This year I've been privileged to hear from some excellent writers, some well-known and some obscure.

There's a balance to be struck when choosing events at the book festival. While a popular author is speaking to a huge crowd in the RBS Main Theatre, a couple of obscure travel writers or poets are quietly presenting their work on the other side of Charlotte Square, which might be the book that alters your life this year.

The human rights events gain less attention than they deserve, although, as one chair told us this month, fiction addresses people's empathy. Not all of us can understand the reality of war, slavery or torture, but we can connect with a literary character.

The same is true of the events which aren't directly linked to human rights, but which deal with a particular set of human circumstances. I've listened to writers present books about Nigerian sex workers in Belgium, grieving Scots in Sicily, families in wartime Kashmir, aging authors in Argentina, Parisian cafe owners who don't love their babies, elderly women hiding jewellery in deep fried potatoes. The detail with which the written word is able to address a landscape or emotion is unique.

The events showcasing new writers are an invaluable part of the festival. First-time novelists and creative-writing postgraduate students have read here, alongside internationally known novelists and politicians.

During this year's festival, there were a great many heartfelt tributes to departing director Katherine Lockerbie. The book festival showcased writers from dozens of countries, as well as a diverse Scottish crowd. Darwin was a constant, as were the headlines featuring Al Megrahi.

Charlotte Square looks pretty ordinary for 11 months of the year. But then, so does the rest of the city. What usually goes unnoticed is the enormous amount of work going into the book festival, leading up to just 17 days in August which passes in a sort of whirlwind of fiction, poetry, politics, philosophy, childrens and young peoples events, debates, criticism, writing workshops, science, biography, language, graphic art, human rights and travel.

And then it's all finished, and the tents are gone, and we all go back to our ordinary lives. But there's always next year, assuming Margaret Atwood's apocalyptic vision doesn't manifest itself in the next 11 months.