Manchester Lit List

Illegal downloads: Do the math(s)

2012-01-24T09:30:00.000Z

Simon van Meygaarden has demonstrated mathematically that for every $1000 of potential to be made by an authorized content provider, only $1.40 ends up in the pocket of an unauthorized user.

Having only a CSE maths I was lost by N * ( 1 – CF ). Is he right? Can it be explained in plain English?

Read the full explanation and many comments at ereads.com. Have fun!

2011 Philip K. Dick Award Finalists Announced

2012-01-23T08:30:00.000Z

The Philip K. Dick Award finalists for best original Science Fiction published in paperback form in the United States have just been announced:

A Soldier's Duty by Jean Johnson (Ace Books)
After the Apocalypse by Maureen F. McHugh (Small Beer Press)
Deadline by Mira Grant (Orbit)
The Company Man by Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit)
The Other by Matthew Hughes (Underland Press)
The Postmortal by Drew Magary (Penguin Books)
The Samuil Petrovitch Trilogy by Simon Morden (Orbit)

Find out more about the Philip K. Dick Award.

Rewind: Manchester’s Music Scene Remembered @ Wythenshaw Forum

2012-01-16T09:50:00.000Z

You're invited to a free film screening at the Forum Library. Rewind is a new film celebrating Manchester's eclectic music scene: it's heritage: the people, the places and the music.

Using footage from the North West Film Archive's magnificent collection, this selection of films spans the 1960s-2000s & includes an arty student documentary about Roxy Music fans & frenzied backstage footage of a Beatles concert, at venues you may just recognise.

With other musical treats along the way, this screening cements Manchester's reputation as a city full of music lovers, a place that both nurtures and supports creativity be it home grown or not.

This events is a collaboration between the North West Film Archive at MMU and Greater Manchester County Records Office (with Manchester Archives).

Explore images from the Archive's collection relating to the Manchester Music Scene at: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjwrRCaN

4 February 2012
14:00 - 16:30
Free

Forum LibraryMeeting Room B
First FloorForum Centre
Wythenshawe
M22 5RX
Telephone 0161 227 3770

UK Literary events in 2012

2012-01-10T10:36:00.002Z

More Dickens and even more Shakespeare, but also new novels from Toni Morrison, Hilary Mantel, Zadie Smith, plus exciting new voices. Explore twelve months of literary events, new books, awards and big screen book to film adaptations from The Guardian books blog.

If literature festivals are more your thing have a look at this extensive list of over 150 UK literary festivals taking place in 2012. The folks behind the list at www.literaryfestivals.co.uk have also produced a comprehensive A-Z guide to all the UK literary awards for the next twelve months.

And there's more...the Evening Standard also has a list of literary treats for 2012, as do The Telegraph.

Sherlock Holmes returns to City Library for National Libraries Day

2012-01-09T13:31:00.000Z

Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are set to solve a second murder at Manchester 's City Library by popular demand - but they need your help to crack the case.

An additional interactive murder mystery event will run from 5:15 - 7:15pm on Saturday February 4, after the first event (2 - 4pm) sold out in a matter of hours. The two events have been organised to mark National Libraries Day, a day devoted to libraries, library users, staff and supporters across the UK.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary fictional detective, recently the subject of two major movies and a BBC TV series, is being brought to City Library by After Dark Entertainment. A very limited number of free tickets are available for intrepid sleuths aged 16 and over.

Attendees will hunt for clues alongside the mastermind Holmes and his faithful companion Watson in a bid to unmask the culprit, who could even be Holmes' arch-enemy, the dreaded Moriarty.

Executive Member for Culture and Leisure, Councillor Mike Amesbury, said, "It's elementary - the murder mystery events at the City Library will be terrific fun. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are enduringly popular and still attract visitors to libraries after more than a century."

To book free tickets for the evening murder mystery event at City Library, Elliot House, 151 Deansgate on Saturday February 4 (5:15 - 7:15pm), visit www.sherlockreturnstocitylibrary.eventbrite.co.uk.

The future of digital libraries...

2012-01-08T17:25:00.000Z

Mike Wolpert, founder of http://www.socialjumpstart.com interviews Sarah Houghton, Librarian, Digital Rights Management Expert and publisher of http://librarianinblack.net about the future of digital libraries and how our rights and privacy are effected now and in the future.

