Last summer, I was invited to the 40th anniversary of the Edinburgh Book Festival.
When I got there, my kind hosts told me I had attended the very first – making an appearance on stage with Martin Amis and John Updike, both now dead, alas.
I remember thinking, 40 years ago, how weird it was asking writers to sing for their suppers. Writing is an essentially solitary activity, and it is not realistic to expect that a writer – almost by definition an introvert – will be
