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Believing that the most accessible way to understand a culture is through its literature, The Asia House Festival of Asian Literature offers a forum for the people of Britain to gain greater understanding of the Asian cultures and Asian communities around them.

The event that saw nearly 500 Asian-themed books 'released' into Marylebone, London throughout May was staged in conjunction with BookCrossing, a free online book club which began in order to encourage the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise, with the aim to make the whole world a library.

Books destined for crossing were registered online and given an identity number that allowed them to be tracked and then set free into the world. Only fate can decide where the books end up.

Festival organisers invited the public to come and release books of their own. Books were left in coffee shops, restaurants and even clothing stores. Each book carries a label that encourages people who pick them up to read the book then leave it in a public place for another reader to 'catch' it. The identity number in each volume will allow the reader to go online and register where they have left the book and to follow it as it makes its way around the country and beyond.

The books released include:

Nine Lives: In search of the sacred in modern India by William Dalrymple

The Wasted Vigil by Nadeem Aslam

The Buddha of Suburbia by Haneef Kureishi

Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard by Kiran Desai

The Immigrant by Manju Kapur

Another Gulmohar Tree by Aamer Hussein

Curfewed Night by Basharat Peer