Catch our Book Week Scotland events from 13 – 19 November.
During a week-long celebration of books and reading, we have a series of events for you to get involved with and join in on the fun.
Book Week Scotland Events
Jane Mather’s Adventures, Great and Small
Monday 13 November, 2pm | Airdrie Library
FREE – Ticket Required | Book online here or call 01236 758070
Everyone has had an adventure, a challenge or new experience in their life. As a child everything was an adventure, from soggy picnics to new schools, to going on holiday. When we’re wee the whole world is one grand adventure, everything’s fresh and new, and as we grow older, we seek adventures…
Have you ever explored a street you never noticed before or said yes to an unusual request? Setting off in the morning we never know what will happen, just one small step can lead to a journey of a thousand miles…
In Book Week Scotland we invite you to listen to tales of adventure with storyteller Jane Mather and share a few of your own, who knows where our imaginations will lead us!
Alan Parks and Detective Harry McCoy are on the Case
Monday 13 November, 7pm (Doors open 6.45pm) | Bellshill Cultural Centre
FREE – Ticket Required | Book online here or call 01698 346770
Alan Parks worked in the music industry for over 20 years before turning his hand to writing tartan noir. His novels, which all include a month in the title, are set in 1970s Glasgow and feature ‘rather bent copper’ Harry McCoy.
Come along to Bellshill Cultural Centre to hear Alan tell us all about his latest Harry McCoy novel, ‘To die in June’. This is an intriguing story of a missing boy of whom no record can be found, the Church of Christ’s Suffering, poisonings of homeless men across the city and corruption in the station.
Alex Gray’s Questions for a Dead Man
Monday 13 November, 6.30pm | Wishaw Library
FREE – Ticket Required| Book online here or call 01698 524960
Alex Gray was born and educated in Glasgow. She worked as a secondary school teacher of English before writing full time. Alex has been awarded the Scottish Association of Writers’ Constable and Pitlochry trophies for her crime writing. She is the co-founder of the international Scottish crime writing festival, Bloody Scotland, which had its inaugural year in 2012.
‘Questions for a Dead Man’ sees DSI William Lorimer wasting no time in investigating the disappearance of prominent MSP Robert Truesdale who was fronting the controversial campaign to legalise drugs in Scotland. There is a car bomb and Truedale appears to be the victim. PC Daniel Kohli joins the investigation, and they are drawn into the dark heart of Glasgow’s criminal underworld.
Don’t miss this opportunity to hear one of Scotland’s leading crime writers talk about her work.
Callum McSorley – Squeaky Clean
Monday 13 November, 7pm | Cumbernauld Library @ Lanternhouse Theatre
FREE – Ticket Required | Book online here or call 01236 632702
‘Squeaky Clean’ is a dark, raw, comic Glaswegian thriller for fans of Chris Brookmyre, Frankie Boyle, and Joseph Knox.
‘A manic tale of blood and suds told with laconic humour and warmly engaging characterisation. Callum McSorley is definitely a talent to watch’ Chris Brookmyre.
Callum McSorley is a writer based in Glasgow whose short stories have appeared in Gutter Magazine, Monstrous Regiment and New Writing Scotland. For his debut novel, Squeaky Clean ¬– inspired by his years working at a car wash in Glasgow’s East End – Callum was shortlisted for the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize and became the youngest ever winner of the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year.
Don’t miss this opportunity to meet one of Scotland’s promising new writers.
Daniel Gray unwraps his fish and chips
Tuesday 14 November, 2pm | Airdrie Library
FREE – Ticket Required | Book online here or call 01236 758070
Food of the Cods: How Fish and Chips Made Britain tells the story of every town and city in Britain where the air is tangy with vinegar and the scent of frying. Daniel Gray followed this lure to ponder the magic of chippies and the delights they have sprinkled among us for the last 150 years as he investigates the social – and sociable – history of fish and chips.
Travelling to chippies from Dundee to Devon via South Shields, Oldham, Bradford, Bethnal Green, the Rhondda Valley and more – Daniel explores our fish-and-chip nation to show how chippies have helped emancipate women, promote equality for immigrants and shape local and national identity.
This mouth-watering book is as much about who we are as what we eat.
It’s in the bag! with Sam & Rosie’s Tartan Tea Party (for ages 0 – 2 years)
Wednesday 15 November, 11am | Motherwell Library
FREE – Ticket Required | Book online here or call 01698 332626
‘It’s in the bag!’ delight in taking children’s imaginations on a magical journey.
Children will join in on a storytelling adventure, with rhymes, songs, creative games, drama, and puppets to bring the story to life.
Join Sam and Rosie as they journey to the North of Scotland for the annual St Andrews Day Tartan Tea Party. With lots of well-known Scottish nursery rhymes and songs, this is guaranteed fun for little ones.
