BOOKS: PICK OF THE WEEK

Ways with Words today & tomorrow Totnes, Devon

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