2014 Edinburgh International Book Festival

Digging in the Past Digging into the Story of The Great War Dream team Charlie Adlard and Robbie Morrison have made their contribution to the Great War centenary with White Death, a frank graphic novel account of two dead bodies discovered almost 100 years on, and highlighting how snow was used as a military weapon. Adlard and Morrison join us to discuss how it’s possible to expose difficult historical truths through the medium of comics. Part of our Stripped 2014 series of events.

From Rags to Cultural Riches Best known in the UK as a dispassionate commentator on Newsnight Review and Question Time, even when sitting beside the leader of the BNP, Bonnie Greer has now unveiled the first volume of her memoirs, A Parallel Life. In this event she talks to Ruth Wishart about her tough upbringing and how it feels to be the key character in a real-life rags to riches story.

Spirit of the 1920s We are thrilled to welcome bestselling writer Sarah Waters to preview her forthcoming novel The Paying Guests. Set between the wars, it’s the story of ‘modern couple’ Lilian and Leonard Barber. Their move to genteel Camberwell brings about tension, devastation and plenty of surprises. Waters’ previous novels such as Fingersmith and The Little Stranger have been shortlisted for Britain’s major literary awards.

The Problem Solver’s Problems For four decades, the Cosmo Agony Aunt has been helping to solve readers’ problems, encompassing everything from eating disorders to bad behaviour in the office. In My Life in Agony, Irma Kurtz looks back on the social changes that informed her advice and reflects on the chaos of her own life as an American single mother living in the UK.

The News, Read by a Poet Best known for As If, his landmark book about the killing of James Bulger, Blake Morrison is also a poet and novelist. He joins us today to read from a new publication, This Poem… Bankers’ bonuses, phone hacking, super-injunctions and Jimmy Savile: these are just some of the topics he addresses, in verse that is at once terrifyingly honest and full of wisdom about the state of contemporary Britain.

The Truth About Britain’s Greatest Cyclist Long before Bradley Wiggins took the world by storm, British cycling already had a hero. Tom Simpson was world champion and the first Briton to wear yellow in the Tour de France. In 1967 Simpson died during a stage of the Tour while climbing the monstrous Mont Ventoux. Today, Guardian writer William Fotheringham discusses Put Me Back on My Bike - his superb account of Simpson’s life and death.

In the Footsteps of Proust Norwegian literary sensation Karl Ove Knausgaard is gathering an ever-increasing band of avid followers of his epic and much-discussed six-volume novel cycle, My Struggle. ‘It’s completely blown my mind… I need the next volume like crack’ said Zadie Smith, while the Guardian described it as ‘the most significant literary enterprise of our times.’ Knausgaard joins us today to discuss his third volume, Boyhood Island.

Heughligans Descend on Charlotte Square The Outlander books by Arizona-based author Diana Gabaldon have achieved sales figures that would make your eyes water. Little wonder that Doune Castle was recently besieged by fans keen to see the TV version being filmed. The latest instalment, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, is partly set in 1778, featuring a world in flux. Gabaldon joins us from Arizona to discuss her epic series.

Can Scotland Be Future-Proofed? As the vote on Scotland’s future looms into view, commentators are turning their attention to what might happen next. Gerry Hassan’s Caledonian Dreaming questions some of the key myths Scotland tells about itself, while Lesley Riddoch’s Blossom wonders whether swapping a London elite for an Edinburgh one will make much difference to Scots' lives. Might Scotland flourish if we look elsewhere? Part of our Scotland's Future series of events.

As part of a series of events selected by Richard Sennett exploring key ideas that have shaped humanity, this session discusses the idea and impact of religious belief. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and New York University professor of anthropology Angela Zito are joined by German writer and film-maker Alexander Kluge, chaired by former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway.

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown talks about his new bestseller My Scotland, Our Britain: A Future Worth Sharing. He is in dialogue with Alistair Moffat, author of Bannockburn and many other books dealing with the story of Scotland’s past. Part of our Scotland's Future series of events.

Instructions for a Heatwave was described by the Los Angeles Review of Books as ‘perhaps a perfect book’ – high praise indeed but typical of the acclaim that Edinburgh-based Maggie O’Farrell has attracted for her sixth novel. Full of unforgettable characters, the story charts a family descending into crisis against the backdrop of a stifling summer. Today, O’Farrell talks about how she constructed her novel.

Of Me and Others is as close to Alasdair Gray’s autobiography as we are likely to get. Described by its editor Alistair Braidwood as ‘ribald, humorous, angry and incisive’, this new tome by one of Scotland’s literary superstars describes his meetings with authors such as Anthony Burgess, and explains how he went about writing his masterpiece Lanark and recent Faust adaptation, Fleck.

It’s not too often that an author will so happily embrace the film or TV show adapted from his or her own fiction, but George R R Martin seems more than pleased with the screen adaptation of Game of Thrones. The all-conquering HBO show was back this year for its fourth series, and today the author discusses how it feels to see the screen incarnations of his complex fictional universe.