2006 Edinburgh International Book Festival

Readings in the bookshop

Browsers in the bookshop were treated every day to a free short story reading by a well-known writer

Come rain or shine (and there was plenty of each at this year's festival), the bookshop played host to some of Britain's best-known writers. Every afternoon at four o'clock the Story banners were erected in the far corner of the shop and a writer was fitted with a microphone.

Curious customers wandered over, pulled up chairs or sat on the floor to lose themselves for twenty minutes in a world of someone else's making. It was Jackanory for grown-ups, and it was free.

Stuart Kelly, literary editor of Scotland on Sunday (and author of The Book of Lost Books), wrote in the paper, 'As part of the "try before you buy" ethos of the festival, the daily free short story readings are an excellent idea. Browsers in the bookshop tent momentarily paused, taken unawares by first-class work from, among others, Alan Spence, Ali Smith and James Robertson. It proved the power of the word to draw people in.'

The authors who gave up their time to entertain the festivalgoers were:

Jackie Kay | Val McDermid | Maggie O'Farrell | Peter Hobbs | Helen Simpson | Alan Spence | James Lasdun (winner of the 2006 National Short Story Prize) | Bernard MacLaverty | James Meek | Ali Smith | Ron Butlin | James Robertson | Patricia Duncker | Ken McLeod | Alexei Sayle | Roddy Doyle | Susie Maguire