This year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival – the annual literary jamboree for the first ever UNESCO City of Literature – has commenced preparations with the announcement of the 2014 official dates, August 9th-25th.

Last year’s Festival, already featured in TeleRead, was “our most successful year ever,” the Festival site declares. As per its own introduction, the Festival claims to be “the largest public celebration of the written word in the world. Every August we bring over 800 writers and thinkers from across the planet together to rub shoulders with you, the audience … The Edinburgh International Book Festival began in 1983 and is now a key event in the August Festival season, celebrated annually in Scotland’s capital city. Biennial at first, the Book Festival became a yearly celebration in 1997.”

“Details of this year’s line-up will be revealed at our programme launch on Wednesday 11 June,” says the Festival bulletin. “Tickets will go on sale to the general public on Tuesday 24 June.”

Held since its beginnings under canvas in Charlotte Square Gardens, in Edinburgh’s Georgian New Town, the Festival is a must for anyone with remotely cultural inclinations planning to visit Scotland’s capital in Festival season. And this year’s Festival, just a month prior to the proposed referendum on Scottish independence from the UK in September, is likely to be more exciting and highly charged than ever before.

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