ORGANISERS of a celebration of books held in York this weekend hope it will have broken visitor records.

The York Book Fair returned to York Racecourse for the 12th time in as many years on Saturday, with York author Toni Bunnell the star attraction as she signed copies of her new The Fidgit, a collection of fairy stories, and chatted about her writing, music – and love of hedgehogs.

Attendance figures are expected to have topped 1,000 for the first time.

More than 120 sellers exhibited at the country’s largest one-day book fair, with more than 40,000 second-hand and antiquarian books on sale alongside prints, maps and ephemera.

Toni has been writing songs since she was ten and has published five e-books, while she is also a wildlife biologist and runs a York hedgehog rescue centre.

Fair manager Arthur Cunningham said: “The number of people who come to the fair increases every year.

“Most of the dealers were happy and there were a lot of smiles, handshakes and slaps on the back at the end, so we’re very pleased with how it went.”

The fair is organised by the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association, founded in York in 1974. It has more than 400 members and holds more than 100 book fairs each year, including another at the Racecourse in September.