Indie publishers - sign up for a free ebook publishing class

2012-01-06T14:07:00.000Z

On the 20th January, Literature Northwest is hosting a seminar on eBook production, with Nigel Marsh, Director of Publishing Services at Faber and Faber.

Nigel will be speaking about conversion to digital formats, the distribution of these assets to retailers, and what the Faber Factory Service has to offer independent publishers.

This seminar will be suitable for independent publishers of all sizes who are digitizing their lists (or who anticipate doing so in future). It offers the opportunity to put your questions to one of the most experienced digital production directors in the independent sector.

Nigel has worked on the production side of publishing for over 25 years. He started in Production at Edward Arnold, which was bought by Hodder & Stoughton. He then moved to Methuen Academic, which became Routledge and then Taylor & Francis. Nigel joined Faber and Faber in 2000. He is currently Director of Publishing Services, where he has a number of responsibilities, one of which is being part of the Faber Factory which was set up in 2010 as an eBook distribution service for independent publishers.

If there are any specific questions you'd like Nigel to address, please email them in advance to Jim Hinks at literaturenorthwest@yahoo.co.uk.

The seminar is free to attend for independent publishers, but please book a place by emailing ra.page@commapress.co.uk.

When : 20th January 2012 - 1pm-3pm
Where : International Anthony Burgess Foundation
Price: Free

Order the Costa Book of the Year 2011 finalists from your library...

2012-01-04T09:21:00.000Z

Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy has won the Costa Poetry Award for The Bees (Picador), and debut biographer Matthew Hollis has scooped the Costa Biography Award, with both now entering the final race alongside three other category winners to be named the overall £30,000 Costa Book of the Year 2011. (Read the full story over at the Bookseller).

Former Great Ormond St. nurse Christie Watson picked up best first novel for Tiny Sunbirds Far Away and debut children's writer, Moira Young, won the children's book award for Blood Red Road.

We have five copies of The Bees for you to borrow. Visit the online catalogue to reserve your copy. You can also reserve and borrow Now All Roads Lead to France, the highly regarded debut biography of the last years of the poet Edward Thomas by Matthew Hollis.

Who do you think should win the Costa Book of the Year Award 2011?

Got an eReader for Xmas? Try these tips and freebies

2012-01-03T11:01:00.000Z

Did you get an eReader for Christmas? Here are some tips and links that might come in handy...

Watch a BBC video on The Evolution of the eReader...http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/9658670.stm

If you don't have one, but are planning to buy an eReader here's a checklist to help you buy the right one (via Teleread) s.coop/7poy

Using a Kindle? These two tips might be useful - How to loan a Kindle eBook (via Teleread) s.coop/7r2b and 5 things you didn't know you could do on a Kindle (thanks @joeyanne) s.coop/7r2c

Stuck for book ideas? Try these - Top 50 eBooks of 2011 (via Teleread) http://s.coop/7sg7

Don't want to pay for ebooks?

How about 3 million downloadable texts on the Internet Archive archive.org/details/texts

How to add public domain books to the Kindle http://s.coop/7sgi

Or try some these - 5 e-Book Collections with Over 100,000 Free e-Books bit.ly/uielHt

Amazon’s 100 best-selling free ebooks are always available on this list (which is updated hourly!) http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/digital-text

And don't forget you can download free ebooks from Manchester Libraries. We've got over 3000 ebook and audiobook titles ready for you to reserve or download right now. Visit the Download> website to browse our collection. You can borrow up to five audiobooks at a time for up to three weeks. When the three weeks are up, books just return themselves, so it really is free. Try it out right now.... you'll need a library card - sign up here, it's still free!

Line-up confirmed for the Library Theatre Company’s fifth annual re:play Festival in January 2012

2011-12-20T10:00:00.000Z

The full programme has been announced for the Library Theatre Company’s re:play Festival - the unique festival which brings together the most talked-about new theatre seen in the previous 12 months on Manchester’s fringe theatre.

The 2012 festival will be held in three completely different spaces at The Lowry in Salford - the venue’s restaurant for a show which includes a full meal, underneath the stage of the Quays Theatre, and the Lowry studio space.

