"I do it standing up," says Hugh Cornwell.

"I once saw Roger McGuinn from The Byrds do something like this at a festival and he was sat down the whole time, and I can remember thinking how wrong it was for all those classic songs. So I have a stool next to my mic but I defy expectations and put the book on it. You won't catch me sitting down on stage."

Since 1990, when he stepped off the stage at a sold-out Alexandra Palace gig and announced that he was leaving The Stranglers for good, the man behind such classic songs as Golden Brown, Strange Little Girl and Peaches has hardly been keeping quiet. He has, in fact, released more solo albums than he made during his 17 years with the notorious punk rockers.

But interest in Cornwell's post-Stranglers antics has never been greater than in the wake of A Multitude Of Sins, his autobiography and the first by any leading figure of the punk generation.

Packed with anecdotes about bighitters such as Malcolm McLaren, Debbie Harry and Joe Strummer, it is also a humorous insight into the other forces at play drummer Jet Black, Cornwell recalls, suggested the fledgling Stranglers could best further their musical interests by decamping to Guildford and helping him sell ice cream.

Interest in his sins has proved such that Cornwell is now making his memoir the bedrock of a special event which combines the insight of a book-reading with the intimacy of an acoustic gig.

"When I write songs," he says, "I always talk about things which have happened to me. So my back-catalogue is a bit like a diary anyway. I'll read the bit about meeting up with the Hell's Angels, who were stage-diving in Amsterdam, and then I can sing Nice And Sleazy which was totally inspired by that meeting.

"Or," he continues, "I could sing Sweden and that's all based on an episode of my life when I was living in Sweden and harbouring a draftdodger from Hawaii who suddenly developed a penchant for bank robbery. Y'know, I think it really helps to give people an insight into where the songs are coming from."

One of only two dates before Cornwell takes the show to the Edinburgh Festival, this is, he says, as much for anyone "interested in the rock'n'roll experience" as for commited Stranglers fans, and you can expect to hear plenty of his solo material including tracks from latest album Beyond Elysian Fields.

Yet there is a sense in which the singer, more or less exorcised from The Stranglers' "official" biography, is still on a mission to set the record straight.

"With The Stranglers no chances were being taken any more," he says.

"The band had become an institution which meant all the danger and risk had gone. But if doing this book has made me realise anything it's that nothing is black and white. So the other guys might not agree with how I see things but, well, there's no such thing as the ultimate truth."

Starts 8.30pm, Tickets £10, Call 01273 647100