Edinburgh Gliterary Lunch with James Runcie & Christina Patterson

The Great Passion
James Runcie

The Author

James Runcie is an award-winning film maker, playwright and literary curator.

He is the author of twelve novels that have been translated into twelve languages, including the seven books in the Grantchester Mysteries series. He has been Artistic Director of the Bath Literature Festival, Head of Literature and Spoken Word  at the Southbank Centre in London, and Commissioning Editor for Arts on BBC Radio 4. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in Scotland and London.

Praise for James Runcie

Runcie, best known for his empathic Grantchester mystery series, displays the same gifts for  characterization in this account of Johann Sebastian Bach’s composition of the “St Matthew Passion”  in 1727… This is historical fiction of the highest order. Publishers Weekly 

The Book

Leipzig, 1726. Eleven-year-old Stefan Silbermann, a humble organ-maker’s son, has just lost his mother. Sent to Leipzig to train as a singer in the St Thomas Church choir, he struggles to stay afloat in a school where the teachers are as casually cruel as the students.

Stefan’s talent draws the attention of the Cantor – Johann Sebastian Bach. Eccentric, obsessive and kind, he rescues Stefan from the miseries of school by bringing him into his home as an apprentice. Soon Stefan feels that this ferociously clever, chaotic family is his own. But when tragedy strikes, Stefan’s period of sanctuary in their household comes to a close.

Something is happening, though. In the depths of his loss, the Cantor is writing a new work: the Saint Matthew Passion, to be performed for the first time on Good Friday. As Stefan watches the work rehearsed, he realises he is witness to the creation of one of the most extraordinary pieces of music that has ever been written.

Outside, the Sky is Blue
Christine Patterson

The Author

 Christina Patterson is a writer and broadcaster. She writes for The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail, as well as magazines ranging from Harper’s Bazaar to Red. Her first book The Art of Not Falling Apart was published in 2018. She regularly appears on radio and TV news programmes, hosts the podcast Work Interrupted and is a speaker, facilitator, conference chair and coach. A former columnist at The Independent and Director of the Poetry Society, she has contributed to books on poetry, literature and health. 

Praise for Christina Patterson

‘What could have been an unambiguous misery memoir transforms instead into a hymn to optimism, and a beacon of unflagging hope.’ inews.co.uk

Page after page, she’s hit with the kind of sucker punches that would floor most of us, and yet she comes back sparkling with humour, with love, with hope. Outside the Sky Is Blue is a lesson in generosity, in accommodation, but most of all it’s a lesson in resilience.’ The Guardian 

The Book

 A beautifully drawn, heart-breaking yet also joyful memoir of growing up, of living with mental and physical ill health, and of working out what it means to be in a family, what it means to lose a family – and what it’s like when you are the last one left.

When Christina Patterson’s brother Tom died very suddenly, she faced the harrowing task of clearing out his house. Tom had always been the one who held on to the family treasures and memories, but now Christina had to sift through box after box of letters, papers, photos and belongings, not just of Tom’s, but of their parents and their older sister, Caroline. 

Those boxes, albums and papers tell the story of a young couple who decide, when their children are small, to swap a glamorous diplomatic life in Rome for a housing estate in Surrey. But their new suburban life, of trips to National Trust houses, fizzy drinks over TV costume drama and walks at Wisley Gardens, is increasingly disrupted by Caroline’s erratic behaviour. As she is diagnosed with schizophrenia, Tom seeks solace in sport and Christina in a youth club where she hopes to meet boys, but finds God.