Welcome to our round-up of the last three days at the Edinburgh international book festival. The weekend has been overwhelmingly busy, with events ranging from film to poetry, football or religion. Here are some of the highlights from our team.

Protest poetry

Saturday saw a session on protest poetry in which Phil Jupitus talked about his “ten-line fringe” project, for which he assembles the titles of fringe shows into poems. Last year he collected 210 titles into 21 poems, with targets including Nigel Farage (“The Racist/Nobody’s boy/ Lives in a Meaningless Shed/ On the Wrong Side of the Door”) or Boris Johnson (“The boy in blue/Not as nice as he looks/Lie back and think of England/ Is that what you want?..”).

This thought-provoking session also included Hannah Silva and Hollie McNish. Read Claire Armitstead’s piece, in which she also recalls a similar game played by our readers.

Saturday also saw the birth of a new poetry prize, open to young Scottish poets only, but with the biggest purse of all the UK’s poetry awards. Niall Campbell’s Moontide won the inaugural Edwin Morgan award, drawing glowing commendations from jusges Stewart Conn and Jenn Hadfield for the 29-year-old poet from the outer Hebrides. Here is the Guardian’s review of Moontide. The Scottish Poetry Library, which administers the award, has just turned 30, so it had a second celebration on Sunday night.

Ali Smith and friends

Claire Armitstead writes:

One of the delights of the first week has been a series of events curated by Ali Smith under the title, Something Else. She has chosen writers who, she said, are “not just at the top of their chosen disciplines but whose writing is so original, so formally attentive and so alive that they gift their chosen form with the kind of life that changes the form.” With the inter-disciplinary scholar Gillian Beer she discussed Lewis Carroll, Darwin and Virginia Woolf. We’ll be covering their conversation in a podcast later.

In an electric session with Nicola Barker, she lured the reclusive author of Darkmans, The Yips and In the Approaches out for a rare reading. Why was she so reluctant to read her work, Smith asked. “I never read from my own books because it’s very painful for me” came the reply. “I engage with my work on a screen where everything is always changeable. When it becomes text I find it really asphyxiating to look at it again and I’m aways seeing things that are wrong with it.” Barker also admitted to being a control freak, who once demanded that a book be printed exactly as she had written it, only to discover later that the typeface she had accidentally submitted it in had been replicated, to unreadable effect.

In another event, Smith was joined by poet Jackie Kay to remember Scottish experimental and poetic filmmaker Margaret Tait. Full of banter between the two and of fascinating discussions, the session was different and heartwarming, just as the two short films by Tait that were shown. You can watch them here: A Portrait of Ga, a moving portrait of Tait’s mother as an old lady where, as Kay said, you can see her whole life in her and her playfulness, and Hugh MacDiarmid: A Portrait by Margaret Tait.

Roger Scruton’s quotes on nonsense and religion

Philosopher and writer Roger Scruton does not mince words – and proof of that is the talk he gave at the festival on no small issue: “Rediscovering the world’s soul”. In it, he pleaded for the sacred to be given more prominence in a context where the western world continues to turn to atheism. Among other quotes, he said the following about Richard Dawkins (also a guest in the festival):

When a scientist comes along and says ‘I have the answer’ or even ‘There is no question’, people think ‘this guy knows what he’s talking about, I’d better lean on him.’

Or this:

GK Chesterton once said that to criticise religion because it leads people to kill each other is like criticising love because it has the same effect. All the best things we have, when abused, will cause bad things to happen.

Head here for his talk dissected in quotes – and do check the comments, where an interesting debate has developed.

Doodling away

Here are our latest doodles by children’s illustrators at the festival. Axel Scheffler drew a beautiful scarecrow from his latest collaboration with Julia Donaldson, The Scarecrow’s Wedding:

Philip Ardagh insisted in joining in on the fun – and, after failing to convince Scheffler to draw his face instead of the scarecrow, he went ahead and doodled this nice mouse for us:

And Jackie Morris doodled a Mary Bear next to a real-life Mary ...

Authors in an unusual guise

The photographs of Chris Close, portraying authors in very unusual and fun guises, have been adorning the festival site since the start. This weekend, he finished up the portraits of this year’s authors:

A few days late but valuable as ever, here are the thoughts of one of our regular readers, who is at the festival:

goodyorkshirelass

12 August 2014 3:23pm

This comment has been chosen by Guardian staff because it contributes to the debate

Day three yesterday for the Book Festival, but day three today for me.

Three terrific events, each stimulating and entertaining, but characterised by different weather conditions.

Sunday's Lesley Glaister event had me wondering if the rain hammering around us would penetrate the tent. Yesterday, Linda Grant must surely have thought the battering winds would produce lift off, and today we had both wind and rain while basking in the company of the peerless Dame Margaret Drabble.

No matter, I thoroughly enjoyed them all. Perhaps I'll be sitting in Charlotte Square, sun blessing us all, glass of Sauv Blanc in hand before the tents come down for another year. It has been known.

Eimear McBride and the new modernism

Does contemporary fiction need to be modern? We discussed the delights of difficulty with Baileys prize-winning novelist Eimear McBride and the critic Stuart Kelly – on the latest books podcast.

Whatever the weather

Let’s not kid ourselves, as Mark Brown writes, the most widely discussed topic of all has been the inhospitable weather.

There have been lots of spirited discussions and debate in the first week of the Edinburgh international book festival – independence, the Middle East, the cost of a cup of tea with a sandwich (£5.60) – but listen closely to the chat in the queues and there is a more unifying subject: the weather. There was a wonderfully sunny afternoon in Charlotte Square on Saturday, when the deckchairs were full and every other person had an ice-cream, but otherwise the weather has been dire. It has generally been grey-skied, cold, windy and rainy.

But nothing short of whirlwinds and hurricanos could deter our festival team. Here are some of the pieces we have produced so far:

• Profile of George RR Martin on the Guardian Review: ‘I can’t go out anymore’
• Interview with George RR Martin on Review: ‘”Selfies”! If I could burn out every camera phone, I’d do it’
  
• Gordon Brown visited the festival. News report here – Gordon Brown: independent Scotland would have ‘neo-colonial’ ties with UK
  

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