STUART KELLY
The best books you‘ve never read
For a book which encompasses rurnrnatrons on some of history's finest literary minds. Edinburgh book crrtrc Stuart Kelly's first factual work has an odd source of inspiration. 'I was a rnassrve Doctor Who fan as a kid and rt always pissed me off that I couldn't see all of the episodes because the BBC had taped over some of them. Then I trred to get them all rn novel form. but Detrglas Adams wouldn't let hrs scripts be published. Either way. l couldn't have all of Doctor Who on one shelf to watch or read.”
This nascent completrsrn grew rnto the idea for The Book of Lost Books. a compendium of lrterature's finest lost. unstarted and uncompleted works. The now 32-year-old Kelly has been forming the idea since he was 15: '| first became aware of lost books as a literary toprc while studying Greek at my local comprehensrve — I took the t\.vo-volume compendium of Sophocles" work from the library to read rn a weekend. and when I read the introduction rt sard “of over 80 plays. only seven survrve". I Just thought. "How can thrs happen With someone as great as Sophocles?“
As an interesting footnote -- after the theft of hrs laptop a day after submitting the book ~ Kelly plans to add hrmself to the canon at thrs event. ‘I plan to read the last copy of a cut sectron of the hook and destroy rt on stage — erther by burning or shredding. depending on how the mood takes me.'
Recommended reading: The Book of [ ost Books — from Shakespeare to Drckens and Austen to Burroughs. all the best hooks you'll never read. rDavrd Pollock)
I 29 Aug. 7pm. 5‘8 (5‘6).
TARIQ GODDARD
Bloody veterans and West End girls
Arrrerrcan culture rs awash wrth returning soldiers. Tang Goddard's favourite rs the brooding first
instalment of the Rambo franchise. First Blood. ‘The Americans have made a brilliant genre out it. which for them is at least as important as the war frlm. whereas our films and literature tend to deal in this kind of Brief Encounter style. with this very minimal "I love you darling" dialogue.‘ he explains in a blokrshly intellectual rasp.
Goddard's third novel The Morning Rides Behind Us begins wrth a suicide. and moves on to chart the impact of a bunch of frustrated World War II soldiers on a small town. Beers are drunk. bones are broken. and tension grows between the loutish veterans and a profiteerrng industrialist.
Goddard. whose excellent prevrous novels have dealt with an incompetent assassination squad and a heroic Soviet football team. says his book stretches beyond the post-war years. ‘ln a way I COuId have been writing about the school leavers who I grew rrp wrth who found that compared to their friendships at school. the marketplace or getting jobs was a total sham.‘ His next novel rs about demoan possession rn Hampshire. ‘lts working title was Rap/rig a Slave, after a Swans song.‘ he explains. 'But it's been changed to West End Girls' (James Smart)
I Tar/o Goddard 8 Adam Thorpe, 26 Aug, 7.30pm. £8 (.96).
RAGEH OMAAR Understanding Iraq
Rageh Omaar came to prornrnence rn 2003 as an oasis of calm reporting from the confusion that was Baghdad at the height of the Iraq war. Hrs sensitive reports from the centre of the conflict — the culmination of srx years spent Irving rn the country while working for the BBC —- won him wrde respect. Now he's a freelance who strll works rnarnly for the BBC. and hrs first book Revolution Day was intended to give readers ‘a snapshot. a voice. a canvas to the very different and contradrt,:tory impulses of lragr society'. Indeed. the book goes some way towards plugging the gap between popular perceptions of the rurned COLrntry and the realities of lragr culture. soCrety and crvrlrsation. The book paints a bleak picture of the immediate future. as tensions grow rather than drminrsh between ordinary people and coalition troops. Recommended reading: Revolution Day provrdes an rntrrcate portrait of the country Omaar came to know so rrrtimately. (Allan Radcliffe)
I 25 Aug, 3pm. 5‘7 (55).
F E. S T ' V A '-
‘ until 29 August
Charlotte Square Gardens
w ticket otters daily see the Box attire screen in the entrance tent at Charlatte Square
LiGardens for discounts of the day
Brochure & Ticket Hotline 0131 624 5050
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25) Aug -8 Sep 200:") THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 75