The 11th annual Utah Humanities Book Festival kicks off this week in Salt Lake City, with satellite events planned around the state. And the schedule is packed with events to please both Gutenberg and the contempory book-lover.

The festival, which coincides annually with National Arts and Humanities Month, is a collaboration among the Utah Humanities Council, the Salt Lake Arts Council, Westminster College and the Salt Lake Public Library, among other local and state entities.

The whole event "really comes down to the core value of books" - and how books change lives, according to Hikmet Loe, the council's literature program director.

The festival runs from Oct. 22-25, featuring home-grown writers and those far-flung. Ann Cannon, city and nationwide favorite, will read from her latest young-adult offering, "The Loser's Guide to Life and Love." Stephen Trimble will lead a panel discussion on his 10-year effort to bring Earl Holding to light in his book "Bargaining for Eden." Utah native Terry Tempest Williams will read from her newest cross-genre work, a prose mosaic titled "Finding Beauty in a Broken World," and former skinhead T.J. Leyden will hold forth on "Skinhead Confessions," his book about moving from gang life to the moral mainstream.

The festival also includes writing and book-arts workshops for children and adults alike, film screenings and a teen poetry slam. And if you find yourself on the fence between the world of print and online reading, there's a workshop about how to make zines.

Festival events seem to cohere naturally around the theme of "heart," Loe said, as writers will speak about issues close to their hearts and aim to touch the hearts of readers in the process.

A more implicit agenda for such literary conferences might be reaching the mind, as recent studies offer grim statistics on the state of reading in the United States. According to the National Institute for Literacy, 42 million American adults can't read at all, while 50 million are unable to read at a higher level than that of a fourth- or fifth-grader. A United Nations report indicates that the U.S. ranks 49th among 156 nations in its reading rates.

What's more, a recent National Endowment for the Arts study points out a correlation between declining reading and declining economic prosperity - a potentially sobering fact in current financial times.

While the book festival doesn't focus directly on literacy or the national economy, its intention is to draw a diverse audience and offer them an opportunity to experience the enduring power of books.

Loe hopes audience members will be transformed in some way by attending the event. "I believe that now, more than ever, books matter in people's lives."

jcheckoway@sltrib.com