Bookworm

WRITERS writing in Edinburgh cafés we know all about. But writers writing in bookshops?

Next weekend, notebook in hand, Lari Don will be working on her next book at the Children's Bookshop in Bruntsfield, Edinburgh. And while most authors tend to avoid strangers while in mid-sentence, Lari promises she'll actually welcome interruptions from customers asking her what she's up to and checking up on whether she's actually making any progress.

Lari, whose First Aid for Fairies and other Fabled Beasts was voted the best book for 8-11-year-olds in last year's Royal Mail Awards, says she won't find it too much of an imposition as she's already used to writing in all sorts of different places. In fact, she adds, she might well turn the tables on her questioners and ask them for their own opinions on which directions her stories might take.

Don is so productive that it will take more than the distractions of bookshop doors opening and tills ringing to put her off. Next month she'll be bringing out her 1920s Perthshire-set children's story The Rocking Horse War; last month saw the publication of her first picture book, The Big Bottom Hunt (which is about exactly what it says). And she's also quite used to handling awkward questions: in an earlier incarnation, she was a press officer for the SNP.

SOME INSPIRED TITLES

Anna Nicholas's Donkeys on my Doorstep, out this week from Summerscale, is yet another addition to the burgeoning list of books about the good life abroad – in her case, Mallorca. Bookworm is, however, a lot more tempted, by their titles alone, by her last two books in the series, Goats from a Small Island and Cat on a Hot Tile Roof.

PRIZEWINNING EXCUSE

THE Borders Book Festival has had a singular success rate in luring six out of the seven authors shortlisted for the inaugural Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction to Melrose next month. What about the seventh?

Sarah Dunant, the former host of The Late Show on BBC 2, whose novel Sacred Hearts, set in a convent in Renaissance Italy is shortlisted for the 25,000 award, does at least have a good excuse.

Six months ago, she was offered the use of a house in Umbria for two weeks. She used this as an excuse to invite friends and family from across the globe to come together to celebrate an early birthday party, the date of which was fixed as 19 June – the very day the awards will be announced in Melrose.

NEARING THE END OF THE LINE

FINALLY, could the humble corporation bus soon be a thing of the past? According to former Scotsman property editor Ken Huston, who now has his own successful Edinburgh PR business, it's a distinct possibility, as council bus fleets have been reduced by 90 per cent since the late 1960s. In his first book The Corporation Bus (Grosvenor House, 9.99), he looks back at the heyday of the municipal fleets and says that, a decade from now, the only place we might find them are transport museums.