Library Live

An evening with Katherine Rundell
2025-09-15 18:00 - 19:00 UTC | Performance Space
We are delighted to welcome bestselling author Katherine Rundell to Manchester to celebrate the release of The Poisoned King!
The mesmerising follow-up to Rundell’s Waterstones Book of the Year 2023-winning Impossible Creatures finds Christopher embroiled in an elaborate rescue mission as he returns to the magical world of the Archipelago.
Katherine joins us at Manchester Central Library for a talk, audience Q&A and signing. Please note that Katherine will sign all books bought from Waterstones on the day of the event, but due to time restraints and to make sure that all readers have a chance to get their book signed, Katherine will only be able to sign one book brought from home
About The Poisoned King
The dragons call out, and the ratatoskas tell of murder.
Come with us now. There is justice to be done.

Return to the Archipelago – the secret place in our world where all the creatures of myth still live and thrive, for a rescue mission like no other. The Poisoned King is the second book in the epic Impossible Creatures fantasy series from bestselling author Katherine Rundell.
When Christopher Forrester is unexpectedly woken by a miniature dragon chewing on his face, his heart leaps for joy. For months he’s dreamed of returning to the Archipelago. But he did not know it would involve a rescue mission on the back of a sphinx, or a plan to enter a dragon’s lair. Nor did he imagine it would involve a girl with a flock of birds at her side, a new-hatched chick in her pocket and a ravenous hunger for justice…
About the author
KATHERINE RUNDELL is a multi-million-bestselling author whose novels for children have won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Costa Children’s Book Award, among many others. Impossible Creatures was Waterstones Book of the Year 2023, and in 2024 Katherine was named the British Book Awards Author of the Year and Impossible Creatures won the Children’s Fiction Book of the Year. She is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College and a Fellow of St Catherine’s College, Oxford, where she works on Renaissance literature. Her books for adults include Super-Infinite, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize. Very occasionally she goes climbing across the rooftops of Oxford, late at night.

Book Launch: Spit & Sawdust by Kieren King
2025-12-04 18:00 - 19:30
Join Great Northern Poetry Slam Champion Kieren King for the launch of his new collection. Including an author performance, interview, Q&A, and book signing.
Pull up a stool, mind your pint, and drink in perfectly pitched poetry from the Great Northern Slam champion and four-time UK National Slam finalist.
With poems of pubs, politics, love, and life in Salford, Kieren King’s first solo collection is funny, fearless, and unapologetically Northern – poetry that belongs as much in the bar as on the bookshelf.
FREE EVENT, EVERYONE WELCOME.
“Stunning.” Adam Farrer
“Wonderful.” Mike Garry
“Beautiful.” Oliver James Lomax
“Alive with craft, wit, and spirit.” Reece Williams
“The best of working-class poetry.” Louise Fazackerley
Flapjack Press: flapjackpress.co.uk

Book Launch: Forbidden Waters by Rob Parker
2026-01-15 18:00 - 19:30
Join us to celebrate publication of the second in Rob Parker’s Cam Killick series: Forbidden Waters!

We are thrilled to celebrate the launch of Rob Parker’s Forbidden Waters on the 15th of January at Manchester Central Library! Rob will be in conversation with Luca Veste, author of The Bone Keeper.
Doors: 5.30pm, starts: 6pm.
Tickets are £4. Admission is free when purchasing a copy of the book in advance.
About Forbidden Waters:
It starts with the knife. Found at the bottom of a hidden lake in the Norfolk Broads, covered in blood and heart tissue so fresh the water hasn’t yet washed it all away. What salvage diver Cam Killick has found is a murder weapon from a very recent crime – but how do you solve a murder without a body?
The remoteness of the setting is itself a clue. Only a handful of people know the location of the lake, let alone how to access it. But no sooner have Cam and DS Claire Rogers started working through this ready-made suspect pool than one of them disappears.
The ripples from Cam’s discovery have disturbed a dangerous predator, one who knows the water even better than Cam himself. The question now is what they want – and how many more people will die before Cam can stop them?
About the author:
Rob Parker is the author of Far From The Tree, the No. 1 bestselling thriller for Audible Original and the first instalment in the Thirty Miles trilogy, as well as eight novels for independent publishers. He is the host of both Crime Central Manchester, a monthly showcase of emerging crime writing talent and blockbuster bestsellers, and the Blood Brothers podcast. Rob lives in Warrington with his wife, three children and their dogs, and was inspired to write The Troubled Deep by years of holidays in the Norfolk Broads – during which he has never, he is pleased to say, found a dead body. Forbidden Waters is the second in the Cam Killick series.
If you cannot make the event but would like a dedicated copy of the book, please email events.manchester@blackwell.co.uk or call 0161 274 3331.

