Ian Rankin
Writer and philanthropistWikipedia
37
MENTIONS
30
EPISODES
26
PODCASTS
Search complete. 37 mentions across 30 episodes found for "Ian Rankin".
Oct 2, 2026
Guy LloydGUEST
But for crime fans, there are some very big ones out, apart from Richard Osman.
Guy LloydGUEST
So Ian Rankin has a new crime novel, The Heights, and Ann Cleeves has a new one as well called The Dying Light.
Guy LloydGUEST
Um, so it's going to be a very, very big autumn ahead, and there's some good stuff there.
Hannah MurrayHOST
Exciting.
Jim ThayerHOST
You've heard me say that we writers should be big readers, and skilled and famous writers agree.
Jim ThayerHOST
Sarah Ann Waters says, "Read like mad." Ian Rankin tells us writers, "Read lots." Zadie Smith says, "Make sure you read a lot of books." It makes sense, doesn't it? We'll learn writing by reading, but specifically, what's something reading can do for us? In the Wall Street Journal, Thomas Cullen wrote a terrific piece titled Reading and Writing Are Worth a Fight.
Jim ThayerHOST
And listen to these three sentences.
Jim ThayerHOST
Thomas Cullen writes, "I've never met a gifted writer who wasn't also an avid reader.
Paul BurkeHOST
But it was a, it's a tough one to take on, because you're taking on something so iconic.
Barry ForshawGUEST
Well, all of those TV adaptations or, or new TV, uh, properties like The Agency and so forth, I remember Ian Rankin once said to me he really envied P.D. James' era of TV adaptations of her books.
Barry ForshawGUEST
She got multiple hours.
Paul BurkeHOST
Yeah.
Barbara PetersHOST
Right.
Barbara PetersHOST
Ian Rankin wrote as another person.
Barbara PetersHOST
Donald Westlake and some of Larry Block, they wrote under different names.
Barbara PetersHOST
You know, it really is a branding thing.
Barbara PetersHOST
For storytelling, it's way better, if you think about it.
Barbara PetersHOST
You know, the fact that you get six or eight.
Barbara PetersHOST
Yeah, I mean, Ian Rankin and I talked about that years ago.
Barbara PetersHOST
The original Rebus on television, they had to cram a whole book into like 40 minutes or 45 minutes or so.
Jenny NivenGUEST
So we try and do both.
Jenny NivenGUEST
But then there's something also really powerful and important, I think, about being able to bring writers that really speak to a very wide demographic and to sort of move us away from this idea that book festivals are only for the middle classes and are only kind of um for one particular type of audience and so we've tried to also program writers and speakers and people from public life that are very recognizable and that you might have seen them on tv or the way or in this case this year we have the incredible john grisham joining us who i think has sold something like 500 million copies of his book over the last 30 years and that's an absolute gift to our programme to be able to bring somebody who has such a wide readership and we've got him in conversation obviously he writes legal thrillers mainly but we've got him in conversation with Ian Rankin who is one of Scotland's most kind of celebrated crime authors and a fantastic champion of literature.
Jenny NivenGUEST
So the two of them together will be one of our more kind of stardust events, I suppose, this year.
Jenny NivenGUEST
But we love all of our authors equally.
Jaya Bhattacharji RoseHOST
Ian Rankin is also your patron of the festival, isn't he? If I'm not mistaken.
Jenny NivenGUEST
Yes, that's right.
Jenny NivenGUEST
Yeah, yeah.
Barbara PetersHOST
It wouldn't be particularly realistic for me to be carrying on as though I were 30.
Barbara PetersHOST
And people who chose to age their characters, Michael Conley, Ian Rankin, have run into a whole different set of problems, which is, what do you do? Ian, for example, has written a standalone after 39, sorry, what's his name? What's Ian's character's name? I'm going blank.
Barbara PetersHOST
Patrick? No, that's Conley as Bosh.
Barbara PetersHOST
Ian will come to me in a minute.
Joel MeadowsGUEST
So I feel very lucky that I have this connection with some of these people who are, you know, prominent figures in the world.
Joel MeadowsGUEST
We got a one-line quote from Guillermo del Toro as well, and Ian Rankin, which was it's amazing.
Joel MeadowsGUEST
I mean, the fact that I'm able to, and you know, these people don't have to give us quotes if they didn't like it or they didn't feel like it kind of moved them.
Joel MeadowsGUEST
They, they would, they would say, you know, very politely say that, you know, it's not really for me or I don't feel like, you know, so I, I feel lucky now.
Mark BillinghamGUEST
Yeah, the football, thankfully for us, doesn't happen anymore.
Mark BillinghamGUEST
But yeah, I was the captain of the England crime rights football team and Ian Rankin was the captain of Scotland.
Mark BillinghamGUEST
team and there was some fierce rivalry.
Mark BillinghamGUEST
And they absolutely destroyed us the first year.
28 MINS LATER
Tariq AshkananiGUEST
Crime in the Spotlight, when you go out and you read a bit of your book in front of an author.
Tariq AshkananiGUEST
And that was an amazing exposure for me.
Tariq AshkananiGUEST
And I got to read a bit of my first book in front of Ian Rankin.
Tariq AshkananiGUEST
So he had a massive audience that were there for him, but they had to listen to me first.
Benjamin MyersGUEST
Like, it got this amazing review from Val McDermott, who's like, you know, the queen of crime books.
Benjamin MyersGUEST
you know, like it's her and Ian Rankin, I think are the best to do it.
Benjamin MyersGUEST
And like it won a prize in France and stuff, but a lot of people who read it were quite upset because it was really graphic and it was really, I didn't shy away from any descriptions or details.
Benjamin MyersGUEST
So there's necrophilia, there's decomposition, you know, all the things that they don't show on like, I don't know, Miss Marple or whatever, you know, what's that?
Valerie FrancisHOST
And I'm not alone.
Valerie FrancisHOST
And in case you think I'm being melodramatic, I invite you to do some research on what Ian Rankin has had to say about giving Rebus a pet dog, Brillo.
Valerie FrancisHOST
Now, spoiler alert.
Valerie FrancisHOST
He half-jokingly has said that he wishes he had never done it because readers have become more focused on the dog's welfare than they are on Rebus solving the crime.
Valerie FrancisHOST
It's almost now playing second fiddle to a stray dog.
Valerie FrancisHOST
Like that's no joke.
Valerie FrancisHOST
Go on YouTube, look up interviews with Ian Rankin and how he talks about Brillo.
Valerie FrancisHOST
Seriously.
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