Review: The Ullapool Book Festival

In the opening event of the Ullapool book festival on Friday morning, James Robertson explained why his latest novel was influenced, among other things, by the 1945 Powell and Pressburger film I Know Where I’m Going. He wanted, he said, to write about a journey to the Highlands in which the periphery turned out to be central and those making the journey returned changed by it. Much of that could have also applied to anyone travelling from afar to the Ullapool book festival itself. On a superficial level, they would have returned with a tan, for this was one of those weekends when Loch Broom was playing at being the Mediterranean, without a cloud in the sky or a whisper of wind to ruffle the outrageous cherry and plum blossom on Market Street. But if you went to the festival in the Village Hall there, you could indeed have come out changed at a deeper level too.