My second visit to the Book Festival was even more fun that the first.  Irving Finkel with his long white beard and his unruly hair tied back in a pigtail of sorts looks every bit the curator of cunieform tablets at the British Museum that he is.  Apparently he made that career choice at the age of eight.

So he knows a lot about the subject and gave a very interesting and amusing talk.  So engaging was he that I not only bought the book he was promoting but a previous one he wrote about deciphering tablets describing The Flood.

I held back from buying the newly republished translation of Cyrano de Bergerac by Edwin Morgan which provided excellent entertainment in a rehearsed reading but I may relapse because it's very good.  This Book Festival event was my second encounter with his version of the play which I saw on the stage in my one and only visit to Cumbernauld Theatre way back in 1992.  I had to go there because I couldn't get in in Edinburgh.

It was a super show and it was lovely just to hear the words again.