After a record-breaking start, this year's Adelaide Writers' Week continued to draw impressive crowds on its final two days last week, despite temperatures reaching 38 degrees on Friday.

‘We didn't bother to do a head count,' admitted director Rose Wight. ‘Last time we did do a head count [in 2004] it was over 105,000 ... I don't see how we could fit more people in!'

Wight said sessions such as Ian McEwan's last Wednesday morning were hard to beat in terms of crowd size. ‘It was like the sermon on the mount,' she told us. ‘There were just thousands of people there.'

Another highlight from the second half of the festival was the session on Germain Greer's legacy ‘After The Female Eunuch', featuring Georgia Blain, Robyn Davidson, Deborah Robertson and Greer herself--an event described by Wight as ‘a momentous occasion'.

Australian authors Roger McDonald and Lian Hearn drew ‘fabulous crowds' on Friday morning, a panel discussion on ‘stories that translate' attracted ‘a huge crowd', according to Wight, and the book launches were also well attended, with hundreds lining up to have books signed by Wakefield Press author Rachel Hennessy (The Quakers).

In the bookshop, the big crowds translated into impressive sales, with Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book (Fourth Estate) the overall bestseller 'by far', according to book tent consultant Kathy Paxinos. Rounding out the top five were When a Crocodile Eats the Sun (Peter Godwin, Pan Macmillan); The Sorrows of an American (Siri Hustvedt, Hodder); Shakespeare's Wife (Germaine Greer, Bloomsbury); and The Dressmaker's Daughter (Kate Llewellyn, Fourth Estate).

On the social side of things, HarperCollins treated guests to impressive views from the top floor and roof garden of Keith Murdoch House during the publisher's party on Wednesday night. The occasion was also to honour author Peter Goldsworthy for the ongoing success of his classic novel Maestro.

Another publisher honouring a long-time author was UQP, which hosted an intimate lunch with David Malouf on Wednesday, to celebrate the release of Revolving Days: Selected Poems, which draws on the poet's work from Bicycle and Other Poems to last year's Typewriter Music.

Also on Wednesday evening the Australia Council celebrated 10 years of the Visiting International Publishers Program with drinks and canapés at the Art Gallery of South Australia.

While soaring temperatures may have tired those attending the festival's final days, those who stayed to the end were rewarded when Random House provided food and drinks to ‘about 1000' attendees who stayed on site after the final session on Friday evening.

‘Usually [the festival] peters out,' admitted Wight. ‘But this year it was really lovely. It was an idea [Random House] had and it was greatly appreciated.'

This article from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

Tags: adelaide festival, adelaide writers week