It’s in the bag! with Sam & Rosie’s Highland Adventure (for ages 3 – 6 years)
Wednesday 15 November, 12.30pm | Motherwell Library
FREE – Ticket Required | Book online here or call 01698 332626
‘It’s in the bag!’ delight in taking children’s imaginations on a magical journey.
Children will join in on a storytelling adventure, with rhymes, songs, creative games, drama, and puppets to bring the story to life.
Oh no! Disaster strikes just as the Highland St Andrews Day Feast and Ceilidh are about to begin. Grandad’s prizewinning haggis has gone. Dressed in their finest tartan, Sam and Rosie must solve the mystery.
Doug Johnstone: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Drummer
Wednesday 15 November, 2pm | Coatbridge Library
Free – Ticket Required | Book online here or call 01236 856444
Doug Johnstone is an award-winning writer best known for his best-selling crime novel series ‘Skelfs’, his sci-fi novel ‘The Space Between Us’, and for moonlighting as the drummer of Val McDermid-fronted supergroup ‘Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers’.
Join Doug at Coatbridge Library for a lively and engaging blether about crime-writing, sci-fi, music, and all things in between, as well as his most recent book, the fifth novel in the hugely popular ‘Skelfs’ series – ‘The Opposite of Lonely’.
Ambrose Parry hear Voices of the Dead
Wednesday 15 November, 7pm | Wishaw Library @ Newmains & St Brigid’s Community Hub
Free – Ticket Required | Book online here or call 01698 524960
Ambrose Parry is the penname for two authors – the internationally bestselling and multi-award-winning Chris Brookmyre and consultant anaesthetist of twenty years’ experience, Dr Marisa Haetzman. Inspired by the gory details Haetzman uncovered during her History of Medicine degree, the couple teamed up to write a series of historical crime thrillers, featuring the darkest of Victorian Edinburgh’s secrets. ‘The Way of All Flesh’, ‘The Art of Dying’ and ‘A Corruption of Blood were shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year’.
In the latest instalment of the gripping Raven and Fisher mystery series, ‘Voices of the Dead’, it is a time of unprecedented scientific innovation and the public’s appetite for wonder has seen a resurgence of interest in mesmerism, spiritualism, and other unexplained phenomena. Dr Will Raven is wary of the shadowlands that lie between progress and quackery. Sarah Fisher, frustrated in her medical ambitions, sees opportunity in a new therapeutic field not already closed off to women. Raven has enough on his hands as it is. Body parts have been found at Surgeons Hall, and they’re not anatomy specimens. In a city still haunted by the crimes of Burke and Hare, he is tasked with heading off a scandal. When further human remains are found, Raven is able to identify a prime suspect, and the hunt is on before he kills again. Unfortunately, the individual he seeks happens to be an accomplished actor, a man of a thousand faces and a renowned master of disguise.
Don’t miss this opportunity to meet the well known writing duo, Ambrose Parry.
Louise Welsh Cuts It Again
Thursday 16 November, 7pm | Motherwell Library
EVENT CANCELLED | Due to unforeseen circumstances, unfortunately we must cancel this event
Louise Welsh is the author of nine novels including ‘The Cutting Room’, ‘The Plague Times’ Trilogy and ‘The Second Cut’. Louise is also Professor of Creative Writing at University of Glasgow.
Twenty years after his first appearance in Welsh’s Glasgow-set cult hit ‘The Cutting Room’, auctioneer Rilke returns, this time finding himself the only one keen to investigate the dubious demise of his close friend.
An old friend, Jojo, gives Rilke a tip-off for a house clearance. The next day Jojo washes up dead.
Jojo liked Grindr hook-ups and recreational drugs – is that the reason the police won’t investigate? And if Rilke doesn’t find out what happened to Jojo, who will?
Thrilling and atmospheric, ‘The Second Cut’ delves into the dark side of twenty-first century Glasgow. Twenty years on from his appearance in ‘The Cutting Room’, Rilke is still walking a moral tightrope between good and bad, saint and sinner.
Don’t miss this opportunity to hear Louise talk about her highly acclaimed writing.
Concrete Dreams: The Rise and Fall of Cumbernauld Town Centre
Saturday 18 November, 2pm | Cumbernauld Library
Free | email cumbernauldlibrary@northlan.gov.uk or call 01698 632702 to book a free place
Join the award-winning artists of Recollective as they present work in progress from their 18-month-long project, Concrete Dreams: The Rise and Fall of Cumbernauld Town Centre.
Based on extensive interviews with local people, Concrete Dreams is an in-depth exploration of the social history of Cumbernauld Town Centre through photography, film, creative writing and illustration.
This event will be a presentation of work and research by the Recollective artists – photographer and filmmaker Chris Leslie, Illustrator Mitch Miller and writer Alison Irvine – which will be followed by a Q&A.
Everyone welcome.
Social Media
As well as these fantastic events, we will also have plenty of social media posts supporting Book Week Scotland as well. Follow all of our accounts to watch out for these and interact with them.
