Lennoxlove House in East Lothian is the venue for this inaugural Winter weekend book festival. Authors appearing at the two-day Lennoxlove Book Festival vary from Scotland's popular author Alexander McCall Smith reading from his latest novel Corduroy Mansions to Big Cat Diary and Springwatch, naturalist Simon King, speaking about Wild Life, his autobiography.
The UK's premier satirist Rory Bremner will look back in amusement at three terms of New Labour, star of screen and stage Martine McCutcheon will talk about her first novel, and BBC correspondent Kate Adie will introduce us to people who do life-threatening jobs in her book Into Danger.
The programme also includes an evening with writer, broadcaster and foodie Hardeep Singh Kohli, bestselling author Gervase Phinn will bring his tales of the Yorkshire Dales to Scotland, and popular food writer Sue Lawrence talks to Hardeep and rugby coach Frank Hadden about their favourite childhood foods.
Former children's laureate Michael Morpurgo will delight 5+ year olds with his Christmas story The Best of Times, while renowned storyteller Lari Don thrills 8+ year olds with suitably wintry legends and fables about the wolf.
There will also be a local element to the festival, with geneticist Jim Wilson enlisting the help of local people in the DNA Map of Scotland project, and three writers, Roddy Martine, James Runcie and Alistair Moffat, discussing the different perspectives on East Lothian explored through their books.
The Lennoxlove Book Festival has been mounted jointly jointly by the Hamilton and Kinneil Estates and will be hosted in Lennoxlove's Great Hall and a specially transformed outdoor marquee. There'll be drinks, pipers from the Haddington Pipe Band, and stars of the publishing world two days of stimulating and entertaining discussions, performances, readings and book signings. It will also provide the ideal chance to get books signed as Christmas presents.
It has five directors: Alistair Moffat, Paula Ogilvie and Francis Hamilton, who have run the highly successful Borders Book Festival in Melrose for the last six years, and Nicky Stonehill and Rebecca Salt, book publicists who live and work in Haddington. The Festival is supported by East Lothian Council.
Events are from 5.45pm to 10pm on Friday 13th and 12.30pm to 9.30pm on Saturday 14th November.
Tickets
Tickets are available from the Box Office 0844 357 6671 or www.lennoxlovebookfestival.com, and also at Lennoxlove House from 12th November.