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Heathrow’s Terminal 5 is set to make literary history as it prepares to host and stream a live book reading tomorrow afternoon.

A snippet of the novel, Departures: Seven Stories from Heathrow, will be read by the author Tony Parsons to audiences on Wednesday, 26 October at 3pm. The reading will also be streamed live on the airport’s Facebook page.

Departures: Seven Stories from Heathrow is a collection of short stories based around the busy airport. Inspiration was taken from Parsons’ experiences of living in the airport’s Terminal 5 for a week in August and has been produced as part of Heathrow’s writer-in-residence scheme.

Parsons said that he felt “fortunate for [his] experiences […] as Heathrow’s writer-in-residence” and explained that he had learnt how “Heathrow is not just a hub for physical journeys”.

Normand Boivin, Heathrow’s Chief Operating Officer, confirmed this message, stating that “there are so many great untold stories at Heathrow” and expressed pride at being able to “offer Heathrow Facebook fans and [their] passengers the first read of the book”.

As one of the world’s busiest international airports, Heathrow provided plenty of material for Parsons’ novel, and many passengers and staff members will be interested to see if they have been appeared in it.

Five thousand free copies of the novel will be distributed to passengers on the day of the reading with the book going on general sale the following day (Thursday, 27 October 2011).

“Airports are places of extreme emotion where people come and go and experiences begin and end,” Parsons told the BBC when starting his residency at Heathrow in August.

“Often when we travel we find ourselves in such a hurry to get to our end destination that we fail to appreciate the individual stories and moments happening before us.”

About the author

Oonagh ShielContent Manager at Cheapflights whose travel life can be best summed up as BC (before children) and PC (post children). We only travel during the school holidays so short-haul trips and staycations are our specialities!

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