaim with his latest Permanent Violet. Could he in fact be Scotland's greatest living wnfer? Kenneth White on Robert Louis Stevenson Consignia Theatre. 4.30pm, £7 (£5). The French-based Scots poet offers up his own tribute to RLS.
Michael Newton on Wild Boys and Girls Studio Theatre. 5pm, £7 (£5). Eddie Izzard used to joke about being raised by wolves. But is It actualh