Book Festival turns a new page

LAST year was the 25th anniversary year of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, which has grown from small beginnings to become one of the most pre-eminent literary events in the world. Such is the Festival's pulling power that the 2008 event was opened by the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and closed by Sir Sean Connery, who used the occasion to launch his new book, Being a Scot.

Between these two bookends, 800 authors, from 45 different countries, spoke at 750 popular events. And despite one of the wettest Augusts on record, which turned the Festival's habitual location in Charlotte Square gardens into a sea of mud, 200,000...