In a previous post on this blog, historian and writer Daniel Gray said he has found that Scotland ‘oozes stories’. Booked!, the travelling programme of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, intends to uncover them.

With the support of fantastic local partners, the help of writers from around the world and, of course, the enthusiasm of audiences new and old, Booked! embarks today on another trip around the country, taking some of the best of the world’s biggest Book Festival to communities across Scotland and adding local stories and voices to help tell the tales of the towns and cities we travel to.

After one-off trips to prisons in Edinburgh and Greenock (with HMP Grampian to come) plus a short stay on the Isle of Lewis earlier this week, our August activity reaches its crescendo with three back-to-back Festivals – including the next two stages in our ongoing ReimagiNation tour of the Scottish New Towns in East Kilbride and Irvine, and a return to Aberdeen for the second summer in succession.

As well as public programmes featuring events with phenomenal authors, artists, musicians, poets and performers for all ages (click the links below to find out what’s happening at each location), we host a series of free schools events at each Festival, helping Scotland’s young people connect directly with books and stories in exciting ways. We’re even giving every pupil who attends a schools events a free book, thanks to an anonymous benefactor of the Book Festival.

Whether you’re looking for something new to do on your doorstep or a seasoned Festival-goer in need of another fix – a reader or a non-reader – we hope you’ll join us at one of our Festivals in the coming ten days.