The festival features six new plays and four complementary events. For more information and a full performance schedule, please visit the Library Theatre website at www.librarytheatre.com/replay.

Tickets are on sale via the Library Theatre website (www.librarytheatre.com/replay), or via Quay Tickets (www.quaytickets.com 0843 208 6010).

First Fictions First Graphic Novel Competition

2011-12-19T15:18:00.000Z

Hop over to the fantastic Forbidden Planet blog to read about the first ever graphic novel competition, organised by Myriad Editions. Seven contenders have been chosen for the final shortlist from a list of seventy four submissions and the seven are:

Adam Blackman & Dylan Shipley: A Rat’s Tale
Gareth Brookes: The Black Project
Konstantinos Chrisoulis: Dryland
Hannah Eaton: Naming Monsters
Tom Eglington: Amber Sands
Thom Ferrier: The Enlightenment of Iwan James
Paula Knight: The Facts of Life

Print on Demand Technology is Here to Stay

2011-12-15T10:00:00.000Z

Everyone says the e-book will take over the world—but they're wrong. Even in a world of screens, paper offers unique ways to organize and share your thoughts...

...writes Clive Thompson at Wired.com in an article about the print-on-demand Expresso Book Machine. He also shares some interesting uses for print-on-demand technology including slef publishing, personalised books and more. I love the Espresso Book Machine and can think of loads of uses for it in a library. If you to want read more about actually using one of the machines Teleread has another great post from Chris Meadows - My Expresso Book Machine Encounter which includes not to be missed print-on-demand video action.

(via Teleread)

Formatting poetry for tiny screens (ePub)

2011-12-14T09:30:00.000Z

Poets know it's tricky to format poetry for eReaders and tiny mobile phone screens because of the limitations of the browsers which use specialist versions of HTML. Anything other than blank verse is very difficult to lay out. However this article from the ePubs Books Blog may be of interest to anyone attempting to publish poetry books in XHTML.

What we are going to discuss here is how to format poetry in XHTML format (which underlies EPUB) so that it looks nice on smartphone screens – that is, when many or even all of the lines do not fit the screen width. In other words, our concern is how to break poetry lines nicely....

Read the whole article over at the ePub Book Blog.

Humbug! Xmas Carolathon is treat for Dickens fans

2011-12-13T15:22:00.000Z

Students and staff from The University of Manchester are bringing Ebenezer Scrooge and Bob Cratchit to the masses by reading - and rereading - A Christmas Carol at different locations across the city over 10 hours tomorrow.

Organisers and Dickens fans Dr Jerome de Groot and Dr Mike Sanders from the Department of English and American Studies, hope it will be a moving experience for the readers, who are taking part to raise cash for the charity Shelter.

In the morning, the group will read the tale in full at the University, before reading selected highlights during a promenade performance along the Oxford Road. The whole story will be heard again when they arrive at the Friends' Meeting House between 2 and 5 pm before a grand finale at the Christmas Markets for yet another reading of selected highlights from 6-7.

The fund raiser follows last year’s 10-hour reading of Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost , raising over £1,000 for the RNIB.Dr Sanders said: “The idea for 'A Christmas Carol' came to Dickens during a visit to Manchester in 1843 so it's appropriate that the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future should once again be heard in the city.

“Despite being written nearly 170 years ago, Dickens' reminder of the need to make provision for the homeless, sadly, still resonates today."

Christmas musical celebration at City Library

2011-12-06T10:02:00.001Z

Having trouble getting into the Christmas spirit this year? What you need is City Library's seasonal musical celebration.

Continuing on from the Central Library Christmas celebrations, this is the second one to be held at City Library, our temporary home on Deansgate. It's the usual popular festive mix with live music from a range of groups, which this year includes -

The Cavendish Singers
The City of Manchester Opera
The University of Manchester Gilbert and Sullivan Society
Pleiades

If you're in town shopping this Saturday, come and rest your feet, have a cuppa & a mince pie, and listen to some gorgeous Xmas music - what could be nicer? Refreshments will be served and there will be free craft activities for children.

