Booked! takes the Book Festival buzz on the road in August

As if seventeen days of incredible events in Charlotte Square Gardens weren't enough, this year the Book Festival is bursting its banks, sending a surge of quality literature events for audiences of all ages around Scotland.

As well as five events elsewhere in Edinburgh, including one in HMP Edinburgh with author Erwin James, our Booked! programme sees us hit the road to visit communities across the country from the Hebrides to the Borders and beyond.

Our three Booked! Festivals are the centrepiece of our summer Booked! activity. Working with local council, library and venue partners, we're bringing audiences and authors together in Galashiels, Greenock and Aberdeen for two-day immersions in books and stories.

Borders Booked! Festival takes place in the beautiful MacArts, a converted church in Galashiels, on Tuesday 23 and Wednesday 24 August. New Zealand writer Bruce Gilkison, great-great-grandson of Scottish literary icon James Hogg, discusses his eccentric ancestor's journeys through Scotland — which the author retraced for new book Walking with James Hogg — on Tuesday evening. This is followed by a free Unbound session featuring writers including Brian Conaghan, Dorothy Alexander and Thomas Clark, as well as music from local talents Alan Windram and Stewart Veitch, and Fife favourite Panda Su. Wednesday sees award-winning playwright Linda McLean lead a reading workshop on Alice Munro's moving short story collection The View from Castle Rock which she has adapted for a world premiere play produced by the Book Festival and Stellar Quines theatre company, and which tours to the Borders after a nineteen show run in Edinburgh.

In Greenock, we take up residence by the River Clyde in the Beacon Arts Centre for Inverclyde Booked! Festival on Thursday 25 and Friday 26 August. Journalist Jan Patience and Louise Wyllie host a free discussion event on the latter's father, late great artist George Wyllie, about whom the pair have written in Arrivals and Sailings. Former Republic of Ireland and Celtic goalkeeper Packie Bonner takes to the stage to talk about his thrilling career in Scottish and international football with writer Gerard McDade, followed again by a free Unbound session hosted by Glasgow's Poet Laureate Jim Carruth and featuring the talents of Sarah Leipciger, Iona Lee, David Laing and Chrissy Barnacle.

ACT Aberdeen plays host to Aberdeen Booked! Festival on Monday 29 and Tuesday 30 August. In a celebration of North Sea noir, we're bringing together Scotland's James Oswald and Norway's Gunnar Staalesen for an event focused on the latest instalments of their chilling and thrilling detective series. Following that, our final free Unbound session features Peter Arnott, Helen Lynch and Allan Burnett among others in a relaxed evening of words, music and revelry.

Each Booked! Festival contains a full programme of school and community group events, with writers including Ann M Martin, Atinuke, Cara Ellison, Joshua Seigal, Alex Wheatle and a great deal more featuring in events with primary and secondary schools, toddler groups, ASN school units, prison inmates and others.

All ticketed events cost £5.00 (£3.50 concessions) and can be booked via MacArts, The Beacon or ACT Aberdeen directly.

Booked! is the Edinburgh International Book Festival on the road around Scotland throughout the year, supported by players of People's Postcode Lottery and patrons of the Book Festival. For more on Booked! including other activity this summer in the Borders and the Isles of Lewis and Harris, visit our Booked! page: www.edbookfest.co.uk/about-us/booked