I’ve given up apologising for the lack of content. You all know the score. Full time work. Dissertation. Due end of September. Blah blah. But I did want to tell you about the latest literary arrivals in Other Stories Mansions.

I spent most of last week at the Edinburgh Book Festival, which is always a treat, despite torrential rain. I was there for work, so the only events I managed to get to were the ones featuring the authors I work with. They were, of course, wonderful, but it’s a shame I didn’t get to see any of the fiction writers. I did, though, pillage the book shop and came away with these:

The photo isn’t wonderful, I apologise. On the top of the pile is Joan Bakewell’s autobiography, The Centre of the Bed. I’m a huge fan of Dame Joan, and I was reminded of her autobiography by her recent appearance on Desert Island Discs (I was particularly impressed that her first choice was ‘Voodoo Chile’ by The Jimi Hendrix Experience). She has led a fascinating life, and I can’t wait to read about it.

Next title down is The Electric Michelangelo by Sarah Hall. This is her second novel, which was well-received when it was published a few years ago. It is about ‘love, loss, and the art of tattooing’ and follows tattoo artist Cy Parks from the wind-swept seafront of 1920s Morcambe Bay to the altogether brasher Coney Island, NY. It was a Booker Prize and Orange Prize nominee, and Hall’s latest novel – How to Paint a Dead Man – is on the longlist for this year’s Booker too.

That big chunky book in the middle is Joseph’s Box by Suhayl Saadi. I’m not familiar with Saadi’s previous novel, Psychoraag, but I am familiar with the book’s publisher – Two Ravens Press – thanks to their wonderful blog. This book just sounds fascinating, but so intricately plotted that I can do no better than quoting the blurb on the back of the novel:

Recently-bereaved Zuleikha MacBeth wades into the Clyde one morning and recovers a large box, with which she becomes obsessed. The discovery of the box brings her together with Alex, a lute-playing clerk, and they manage to open the box – only to find six further boxes inside which they can only open once they have followed cryptic clues. The clues lead Zulie and Alex on a physical and emotional journey modulated through music across Glasgow, Argyllshire, Lincolnshire, Sicily, Lahore, and finally the frozen peaks of the ‘Roof of the World’. Zulie, a troubled doctor, finds herself sucked into the vortex of the terminally ill Archie MacPherson, an ambivalent, visionary ex-WW2 airman and Glasgow shipyard worker. In the manner of a lord of misrule, Archie’s dying consciousness begins to shape and ultimately define Zuleikha and Alex’s quest as they progress through the seven Sufi stations of sacrifice, truth, power, obedience, life, memory and beauty.

The fact that the story is partly set in my native Glasgow doesn’t hurt either. I am particularly looking forward to this, especially as when I lugged my teetering pile of purchases up to the till, the bookseller told me excitedly how much she had loved Joseph’s Box. Even my fiction-shunning boyfriend quites fancies the look of this one. Will wonders never cease?

Underneath that one is Clara by Janice Galloway, which I’ve had skirting around my periphery vision for some years now, but have never actually got around to buying. It’s a fictionalised account of the life of Clara Schumann, the celebrated nineteenth-century concert pianist and composer, editor and teacher, friend of Brahms -  and who was also the wife of Robert Schumann, the mother of his eight children, and the woman who cared for him through a series of crippling mental illnesses.

Last but not least, is the newly released paperback edition of Michael Holroyd’s A Strange Eventful History. This has just won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography, and the front and back covers are littered with plaudits from everyone from Sir Ian McKellan to John Carey.  This is the biography of Victorian theatre legends Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, and their families. And, quite aside from sounding very interesting indeed, it has one of the best covers I’ve seen in a while.

Now, just roll on October so I can read them all.