Book Week Scotland celebrates what reading can do for you as a person.

"We were never born to read ... Human beings invented reading only a few thousand years ago. And with this invention, we changed the very organisation of our brain, which in turn expanded the ways we were able to think, which altered the intellectual evolution of our species."

So writes Maryanne Wolf in her brilliant book on reading Proust and the Squid. And here we are, on the cusp of Book Week Scotland – Scotland’s first ever Book Week – which starts on Monday November 26th.  It is terrifically exciting.

For the last six months we have been thinking, planning, talking to partners, organising and programming a vast array of events and initiatives which will take place across the country.

No corner of Scotland has been overlooked. From Lerwick to Dumfries, and from Benbecula to Dundee we have tried to ensure that not only will there be plenty of opportunities for everyone to participate, but also that we reach out to audiences that might not normally have a chance to engage with books and writers.

This chimes nicely with the character and spirit of Book Week Scotland, which is all about celebrating reading and readers, and about what reading can do for you as a person.

This being about reading, it is also about writers. Book Week Scotland invites you to savour Scottish writing and writers, as well as those from across the world. This is an open invitation to explore and discover great books and great writers.

The full programme is so multifaceted that it is impossible to describe in a few moments.  There are over 350 free author events alone, as well as a whole day’s festival at the Mitchell library in Glasgow on Saturday December 1st. Book related events are taking place in workplaces, care homes, gardens, prisons, a vast variety of community settings, the National Museum of Scotland, Dundee Contemporary Arts, and in a programme supported by the Scottish Libraries and Information Council, in libraries right across Scotland.

Meanwhile the Reading Hour is a call to everyone across Scotland to encourage a reading culture and to take an hour to read on Friday 30 November, St Andrew’s day no less. We are after all very much a country of the book. Here we are working with institutions as diverse as Tesco Bank, who will be posting the entire BWS programme on their intranet and encouraging staff to take part, and the STUC’s Scottish Union Learning, who will be promoting reading to large sections of Scotland’s workforce and distributing thousands of copies of the free book we have published for Book Week.

That book is called My Favourite Place and features a fantastic range of writing about Scotland from the general public, as well as other contributors like Michael Palin, Sally Magnusson, James Robertson, Angus Peter Campbell, and Aidan Moffat. Six of Scotland’s most admired artists have also responded visually to the theme.

The book will be distributed widely and innovatively – all 150,000 copies of it. It will be made available through libraries, rail stations, the National Trust, Historic Scotland, Visit Scotland and Calmac, but also in over 60 Specsavers stores across Scotland’s towns and cities. Some will even be distributed through MSP constituency offices! During Book Week Scotland BBC Radio Scotland will be broadcasting a selection of the 1000 plus contributions we received.

Thanks to the RNIB the book will also be available in audio and ebook formats on our website.

We are also providing free books for every child starting school in Scotland this year delivered through our Bookbug programme. Supported by Education Scotland and the Scottish Government Early Years team, we have created a reading pack for over 60,000 families which contain three wonderful Scottish picture books and a variety of parent-child activities, with an invitation to take part in our Children’s Book Awards and vote for the favourite picture book of the year.

Meanwhile BBC Learning Scotland will be webcasting a poetry event with performance poets including Lemn Sissay, to Scottish Schools as part of our joint Authors Live programme, which has already enjoyed audiences of over half a million pupils to date.

Finally, through Publishing Scotland bookshops will feature a beautiful new guide to Scottish publishing and promote Scottish titles.

And if, after all that, you are still stuck for a book or a writer, help is in hand through the League of Extraordinary Book Lovers, superheroes of the book. Aged between 5 and 75, these selfless and knowledgeable individuals will advise the bewildered, nonplussed and confused by giving book recommendations online.

Supporting all this activity is our new website, which will grow into a major resource for readers of all kinds, a continuing legacy for Book Week Scotland and for Scottish readers.

Happy reading!