Aberdeen's book festival balanced big ideas and bestsellers

More than a reprise, however, it became a highlight, showcasing three of Scotland's best loved writers at the height of their powers.

Of Scotland's literary festivals – now numbering more than 30 – Word was one of the earliest. Those of us who remember the first Word marvelled this year at its growth: multiple venues, two marquees and now, for its bigger hitters, the 600-seater Arts Lecture Theatre.

Alan Spence's opening reading was an account of making a time capsule for contemporary Scotland (in a tartan shortbread tin – what else?). If we were to do the same for Word 2010, and bury the box in front of King's College to be unearthed in some future decade when books and book festivals are beamed directly to our iPods, what would it contain?

There would be – as there was in Spence's capsule – a book by Edwin Morgan. The poet, who turned 90 in April, is no longer well enough to attend book festivals, but they continue to celebrate him fondly in his absence in events like the one on Friday, organised by the Scottish Poetry Library, in which writers read their favourite examples of his work.

On Sunday, three acclaimed poets, Ron Butlin, Stewart Conn and Brian McCabe, revealed a few of the golden strands which they trace to Morgan. McCabe took comfort from his wide-ranging subject matter as he set out to write Zero, a book of poems on the theme of mathematics. Butlin, a poet with a wonderfully light touch, loved his "Olympian playfulness", while Conn was encouraged by the idea of a writerly toolbox which could bring together elements from both Scots and English language.

And Alan Riach, a Professor of Scottish Literature as well as a poet, gave the Linklater Lecture on Edwin Morgan, probing beneath the surface of that legacy and suggesting that his playfulness and inventiveness, his warm, enabling spirit, his multiplicity of voices, came through a long and difficult gestation period, and that the voice of 2003's book of poems, Love and a Life, shows an authorial voice that is finally at ease.

The time capsule would contain a white linen suit, for Martin Bell, "talking about in passing but not promoting" his book about the expenses scandal, A Very British Revolution. The former war correspondent, who stood for Parliament in 1997 on an anti-corruption ticket and successfully unseated Tory MP Neil Hamilton, described himself as a "failed anti-sleaze campaigner", if only because he had no idea then how endemic the problem was.

There would be a cat's whisker for Simon King, who delighted a sell-out crowd with stories from his work on Big Cat Diaries, the pleasures and pitfalls involved in studying the same animals at length and coming to observe their personalities.

There would be a libel writ for Simon Singh, the scientist and journalist who recently emerged victorious from a two-year legal battle with the British Chiropractic Association over an article he wrote while promoting his book about complementary medicine, Trick or Treatment. Bruised but triumphant, he was critical of proceedings which are so protracted and expensive that none but the richest or most determined can access the checks and balances they offer.

Add a wine glass, for the conviviality of a good literary festival, and for comedienne Karen Dunbar performing Denise Mina's verse monologue A Drunk Woman Looks at the Thistle. Mina's contemporary, celebratory, critical take on MacDiarmid's classic was joyfully received by the audience, all the more as the bar stayed open throughout.

There would be an opera score, for Word secured the premiere of Scottish Opera's latest Five:15, a group of new fifteen-minute operas which paired Scottish writers and poets with composers.

And there would be other objects: a recording of Katie Melua's Nine Million Bicycles, re-written by Simon Singh for scientific accuracy ("We are 13.7 billion light years from the edge of the observable universe..."); a Roman figurine for Allan Massie, talking about his long and varied writing life; a cup of tea for Pauline McLynn, a gifted novelist despite somehow remaining Father Ted's Mrs Doyle; a world map for explorer Benedict Allen, and a knitting pattern the shape of the universe, from Scarlett Thomas's inventive new novel.

And there would be a gown and mortar board,for a festival which has grown within the walls of a university, though its reach is far wider. Over the last decade, Word has occasionally been ill at ease with this, wondering how to balance its intellectual context with the need to bag some best-sellers.

This year, it felt like they got it right. Word 2010 felt like a festival exploiting its unique identity, a festival at peace with itself.