How do writers find their voices?
Survey of Edinburgh books festival authors reveals that 'hearing a character' means different things over course of a writing career
Haruki Murakami: ‘My lifetime dream is to be sitting at the bottom of a well’
The Japanese author talked writing, heroes, domestic life, dreams and how his life informs his novels at a Guardian book club at the Edinburgh international book festival – and he answered some of your questions
Samuel Beckett’s articulation of unceasing inner speech
Marco Bernini: The literal sounds in his characters' minds express a subtle and revealing understanding of how we all talk to ourselves
Tips, links and suggestions: what are you reading this week?
Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them
Ali Smith, Phill Jupitus and Roger Scruton: Edinburgh international book festival round-up
From poetry to provocation, on film and in person, catch up with the highlights of a packed and wide-ranging weekend
What makes Gormenghast a masterpiece?
Marcus Sedgwick: Mervyn Peake's gothic fantasy has never matched the success of JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Maybe it's just too good
Eve according to Christos Tsiolkas
Claire Armitstead: The author of The Slap and Barracuda is delighted that a short story he wrote for the Edinburgh book festival has been described as 'feminist'
Richard Dawkins: I once tried to commune with God – aged 13
'Angels at the altar' fantasy of now confirmed atheist revealed as leading scientist speaks at Edinburgh book festival
Do you hear voices? You are not alone
Ben Alderson-Day: Auditory verbal hallucinations or ‘hearing voices’ is not restricted to people who have a form of psychosis. For many, the voices provide support and guidance or have a spiritual aspect
Edinburgh 2014 review: Letters Home – reinvents the short story for the stage
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Kamila Shamsie and other authors push the theatrical boundaries of narrative, writes Claire Armitstead
Why The Hunger Games’ killer Katniss is a great female role model
Katniss Everdeen, heroine of The Hunger Games, is spiky and hard to like; but her qualities are so much more admirable than Twilight’s mopey vampire-lover Bella, writes Samantha Ellis
Edinburgh festival 2014 review – Spine: angry blast at society that denies knowledge
A troubled teenager and elderly woman bond over library books in Clara Brennan's fierce one-woman play starring Rosie Wyatt, writes Lyn Gardner
Will Self Q&A – as it happened
How he built that huge vocabulary to what he had for breakfast: author and journalist Will Self answered your questions in a live webchat. What did he have to say?
Alain de Botton in quotes: “The news promotes a toxic society of envy”
Why celebrity role models are OK, smartphones are not, and we should all be more biased than the BBC. An hour of philosophical crowd-pleasing distilled into key quotes
Hearing voices: what’s your experience when reading?
A study is looking into how readers hear (or don’t) the voices of the characters in their heads when they read – and going beyond that by examining the medical, scientific and spiritual aspects of hearing voices. What’s your experience?