Edinburgh festival to recreate books world-changing event of 1962

The Edinburgh World Writers' Conference this summer will reinvent the massively influential writers' summit for a global audience

The case for celebrities at book festivals

Cheltenham literary director says the word literature 'frightens people' and appeals to book festivals to 'stop knocking each other'

From Booker to Bafta: do arts awards matter?

The awards season, with all its squabbles, is under way. Actor Diana Quick and Poetry Society chief Judith Palmer discuss winning, losing, and marching off in a huff

Russell Kane: ‘What am I going to do when I’m not the next big thing?’

He was the toast of Edinburgh, he's written a novel and he's had a play put on at the RSC. Yet, finds Brian Logan, comedian Russell Kane is prone to rages and plagued by doubt

Edinburgh international book festival launches publishing project

Collection of specially commissioned work from authors including Roddy Doyle and Amy Bloom will be produced in collaboration with McSweeney's

AS Byatt tells Edinburgh audience why she loves reading Terry Pratchett

Booker prize-winning novelist explains why she is such a profound pessimist – and why reading novels gives her hope

Arab spring has created ‘intelligence disaster’, warns former CIA boss

Michael Scheuer says rendition should be brought back as lack of intelligence has left UK and US unable to monitor militants

Simon Hoggart’s week: In Kerry Katona’s world, hacking is a help

Staying in the news is vital for celebrities who are only known for being famous

Tobias Wolff: ‘I still feel as though I’m faking it’

He's one of America's most celebrated authors, yet Tobias Wolff still worries he'll disappoint. He talks to Xan Brooks about the challenges of the memoir game and measuring up to the 'great father', Hemingway

Kristin Hersh: ‘I hate music’

In the space of a year, Kristin Hersh landed a record deal, attempted suicide, was diagnosed as schizophrenic, and gave birth. The Throwing Muses star talks to Xan Brooks about her memoir

Are books dead, and can authors survive?

At the Edinburgh international book festival this weekend, Ewan Morrison set out his bleak vision of a publishing industry in terminal decline. Here's a shortened version of his argument

Stieg Larsson’s final novel ’70% complete’, colleague claims

Kurdo Baksi says he was shown manuscript for sequel to Millennium Trilogy, which would 'make the perfect Hollywood film'

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – review

While it is always visually extraordinary, it is totally uninvolving, writes Lyn Gardner

Simon Hoggart’s week: festival folks flip between jokes and soaks

Wet Edinburgh is the place to plug a book, see a familial fringe foray and hear the one about the magician and the media baron

Arthur Miller: why America lowered the curtain on his reputation

Playwright's biographer, Christopher Bigsby, defends work produced in later years at Edinburgh book festival

Edinburgh international book festival diary

Rosamund Bartlett, Maggie O'Farrell, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Val McDermid and Stella Rimington appear before the literati

Michael Holroyd laments the decline of biography

Acclaimed biographer of Lytton Strachey and George Bernard Shaw tells Edinburgh international book festival that his current work – A Book of Secrets – will be his last

An Evening with David Sedaris – review

David Sedaris comfortably holds his own against all the other standups on the fringe, writes Brian Logan

Edward St Aubyn: ‘Writing is horrible’

Novelist Edward St Aubyn faced a stark choice: tell the shocking truth about his life – or kill himself. But will his readers let him write about anything else? By Stephen Moss