Tonight on BBC Scotland – Edinburgh’s literary heritage on display

Edinburgh’s heritage as the capital of tartan noir is celebrated in the new BBC Scotland series The Big Scottish Book Club which starts tonight.

Writer Damian Barr hosts this new four-part series beginning tonight at 10.00pm in which he interviews the biggest names in fiction, non-fiction and poetry from Scotland and further afield before a live audience of literature lovers. 

Tonight they will discuss four books :

• In A House of Lies by Ian Rankin
• The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins
• The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry
• Dancing Bear by Richard Scott

An award-winning author in his own right, Damian has ‘booked’ some top names for the series including Maggie O’Farrell, Denise Mina, Marian Keyes, Graham Norton, David Nicholls and Patrick Gale. 

This first edition of The Big Scottish Book Club comes from the Inchyra Arts Club in Perthshire. The theme of the show is crime and Damian’s guests are the man behind inspector Rebus, Ian Rankin with his latest book in the series, In A House of Lies, debut novelist Sara Collins with her novel The Confessions of Frannie Langton and writing duo Ambrose Parry, aka Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman with The Way of All Flesh.  Poet Richard Scott completes the line-up, performing his work Dancing Bear. 

As host Damian Barr says at the top of the show: “Welcome to the first ever episode of The Big Scottish Book Club.”

As well as in-depth chats with writers, Damian will also meet with a local book club each week. In the first episode, he goes to Cupar to meet the Walk On group and takes a ‘leaf out of their book’ joining them as they walk and talk all things literary.

The Big Scottish Book Club is produced by IWC, a Banijay Group company