Nothing remained unchanged but the clouds: Artist talk and UK book launch
2026-02-05 18:00 - 20:00
Nothing remained unchanged but the clouds by Alan J. Ward is an artist book in the fullest sense: a work conceived, shaped, and authored through artistic practice. Developed through sustained collaboration with the community of Grandpré in the French Ardennes, the book traces stories held within German WWI postcards and transforms them into a living archive of memory, material culture, and shared authorship.
The launch will take the form of an illustrated conversation moderated by an arts commissioner familiar with Ward’s practice. Ward will be joined by a small panel of academic, artist, and language collaborators, alongside voices from Grandpré. Together, the discussion will weave local histories with contemporary perspectives, while reanimating the enduring connection between Manchester and Charleville-Mézières, the departmental capital.
With the support of Alliance Française, a special display of selected artefacts from Archives+ and the North West Film Archive has been assembled specifically for the evening. These materials document the shared histories between Manchester and the Ardennes, and sit alongside the themes explored in the book.
The evening will conclude with a question-and-answer session, offering the audience an opportunity to engage directly with the panel, followed by the chance to purchase signed, discounted copies of the artist book.
Free – reserve a seat via eventbrite here

Attila the Stockbroker: Fiery Words for Hellish Times
2026-04-30 18:00 - 19:30
Punk poet, latterly dub poet, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Attila the Stockbroker exploded into public consciousness in 1982-3 via two John Peel sessions and a Melody Maker front cover, and is now celebrating 45 years earning a living doing what he loves.
Fiery Words for Hellish Times is his most topical and incendiary publication yet. As the news goes from awful to worse, these are poems to make you laugh, cry, get angry, and above all, think!
Presented by Flapjack Press and Manchester Libraries.
https://flapjackpress.co.uk

Robin Ince: Let the Quiet Ones Rise Book Launch
2026-06-29 18:00 - 19:30
Monday 29th June, 6.00pm – 7.15pm. Doors open 5.40pm and free entry.
“It takes insight and empathy to have unpatronising sympathy.”
Let the Quiet Ones Rise: Poems About Standing Up and Standing Out is a collection of instinctual poetry from the deepest part of a neurodivergent heart, and considers the sadness of being alone, but also the happiness of finding people who empower you.
“Profundity, fecundity, brevity and levity, it’s all here.” Shaun Keaveny
“Words of empathy and compassion.” Tanita Tikaram
Robin Ince is a flibbertigibbet. His working life began in stand-up comedy, but he is excited by too many things to take a single path. He was co-creator and, for 16 years, co-host of the multi-award-winning international success The Infinite Monkey Cage. He has written books on the universe (and all the stuff that is in it), the neurodivergent mind, giant killer crab novels, and his deep love of bookshops and libraries. In 2024 he started writing poetry obsessively and he loves the freedom that comes with it.
Robin is two-time Bookseller’s Association Author of the Year winner, a winner of Celebrity Mastermind, Richard Osman’s House of Games and Pointless Celebrities (twice), and his best pointless answers were ‘Alderney’ and ‘Eve Ferret’.

LOVE STORIES etc FESTIVAL
2026-07-17 10:00 - 2026-07-18 20:00
#LoveStoriesEtc romance festival is returning for a third year to Manchester Central Library on 17th and 18th July 2026 for two packed days of exciting author panels, industry expert led workshops, and creative sessions!

LAST FEW TICKETS HERE.

The schedule for Friday 17th July includes…
‘How to Boss Booktok’ with Ash Jayy from The Picture of Romance
‘What Can an Editor do for You?’ with freelance editor Caroline Hogg
A writer’s advice session hosted by the Romantic Novelists’ Association
‘How to look Professional Online on a Budget’ with Branding Expert and Photographer, Claire Gardner from The Authors Lounge
A Book Bedazzling Party
Kindly sponsored by Vinci Books. Escape to the sun with a Sublime Retreats romance by Joy Skye!
A Booklovers tour of Manchester
A Silent Reading Social Event
Why Romance Readers Should Rule The World with Bella North
On Saturday 18th, we’re spoiling you with a bumper Author Day including –
Rosie Walsh, Lizzie Damilola Blackburn, Kate Lord Brown,
Cal Speet, Rachel Hore, Jessica George,
Cressida McLaughlin, Kiley Dunbar, Rufaro Faith Mazarura,
Liz Fenwick, Holly Hepburn, Chloe Seager,
Bella Osborne, Jill Mansell, Kirstie Pelling,
Rachel Wood, Libby Page, Beth Moran, Megan Clawson
Bianca Gillam, Matt Cain MBE, Ellis Hunter
Jack Strange, Tessa Bickers,
Catrin Cadogan, Roxy Dunn, Annie Lord
Rosie Storey and Georgia Stone!!
