When I attended A.C. Grayling’s talk about his new book, Who Owns the Moon, I was hoping to hear something astrological, something that might be wondrous and expand my understanding of space and our place in it. Unfortunately for me, Grayling is far too savvy for that. He’s seen what humans are capable of, and […]
Tag: Edinburgh Book Festival
Emily Wilson is a rockstar the likes of which we have never seen. The tattooed professor of classical studies, shod in metallic gold sneakers, commands the room with her hands outstretched, her deep voice invoking the Muse in Ancient Greek. It’s not unlike Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel warning Frodo about what would happen if she took […]
James O’Brien is quite optimistic about the youth of today. A woman has stood to ask him what is to be done about a generation perceived to only care about lip injections and Kardashians, but O’Brien- gently- isn’t having any of it. Complaints on the apathy of youth go back to time immemorial, and anyway, […]
“Five hundred words please,” Thomas Hart’s editor tells him in the opening chapter of Sarah Perry’s newest work Enlightenment, “and six if the night is clear.” The night is clear, folks. It hadn’t occurred to me that a discussion with Sarah Perry at the Edinburgh Book Festival would require Perry to actually read from the […]
