Book Week Scotland is one of our favourite times of the year: It gives us an excuse to make even more of a fuss about books and reading than usual AND we get to invite our favourite writers and artists along to our libraries!
2018 was no different and from 19-25 November we brought some brilliant authors to the Falkirk area for some top-notch bookish chat!
ES Thomson at Larbert Library, Thursday evening
History and crime were featured in our adult author events this year and our first author brings both beautifully together in her Jem Flockhart series.
Laura from Larbert Library has been raving about ES Thomson’s books for ages and was pleased as punch that she could join her on the Thursday evening for a chinwag.
As well as finding out more about the latest installment in her dark, gothic Victorian crime thrillers, Elaine kept us enthralled with nuggets of information about Victorian medical practices. Unsurprising really when you learn that she has degree in Medical History!
Maggie Craig at Forth Valley Sensory Centre, Friday morning
Maggie Craig really got into the spirit of Book Week Scotland’s rebellion theme with stories of Falkirk’s ain rebels from Jacobite history.
She also shared some tales from her excellent non-fiction titles about the Jacobite Uprising and from “When the Clyde Ran Red”, her gripping social history book about Glasgow’s workers battling for their rights.
Maggie’s Falkirk visit has piqued her interest in a slice of local history: She’s been researching Camelon’s nail manufacturers from the 19th Century who fought against worker oppression. We’ll look forward to hearing what she finds out!
James Oswald at Grangemouth Library, Friday afternoon
We ended the week by welcoming back James Oswald for a cracking cosy chat. We got a peek behind the publishing process and heard about his new Constance Fairchild series.
There was also much discussion over the pain of choosing book titles. Interesting fact: After much agonising, The Damage Done was named (by James’s editor) after a song by the goth band Sisters of Mercy… Occurs to us that we need to do a Library Love podcast on books named after songs!
We made sure to get a staff picture with James at the end. As a big fan of his Inspector McLean series, Victoria from Grangemouth library was chuffed to get answers to some of her burning questions and comic book lover Gavin was keen to find out more about James’s writing for 2000AD.
Kirkland Ciccone at Grangemouth Library, Thursday morning
For our main teen event of the week, we introduced Grangemouth High S3 to the shy, retiring Kirkland Ciccone.
It’s always a joy to welcome Kirkland to our libraries as he never disappoints with his hilarious and (mostly) true stories of growing up in Cumbernauld, loving his local library and becoming the punk rock weirdo he is today.
,Glowglass, Kirkland’s latest book for teens came out earlier this year, but – big news – he’s next going to write some adult fiction! We can’t wait.
Jan Bee Brown’s pirate tales, Tuesday and Wednesday
We didn’t forget about our youngest library users – pupils from Denny, Laurieston and Antonine primary schools were entertained by Jan Bee Brown’s pirate rebel stories. The youngsters had a fantastic time and Jan looked smashing in her tri-corner hat!
And that’s it! Browse the gallery below for the full action. Be sure to swing by your library to bag your free copy of the Book Week Scotland book of rebel stories!
Select the first image to scroll through.