BOOKS: PICK OF THE WEEK

Ways with Words today & tomorrow Totnes, Devon

Diona Gregory
Friday 16 July 1999 18:02 EDT
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It's not too late to catch the last events in the Ways with Words Literature Festival this weekend. Bernice Rubens, Ben Okri and Rachel Billington examine "What Are Writers For?"; there's a poetry reading by Poet Laureate Andrew Motion (above); restaurant critic and novelist AA Gill discusses "A Wise Scepticism Is the First Attribute of a Good Critic" with the Independent on Sunday's literary editor, Suzi Feay; and Joanna Trollope tackles the dynamics of step-parenting.

Today's highlight has to be Roy Hattersley talking about the pleasures of diary-writing and reading with Andrew O'Hagan.

Diarists offer an idiosyncratic and often entertaining view of their lives and times, a subject Hattersley must have debated on walks with his dog Buster, immortalised in Buster's Diaries, who I hope gets a chance to contribute to the discussion.

Ways with Words Literature Festival, Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon (01803 867373) today and tomorrow

Diona Gregory

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