The Guardian Books Podcast

This month's teen book club authors Margo Lanagan and Melvin Burgess read from and discuss their books Tender Morsels and Doing It, recorded at the Edinburgh books festivalFind out more about the teen book club with Melvin Burgess and Margo Lanagan

In the last of our Edinburgh podcasts, we look at the myths behind sharia law and the invasion of Afghanistan, while Carlos Gamerro examines the hold the Falkland Islands still exert on the Argentinian psyche

Dominican American writer Junot Diaz explores matters of the heart in masculine culture, Irish novelist Claire Kilroy explains why she set her new new novel against the mounting international debt crisis, and Paul Durcan hymns the crusty glories of the Irish loaf

Fifty years after the explosive International Writers Conference was held in Edinburgh, contemporary writes have gathered to revisit the themes their predecessors considered in 1962

Frank Westerman charts the bloodline of the Lipizzaner horse – beloved of Hitler, Stalin and Tito – while the godfather of all stuntmen, Vic Armstrong, reveals whether Tom Cruise really does his own stunts ...

Kirsty Gunn tells Charlotte Higgins how her new book The Big Music is structured like a piece of traditional bagpipe music. Kevin Barry tells Claire Armitstead that his short stories, while written in remote County Sligo, are based on his wide travels

Pat Barker, author of the first world war novel Regeneration, which became a trilogy of the same name, comes to a special session of the Guardian Book Club at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. She talks to Professor John Mullan.

Five poets shortlisted for the annual Edwin Morgan Poetry prize read their entries at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, then we tell you the winner

Translator David Bellos and author James Geary debate the challenge of metaphor, while novelists Anjali Joseph and Nikita Lalwani discuss writing about foreign countries

Should historical fiction be romantic, or politically accurate? Gillian Slovo and Hilary Mantel discuss their latest books, on Thomas Cromwell and Gordon of Khartoum. Elsewhere, Richard Holloway considers the problem of certainty in religion

Jim Haynes remembers founding the original World Writers' Conference at Edinburgh 50 years ago. Plus Clive Stafford Smith and Raja Shehadeh

In our podcast from day four of the festival, Booker longlisted author Ned Beauman muses on The Teleportation Accident and Alasdair Gray considers the independence vote for Scotland

In our podcast from day three of the festival, Nell Freudenberger talks about her novel The Newlyweds, and Jess Richards and Sjon discuss islands in literature, and Michael Sandel considers Paul Ryan's place on the US presidential campaign

Simon Mawer and Michèle Roberts discuss their books set in occupied France, Louise Welsh moves from Glasgow to Berlin and Maajid Nawaz tells of how he moved from Muslim militancy to starting a movement for democratic Islam

Frank Cottrell-Boyce on his new Chitty Chitty Bang Bang story, Andrew Motion on his follow-up to Treasure Island - Silver - and Paul Mason on what he now thinks about the revolutionary movements across the world: on the first day of Edinburgh Book Festival.