YEOVIL Literary Festival, now in its 12th year, has become one of the most eagerly anticipated book events in the region. This year the festival runs from 17th to 27th October, at venues including Westlands, Yeovil Library and St John the Baptist Church. The line-up of best-sellers, Booker Prize-winners and exciting new and established writers is perhaps the best yet, with something for every literary taste and interest.

Headline-grabbing speakers include senior BBC international correspondent Lyce Doucet, Michael Palin, Dame Mary Berry, Sebastian Faulks, actors David Suchet and Paterson Joseph, Michael Morpurgo, Billy Bragg and Rose Ayling-Ellis.

Gill Hornby brings a touch of Jane Austen to proceedings on Friday 24th at Westlands, when she comes to talk about her new book, The Elopement. The author of Miss Austen, recently successfully adapted for television with Keeley Hawes as Cassandra Austen, has published her latest story in the year marking the 250th anniversary of the great Regency novelist. Mary Dorothea Knatchbull lives with her widowed father, Sir Edward – a man of strict principles and high Christian values. But when her father marries Miss Fanny Knight of Godmersham Park, Mary’s life is suddenly changed. Her new stepmother comes from a large, happy and sociable family and Fanny’s sisters become Mary’s first friends. Her aunt, Miss Cassandra Austen of Chawton, is especially kind.

Jung Chang, whose memoir of her family, particularly her mother and grandmother, Wild Swans, was an international best-seller, comes to Westlands on Friday 24th to talk about the changes in China over the past five decades (Jung emigrated to Britain in 1978). Her new book is called Fly, Wild Swans, and brings the story of her family, and of China, up to date.

On the same day, journalist and author Patrick Galbraith will be talking about his new book, Uncommon Ground, asking how many people actually get to visit some of this island’s countless green and pleasant spaces – and why does having access to them matter so much?

Best known as a classical music presenter, Petroc Trelawny is also a proud Cornishman, and comes to Westlands on Saturday 25th talking about Trelawny’s Cornwall, the book in which he returns to his roots and rediscovers the place where he grew up.

Critically acclaimed and much-loved actress Alison Steadman will be at Westlands, also on Saturday 25th, talking about Out Of Character, her memoir of a life on stage and screen that began as a child in post-war, working-class Liverpool, where the young Alison – ever the entertainer – would address the world from the stage of her bedroom window.

For more information on these and other Yeovil Literary Festival events, visit www.yeovilliteraryfestival.co.uk