Saturday 10 December
1pm - 4.30pm

Becker Room, 1st Floor,
City Library,
Elliot House,
151 Deansgate
Manchester
M3 3WD

Gorgeous, gay and vegan - Dominic Berry's Wizard launch @ City Library

2011-12-01T13:02:00.001Z

Much loved & admired on the Manchester poetry scene, Dominic will be launching his eagerly-awaited new poetry collection at a reading at City Library. The new collection is called Wizard and was published earlier this year by Flapjack. Dom's had an exciting time recently -

Winner of New York's famous Nuyorican Cafe Poetry Slam - June 2011
Arts Council funding to write & stage Wizard at Manchester's Contact Theatre - May 2011
Forthcoming tour of Wizard across the U.K. - 2012

"An exceptional force in the poetry and spoken word scene."
John McGrath, Artistic Director, National Theatre Wales

Dom is supported by Kieran King, Sarah Miller and Anna McCrory

Thursday 8 December
6pm onwards

City Library,
Elliot House,
151 Deansgate,
Manchester
M3 3WD

New @ City Library: Poetry Reading Course

2011-11-28T11:41:00.000Z

This session, led by Edmund Prestwich, covers the poetryof William Butler Yeats. Poems discussed will include:

Easter 1916
Meditations in Time of Civil War
Leda andthe Swan
Why Should I Blame You
Memory
Presences
First Love
Fergus and the Druid
The Wild Swans at Coole
A Prayer for My Daughter
Long-Legged Fly
Sailing toByzantium and the Crazy Jane poems.

The session is free and open to all: please read the poemsbeforehand - and bring a copy of Yeats’ Selected Poemswith you.Visit the online catalogue to reserve books by and about W. B. Yeats from the library. Or find out more about Yeats at the Poetry Archive plus you can also download many of Yeats books for free at Project Gutenberg.

The next session (January 7) is A Hospital Odyssey byGwyneth Lewis (Bloodaxe), led by Ian Pople.

Saturday 10 December, 10-1
City Library
Becker Room
Eliott House
151 Deansgate
Manchester
M3 3WD

A different type of Kindle...

2011-11-26T10:36:00.000Z

A new exhibition opens this week at the John Rylands University Library. Nicola Dale presents her new installation - Kindle - thousands of unwanted book pages transformed into candles, covering every surface of the Library's Map Room.Find out more at http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/deansgate/exhibitions/

Talks @ City Library: Yuri Gagarin in Manchester

2011-11-25T11:29:00.001Z

Gurbir Singh is a blogger,space historian and authorof Yuri Gagarin in London andManchester. Here, he’ll talkabout when the world’s firstspaceman (pictured) paid a visitto Manchester in 1961.

Gurbir's talk will cover Gagarin’sbackground, why he cameto Manchester and wherehe visited. It will also includetestimonies from those who were there, and the widersocial impact of his visit, at the height of the Cold War.

The talk will also provide an update on the campaign tomake Manchester the permanent home of a Yuri Gagarinstatue in 2012.

More at www.astrotalkuk.org. Places arefree, but you do need to book:visit http://gagarinmanchester.eventbrite.com

Monday 5 December, 6-7

City Library
Becker Room
Eliott House
151 Deansgate
Manchester
M3 3WD

Poetry in your lunch hour with Pink Ribbon Poems this Thursday

2011-11-23T16:14:00.001Z

Salford Women Writers began in Salford Women’s Centre about seventeen years ago. It’s a women only group that meets every week to talk, laugh, cry, share ideas... and write!

Last year, a group member, Linda Walker, passed away after a battle with cancer and this gave the group the idea for Pink Ribbon Poems.

Also reading today - guest poet Cathy Bryant, well-known on the Manchester performance poetry circuit. Cathy is currently editing the second volume of The Best of Manchester Poets.

Thursday 23 November 1pm - 2pm

City Library
Becker Room
First Floor
Elliot House
151 Deansgate
Manchester
M3 3WD

For more information contact Libby Tempest: telephone 0161 234 1981/07535 426678 l.tempest@manchester.gov.uk

Introducing the Drum Book Club and The Age of Innocence

2011-11-22T15:22:00.000Z

Here at Manchester Libraries we love the wonderful Book Drum site - where you bring the books you love to life by adding video, images, maps and music, so we are excited to see that next month sees the launch of the Drum Book Club, where Book Drum contributors can read and profile a book together.

