BOOKS HIGHLIGHTS

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Jul 29, 2007 | by Words Alan Taylor

1.Richard Ford Frank Bascombe is to Richard Ford what Rabbit Angstrom is to John Updike. First encountered in The Sportswriter, published in 1986, we have followed Frank and his travails through Independence Day, which appeared in 1995, through to The Lay of the Land, which was the literary event of last year.

Ford's trilogy is symphonic in its architecture, the rhythm of his prose as melodic and seductive and emotional as anything composed by Beethoven. Frank is the laconic, eloquent narrator, moving from a successful career as a writer of sports to become a wealthy realtor. His is a very American voice; generous, humorous, slightly bewildered. The world is moving at a pace and he is doing is best to keep up with it.

Meanwhile, the past is ever present, like the ghost of his dead son and his shattered marriage, both of which continue to haunt him.

Few works of fiction are so personal yet so subtly political. Reading Ford, you get a better idea of how America works and what motivates its people than any social commentator. His visits to the UK are rare and trips to Scotland rarer yet he was once here many moons ago with his friend and mentor, Raymond Carver. It would be a crime to miss him.

RBS Main Theatre, Monday 20 Aug, 11.30am.Tickets GBP5-GBP7

2.Alice Munro Whenever hysterical folk say the short story is dead all you need do is mention the name of Alice Munro, for she is its contemporary doyenne. This is the first time she has appeared at the Book Festival though she will not be here in person. Like Norman Mailer, she is participating in a live conversation with fellow Canadian, Margaret Atwood. Munro's latest book The View from Castle Rock is something of a curiosity for her, being an evocation of her Border ancestors and the hard life faced by those who emigrated west. Like everything she writes, it is a wonder to behold.

RBS Main Theatre, Wednesday 15 Aug, 8pm.Tickets GBP6-GBP8

3.James Kelman Few Scottish writers have the influence of James Kelman yet he has not received the recognition he undoubtedly deserves, perhaps because he does not play safe and avoids the media/ marketing circus. But there can be no disputing the quality and staying power of his books. Put bluntly, he is Scotland's greatest living writer. He is also a mesmeric reader and hopefully will read from An Old Pub Near the Angel, his debut collection of stories, which appeared in the US in 1973 and is soon to be published here for the first time.

RBS Main Theatre, Friday 17 Aug, 3pm. Tickets GBP5-GBP7

4.Tony Harrison Hailing like his almost exact contemporary, Alan Bennett, from Leeds, Tony Harrison 70 this year is what might be called a poet's poet. His remarkable long poem V is widely regarded as the outstanding social poem of the last 25 years.

If Auden has an heir, Harrison has the strongest claim. He reads, as he writes, like a dream.

RBS Main Theatre, Thursday 23 Aug, 11.30am.Tickets GBP5-GBP7

5.Ian McEwan Engaged couples could do a lot worse than read Ian McEwan's new novella, On Chesil Beach, before tying the knot. Set in 1962 the year before Philip Larkin decreed sex began it centres on Edward and Florence, who are about to be married. Both virgins, the wedding night will define the future course of their lives. Few writers dare to go where McEwan happily does. Is there any English writer of his generation Amis, Rushdie, Swift etc more on top of his game?

RBS Main Theatre, Friday 24 Aug, 11.30am.Tickets GBP5-GBP7

6.Joyce Carol Oates It's virtually a full-time job keeping up with the output of this prolific American novelist. The winner of a multitude of awards, she has written some of the most enduring fiction of our times.

Black Girl/White Girl, her most recent novel, opens the Pandora's Box of race, starting with the mysterious death of a young black girl while studying at a liberal arts college. Nixon, Vietnam, the hippy Sixties all come flooding back.

RBS Main Theatre, Sunday 12 Aug, 11.30am.Tickets GBP5-GBP7

7.Andrew Marr Once upon a time Glasgow-born Andrew Marr was a wide-eyed reporter on The Scotsman. Now heis a ubiquitous presence on television and radio, in newspapers and, of course, as the author of erudite and readable books. His latest is A History of Modern Britain, ostensibly written to accompany a television series. In fact, it is much more than that. Marr is as engaging and lightly learned on the page as he is on the screen.

RBS Main Theatre, Monday 20 Aug, 6.30pm and RBS Main Theatre, Tuesday 21 Aug, 1.30pm.Tickets GBP5-GBP7

8.Pattie Boyd These days, rock chicks are ten a penny. None, though, can compare with Pattie Boyd, the Sixties supermodel who first married George Harrison, then Eric Clapton. Harrison reputedly wrote Something in her honour; Clapton hymned her with Wonderful Tonight, Layla and others. She was divorced from both and was a fly- on-the-wall to some of the most decadent behaviour of the most outrageous decade of the 20th century.

Now, with the aid of Penny Junor, she has written her autobiography, offering a chance to discover what living with legends is really like.