MORE than 20,000 book lovers will be heading for Oxford this week for the city's annual Literary Festival, with record-breaking attendances anticipated.

The festival will start in style today when Cumnor novelist Philip Pullman launches the latest episode from the His Dark Materials series, telling the story of the balloonist Lee Scoresby and the armoured bear Iorek Byrnison.

Mr Pullman will be appearing at Oxford Town Hall, where he will be in conversation with BBC Radio 4 presenter James Naughtie. Only a handful of tickets are still available for the event.

More than 300 authors will be taking part in events during the festival, which runs until Sunday, April 6.

Additional speakers were still being added to the programme this week, with confirmation that former Cabinet minister Tony Benn and ex-Downing Street spokesman Alastair Campbell will be the main speakers in a discussion about political diarists on Wednesday.

Dramatist Tom Stoppard will be presented with the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence, before talking about his plays and theatre career on the last day of the festival.

The Oxford Times is again among the sponsors of the festival, which is being hosted by Christ Church.

The Festival Marquee at the college has been enlarged and will this year be able to seat 500 people.

For the first time the festival's schools' days on Wednesday and Thursday will be held at at the North Wall Arts Centre, at St Edward's School, in South Parade, off Woodstock Road.

Angie Prysor-Jones, a founding director of the festival, said: "We're delighted to be here in this exciting new venue, with 16 authors to entertain and educate some of the county's children. Over the two Schools' Days we will be playing host to 40 Oxfordshire primary schools and some 2,400 of their pupils, an increase of several hundred over previous years."

Among other speakers at the festival are David Almond, Melvyn Burgess, Melvyn Bragg, Louis de Bernieres, Joanne Harris, Roy Hattersley, Charlie Higson, Shirley Hughes, Lisa Jardine, Oona King, Hanif Kureshi, Sebastian Peake, Lionel Shriver, Sir Roy Strong and Fay Weldon.

As usual, local authors will be strongly represented. This year's line-up will include the scientist and bestselling author Prof Richard Dawkins, the former Foreign Secretary and Witney MP Lord Hurd and the poet and broadcaster Tom Paulin.

This year, for the first time, the festival will run a week-long creative writing course, based at Corpus Christi College, with master classes by John Carey, Joanne Harris, PD James, Peter Kemp and DJ Taylor.

For more details about the festival programme, see www.oxfordliteraryfestival.co.uk Tickets for most events are priced between £6.50 and £16. Children's events cost between £2.50 and £10. They are available from Tickets Oxford at the Oxford Playhouse, call 0870 343 1001 or see www.ticketsoxford.com From Monday and throughout the festival, tickets will also be available from the festival box office at Christ Church, in St Aldate's.