It has been a quiet festival season for Scottish politicians. Time was when you could barely swing a canvas tote bag in Edinburgh without hitting some MSP or MP paddling in the shallow end of showbusiness. This year? Hardly any.

Mhairi Black tried her hand at stand-up to mixed reviews, while Nicola Sturgeon set up her stall at the book festival.

Last Sunday the former First Minister interviewed Paul Lynch about his Booker Prize-winning novel, Prophet Song, a dystopian tale about a mother struggling to keep her family together in a fascist Ireland.

Ms Sturgeon’s presence drew the usual moaning minnies and carpers, among them some cheeky pup at the Daily Express. A story on the paper’s website was headlined: “Nicola Sturgeon’s new favourite book features an autocratic government trampling on freedom - the jokes write themselves.” No respect, some folk.

Ms Sturgeon was full of praise for Lynch’s book, adding in passing that it would do political leaders the power of good if they read fiction “as a general principle”.

It is a sentiment she has long nurtured, and one she elaborated on in a 2018 interview with The National.

“Books have given me so much,” said the then First Minister. ”They give you a sense of perspective, escapism, and relaxation. They are a window to the world, taking you to countries you have never been to, periods of history you have never experienced. They open your eyes to backgrounds and lives you’ve never had. There is joy and education too. Everything.”

Fiction is a proven mood-lifter. I should know. As a Christmas present to myself I resolved to cut back on the grim non-fiction that was taking up whatever time I had for reading. For some reason, I had gone down the rabbit hole of the Second World War and could not get out. I read some terrific books but my goodness they were depressing.

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Reading even more newspapers and magazines felt too much like work, so how about novels? I had largely abandoned fiction because it was so unsatisfying. Compared with reality, novels seemed glib, silly, unbelievable and just not that good. Once you have read the best, what is the point in ploughing through the rest?

Once in a while a new discovery was made, a Herron, a Kuang, a Brodesser-Akner, but there was so much dross out there that I gave up looking. I returned to the old familiars, Connelly, Child, and co, and if that failed there was always another Max Hastings along in a minute (the man is a writing machine).

All Hell Let Loose: the World at War 1939-45 was the line in the sand for me. It was back to fiction. Taking the decision was the easy part; the hard bit was finding the right books. I looked at some of the “pick of the year” lists that come out at Christmas and summer, but so many seemed like publishers and writers doing each other favours. You plug my book, I’ll plug yours.

Recommendations from friends are always tricky. If you hate the book it seems like you are rejecting the pal. With novels things can get very personal surprisingly quickly. It is a minefield out there among the bookcases.

Would eyebrows have been raised, for example, if Ms Sturgeon had told The National her favourite book was Thank you, Jeeves rather than Sunset Song?

Would you be surprised to learn that the book she credits more than any other with shaping her politics was Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin? She told The Guardian it was one of the finest character portraits of Abraham Lincoln she had ever read, and “a brilliant study of the art of leadership”.

Among the lessons from Lincoln: learning from your mistakes and taking “the team” with you. It is not how many would describe Ms Sturgeon’s management style towards the end. Interesting, however, that she should see it that way.

Sunset Song, like the rest of Scottish literature and Scottish history, was a mystery to me until adulthood. Shakespeare, Steinbeck but no Stevenson. When I eventually made it to university I realised there was another huge gap in my learning - children’s books. Cultural references would fly around that meant nothing to me. The Wind in the Willows? Peter Rabbit? Alice in Wonderland? Nope, nope and nope. I had seen the films, though.

My passport to the land of books was a library card and I used it every week. Cheap books arrived and were a godsend. So what if the type was so tiny it needed a magnifying glass to read it? A Wilkie Collins for 99 pence? Bargain.

Other changes took place. Bookshops came along, big ones, that had chairs and sofas and nooks to read in. The staff were helpful, knew their stuff, and were easy to approach. Everyone was equal in a bookshop.

Not so many chairs in John Smith’s Bookshop but it was the best. I wonder how many of its staff were instrumental in working-class kids going to university. Generations of Glaswegians, well-to-do and not-so-well-to-do, went in those doors and came out the better for the experience. I still miss its presence on St Vincent Street.

Without novels life would be poorer in all sorts of ways. Fiction offers a way of dealing with events at one remove, placing a safe distance between the reader and what they might otherwise find unbearable. It can supply new ways of looking at things, offer hope where there had seemed none. It can forge connections between people across time and space, and explain us to ourselves.

There is of course something else that fiction supplies: an ending. Without a beginning, a middle and an end, a tale is never truly finished. No publisher would ever accept a novel with blank pages at the close. No writer would dare pull such a stunt.

Lately, however, I have heard tell of such a tale. I refuse to believe it though. A story that goes on and on and on, a mystery never solved, and no-one can see an end in sight? Now that is far-fetched. Even the title is weird - Operation Branchform. Coming soon to a shelf near you. Maybe.