What:
Moby Dick Big Read celebrates the 161st anniversary of the publication of Moby Dick. This is an online version of Herman Melville’s masterpiece: each of its chapters read by a mixture of the celebrated and the unknown, broadcasted online in a sequence of 135 downloads, publicly and freely accessible. Tilda Swinton, Stephen Fry and Simon Callow have all recorded chapters from Moby Dick for you to listen to here.

This book foresaw many of the aspects of the modern world from the abuse of power and belief; of nature and the environment to the overweening ambition and delusion of one man. It deals with art and artifice and stark reality – in an almost existential manner.

Why we like it:
Each chapter can be listened to online or downloaded to mobile devices. The chapters all feature an accompanying artwork from an array of artists such as Turner Prize winner, Mark Wallinger, Linder and Zaha Hadid Architects. With new chapters added daily, your journey to work in the mornings can now be much more enjoyable.

There are also a variety of associated events which you can view here.

Find out more:
Website | SoundCloud | iTunes | Podcast Feed | Facebook

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For more creative delights we’ve Spotted on the web take a look here.

Read Wigtown Book Festival: The Friday
Read Wigtown Book Festival: The Saturday 

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Roughly 9 hours after leaving Bladnoch Inn, I’m back in search of something fried and hot. Feeling returns, and so does my smile, upon finding the oddest bookstore yet.

I’m very tempted to try my luck and knock, but am already late for my first  session, for The Wave Watcher’s Companion. Originally it caught my eye due to the mention of Cornwall in the blurb – “One bright February afternoon, on a beach in Cornwall, Gavin Pretor-Pinney took a break from cloudspotting and began watching waves rolling into shore. Mesmerised, he wondered where they had come from, and vowed to find out.” – where I partly grew up, and my sister’s family now live, keen surfers all. It’s nowhere near as esoteric as I had been hoping, but no less enjoyable for it; there’s lots of science, in a kind of ‘Did you know?’ way, and Gavin Pretor-Pinney delivers it all with a measured excitement, as if he’s just learning all this stuff at the same time as you. I love that books like this exist; there is a definite market of people, much like myself, who struggled horribly with school science lessons, but have a genuine fascination for how ‘things’ work. Our God is Bill Bryson, obviously, but this guy’s pretty damn good, too.

Afterwards, finally make it to the official Festival Bookshop.

They like Ian Rankin a *lot*, but then he did open proceedings this year.

Alisdair Gray has also been in attendance, presenting a talk about his paintings, whilst his definitive work is included in the ‘Ten Scottish Books That Changed The World’ exhibition, showing at WBF. I, er, still have not managed to read it, but quite like the cover…

Make my way to Reading Lasses, which wins the award for Best Bookshop Name in town; JK Rowling’s ‘Ballad of Headless Nick’ is on display in the back room, and it’s alright, as silly wizard poetry goes, but having to tiptoe in and out due to a random women napping on the nearby, sun-drenched sofa makes me giggle more. Accidentally wander out the wrong exit, where rather aptly I find the entrance to Narnia.

Next door is Glaisnock Guest House, where Wigtown’s artist-in-residence, Deirdre Nelson, has been collecting words from visitors, writers and workers at the festival; all will be then gathered together, and used to create a piece of work revealed at The Spring Fling in 2011.

And, all too soon, it’s time for my final event. On the way there, however, I come across a sign that has nothing to do with books, and is a little confusing:

I’ve chosen Phyllida Law: Notes to my Mother-in-Law to close my Wigtown experience, and I’m quite excited. The fact that I’m distinctly younger than the average audience member is an unexpected bonus; I rarely feel like the whippersnapper these days. Law is late, but so incredibly charming with it – something to do with a plane, a tractor, and lots of yelling – in that ever-so-English way that you just immediately want to take her home and bring her tea in fine cups and have her say: ‘Well, I was just speechless!’ for the rest of your life. The book is sad and sweet, a collection of notes Law wrote to her mother-in-law, who grew increasingly deaf and isolated, despite living in the house with the rest of the family. A lot of the ‘do you remember when?’ stuff goes right over my head, but I’m still laughing more than at any event in the Edinburgh Fringe; it may have been the story concerning using garlic up the bum as a cure for piles that did it, but it’s hard to say.

And that’s it. Two nights and two days, and it’s not nearly enough; I have that slightly odd feeling of having been somewhere incredibly different and removed from my normal life, despite the fact I’m no more than 4 hours from my front door. Sufficiently in love to make solid plans to return next year, I wander off with an armful of books, the Copyright Lawyer’s email and enough inspiration to keep me going for a long while. I thoroughly recommend it.