SOME literary giants are participating in this year's Off the Shelf festival including venerable playwright Sir Arnold Wesker and novelists David Lodge and Alan Sillitoe, whose books have evolved from the contemporary to the classic.

Also being celebrated is an even more distinguished 20th century man of letters, JB Priestley, whose son will be coming to Sheffield for the festival which runs from October 11 to November 1.

Other personalities include top TV screenwriter Andrew Davies, actor Sheila Hancock, journalists John Pilger, Jeremy Bowen and Kate Adie, political activist Tariq Ali, TV cook Anjum Anand and poet Simon Armitage.

Philip Hensher will be returning to his home city to talk about his epic family saga set over three decades in Sheffield, The Northern Clemency, which has made the long list for this year's Booker prize.
David Lodge, whose comic novels have mined his career as a university academic, will talk about his latest, Deaf Sentence, which takes a different direction in delving into the experience of deafness and bereavement.

Also among a strong contingent of contemporary novelists at the festival are Meg Rosoff, who has followed the award-winning teen fiction How I Live Now and Just In Case with What I Was, American David Guterson of Snow Falling on Cedars fame, and James Meek, whose We Are Now Beginning Our Descent draws on his second career as a war reporter in Afghanistan. Sharing a platform will be Catherine Flynn of the award-winning What Was Lost and Anglo-Chinese author Xinran with a new book, Miss Chopsticks.

This year's Festival Read is The Point of Rescue by poet turned thriller writer Sophie Hannah, whose book has been circulated to readers' groups around the city. By contrast No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club is the title of Virginia Ironside's poignant exploration of turning 60.

BBC correspondent Jeremy Bowen has produced a memoir, War Stories, while colleague Kate Adie's book, Into Danger, looks at how others cope with dangerous occupations. Former correspondent turned documentary-maker John Pilger will be taking stock of his career in an evening at the University of Sheffield Students' Union. That venue will also host Tariq Ali's appearance to discuss the 40th anniversary of student protest in 1968 and its legacy.

Hannah Hauxwell, the indominatable Yorkshire Daleswoman who became a national figure in the 1970s through a series of TV documentaries, will be in conversation at the Showroom with Bill Mitchell, who has written her biography to mark her 80th birthday.

The Priestley event will also be at the Showroom and will look at the Bradfordian literary figure's anti-war exploits accompanied by a screening of a film he scripted, The Foreman Went to France.

Heading the list of children's authors is Judith Kerr, whose The Tiger Who Came to Tea has been cherished by generations over 40 years, along with Sheffield's science-based thriller writer Malcolm Rose, Derbyshire-born Canada-based Simon Rose, Roman Mysteries' Caroline Lawrence and writer-illustrators Steve Smallman and Lynne Chapman.

A strong poetry strand includes the inimitable Simon Armitage, Ian McMillan with new book Talking Myself Back Home, Forward Prize winner Daljit Nagra and 2008 nominees Frances Leviston and Kathryn Simmonds.

Some of those have strong Sheffield connections and as usual locally-based writing talent is celebrated by the festival, with contributions from crime writer Simon Beckett, first-time novelists Tim Etchells and Rachel Ingrams and poets Rob Hindle, Linda Lee Welch, Matt Black, among others.

Finally, if all this literary stuff is a bit intimidating, there's always Henry Hitchings' event, How to Really Talk About Books You Haven't Read.

lFull details of the 2008 Off the Shelf will be in the brochure available next month or from www.offtheshelf.org.uk

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