Preview: Book Week Scotland

Spread the word: the first ‘Book Week Scotland’ has ambitious plans to share the joys of reading.

Imagine that you’re planning a week-long book festival with hundreds of events. That’s going to be complicated enough, but let’s make it even harder. For one thing, it’s going to take place all over the country. For another, almost everything is going to be free. And finally – and this is the kicker – a massive slice of your programme is going to be aimed at people who would never dream of going to a book festival in the first place.

That’s what Scottish Book Trust has spent months planning, and for a week starting on Monday, you should be able to see the results. Welcome to Book Week Scotland, the country’s first nationwide celebration of the joys of reading.

What does that mean? First, free books. Every Primary One child in Scotland will get three free picture books with activities based on them to enjoy at home with their families. Then there are 150,000 copies of My Favourite Place to distribute. Michael Palin’s wonderful article on the Falls of Dochart (See Page One) that leads off the book is only one contribution. There are others, from well-known figures such as Alexander McCall Smith, Liz Lochhead and Aidan Moffat to members of the public writing about what part of Scotland they find the most inspirational. And you can get your copy almost anywhere – libraries, bookshops, stations, Calmac ferries, National Trust and Historic Scotland buildings – as well as at 63 Specsaver stores nationwide.

As at an ordinary book festival, there’ll be plenty of Scottish writers talking about their work. But this time, they’ll be doing that all over Scotland: Orkney for Val McDermid, Benbecula for Janice Galloway, Carnoustie for Debi Gliori, Loch Leven for Iain Banks, and so on.

With 100 authors in 100 libraries, there should be something for everyone. And a week today, Glasgow’s Mitchell Library will host its own day-long book festival, with leading figures in the book world, from Millions author Frank Cottrell Boyce to Waterstones boss James Daunt.

But that’s where Book Week Scotland stops looking like an ordinary book festival. Because its aim is to reach an audience far beyond that. A writer will be sent to work with teenage skateboarders in Dundee, for example: if everything works out, they’ll be staging a Christmas panto.

In Edinburgh, in day centres and hostels, writers will work with homeless people on projects that might help them learn new skills, develop self-confidence. In Glasgow, other writers will help refugees put together a performance about what home means to them.

If those events won’t be public, plenty more will. The Reading Hour on St Andrews Day will have Alexander McCall Smith at the National Museum of Scotland between 11am and noon, when there will also be a Bookbug session in the Animal Gallery and Lari Don will be telling stories in the Living Land Gallery – and throughout the country plenty of other venues will be given over to celebrating the quiet joys of reading.

And if you can’t work out what to read for Reading Hour, a band of volunteers – the League of Extraordinary Book Lovers – will be on hand with recommendations.

This is a massive project, put together with £150,000 from Creative Scotland’s National Events programme, funded by the National Lottery. Maybe it won’t all work, perhaps the whole country will not, in fact, have its head in a book at 11am next Friday.

But if you wanted to encourage it to, if you wanted to celebrate Scottish writing, boost literacy, and to do all that in a way that reached the widest possible audience, Scotland’s first Book Week will be hard to beat.

www.scottishbooktrust.com