Faber Academy friends and one of the most famous bookshops anywhere, Shakespeare & Company hosts the international literary festival, FestivalandCo. Podcasts of this year’s events are now online.

The line-up of authors taking part is impressive, but look out especially for Faber’s David Hare, Petina Gappah, Hanif Kureishi, Breyten Breytenbach and Erica Wagner.

The festival takes place every two years.

Many congratulations to RJ Ellory whose A Simple Act of Violence was awarded the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award at Harrogate on Thursday night.

While he’s an established seller and previous Richard and Judy bookclub pick, this was Ellory’s first major prize win in the UK and it’s heartening to see him recognized for what is, for me, his finest work to date.

The jacket blurb makes it sound like a fairly standard police procedural in which a Washington DC Detective investigates a series of killings where the victims don’t appear to have official identities. But don’t be deceived, as from this starting point Ellory fashions a bold and provocative exploration of the CIA’s covert operations in Nicaragua in the 1980s (and it’s this side of it which seems even more timely and relevant following today’s disclosures by Wikileaks). Perhaps the highest compliment I can pay it is that it makes a great companion piece to Don Winslow’s magisterial 2005 novel, The Power of the Dog.

And it was another excellent year for the festival, a three-day celebration of crime writing at which the authors, as is tradition, socialise (and drink) freely with the festival-goers.

My other highlight of the weekend was the Saturday lunchtime event for debuts, hand-picked and generously hosted by Val McDermid, which featured Belinda Bauer (Blacklands), Stuart Neville (The Twelve), Attica Locke (Black Water Rising) and Liam McIlvanney (All the Colours of the Town), four authors whose highly impressive first novels all promise a vibrant future for contemporary crime writing.

Peter Carey delivered the closing address at the Sydney Writers’ Festival on the theme of media, literacy and democracy. Following the recent publication of his latest novel, Parrot and Olivier in America, he takes on the themes of that book to argue that literacy is essential for a healthy democracy. He advocates a prioritisation of education in order to address the rising tide of political ignorance and its manipulation by politicians around the world. Watch him deliver the speech here.

Last weekend we made our annual pilgrimage to The Hague (and for the first time, Antwerp) for the pioneering festival dedicated to Music and Literature, Crossing Border. This year Loops hosted a series of events, readings and performances. Wild Beasts played a predictably brilliant set, confirming their burgeoning reputation as one of the most stimulating British bands since The Smiths. Check out one of the great albums of the year here.

Elsewhere Graham Massey of 808 State provided a unique soundtrack to preface Kevin Cummins’ conversation with Paul Morley about Manchester’s pop iconography and James Yorkston played an intimate and memorable set.

The highlight, for me, was Richard Milward’s classic meeting and interview with psychedelic legend, Sonic Boom, of Spectrum and Spacemen 3. An interview in the true gonzo spirit of Hunter Thompson, Milward was largely unfazed by Sonic’s benign reticence and Louis Behre, founder of Crossing Border, was impressed enough to proclaim the performance one of his personal highlights of the festival’s 15 years.

A joy to behold! Steve Earle, Stephen Malkmus, Natalie Merchant, Monsters of Folk, The Low Anthem, Mumford and Sons, Jay McInnerney, James Kelman, and the editorial presence of the most vital journal of the day, The Believer – yet again Crossing Border confirmed its reputation for quality, innovation and passionate commitment to music and spoken-word performance.

It has now become commonplace at festivals like Latitude, Camp Bestival and Green Man to mix music with literary performance in the same space; Crossing Border was the original and still the best. No mud or tents either. What’s not to like?

www.loopsjournal.com – Issue Two out in March 2010.