The Drum Book Club will choose a well known book every few months and invite contributions to any part of the profile. Every bookmark, review and Setting place will be credited individually to its contributor. Over the past year the Book Drum team have found that contributors love creating bookmarks, glossary items and Setting places, but taking on an entire profile can be a daunting task. So the club will encourage people to creating one together!

The first books will be Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. Published in 1920, it won the Pulitzer Prize the following year, and its tale of high society love and loss in 1870s New York has been setting romantic hearts fluttering ever since.

The Drum Book Club will be using the Oxford World's Classics edition (9780199540013) to set the page numbers, but you can read any edition including the free Gutenberg ebook available online and of course you can borrow a copy from us or download it as an ebook.

Start reading it now, and in two weeks' time the profile will open for contributions. The Book Drum team would love to see as many people as possible add something... even if it's just a single well-crafted bookmark.

If you haven't discovered Book Drum yet you're missing a great website...

The attention to detail in Book Drum profiles is absolutely awesome. These are real labours of love, and I'm flattered and delighted that Tipping the Velvet has been added to the list - Sarah Waters, author of Tipping the Velvet

I am thoroughly impressed. this is a wonderful resource for readers. - Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner

Rock's Backpages - a customer review

2011-11-21T13:46:00.000Z

Your library card now gives you free access to Rock’s Backpages - a massive online database of rock journalism, featuring a jaw-dropping 17,000 articles on artists from Aaliyah to ZZ Top, Eminem to Elvis, the Rolling Stones to the Stone Roses. Today's guest blogger, Paul Stevens, reviews the Rock's Backpages site. Paul currently writes the 'Whose Idea Was...' column in Manchester's Chimp Magazine and if you read Chimp, you'll know he doesn't mince his words...

If you like music, and more specifically, if, like me, you like to read about music… YOU NEED THIS. I’ve often wanted to take a look at it, but subscription costs for individuals are, to say the least, prohibitive, and now Manchester Libraries has made it free for all members, and accessible as part of its 24 hour library service, as Owen Paul once sang (sort of!) it’s my favourite waste of time.

Rock's Backpages is a huge online archive of music journalism from the 1950s until the present day, culled from seminal music papers such as Creem, Rolling Stone, New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Crawdaddy! and Mojo. It contains work by some of the greats, Nick Kent, Charles Shaar Murray, Lester Bangs and our very own John Robb, Paul Morley and Mick Middles. All in all there are estimated to be 17,000 articles on there from every genre of music, from the greats of jazz to the birth of grime and all points in between.

There’s a fantastic and far reaching “On this day” section, a superb collection of blogs, and digital archives of thousands of magazine covers which really give you a feel for the aesthetics of the time; in 1985 for example, triangles were massive. It’s not just the big names who are covered either, I’ve racked my brain, rifled through the foggy compartment marked “2^nd rate prog bands of the 1990s”, hit search, and I’ve rarely caught it out.

The interesting thing to me is the evolution of music journalism through the decades, and there is plenty of primary source material here. From the 50s, when popular music was seen as an eccentric branch of showbusiness and jazz greats such as Charlie parker were written about in the same superficial tone as Ava Gardener’s choice of dress on Oscars night. Through the 60s and 70s when the writing became, to say the least, over technical, and NME journalists would pour over the modal shifts of a particular Stanley Clarke bass solo, or Alan White’s choice of cymbals oblivious to the snotty hoards of punk looming into view over the hillside. It’s the hushed and reverent tones that really stand out over this period, like a literary equivalent of “Whispering” Bob Harris and interviews from the era come across as a cross between a therapy session, an audience with the pope and a gloomy Wednesday afternoon in Johnny Roadhouse.

It’s during the punk period though, and then into the 80s when music journalism really loses touch with reality, and becomes an exercise in pure pretentiousness, with often hilarious results. It seems that the objective was to cram as many references to situationism, dada, obscure Russian poets, obscurer historical figures and works of sculpture into album and gig reviews until it wasn’t entirely clear if the writer was describing a piece of classic Soviet architecture or a couple of fops wearing slippers and a drum machine. On reflection it was probably just an attempt to compensate for the vacuous music of the time, it must have been a difficult job in imbue a sense of gravitas into an interview with Toyah Wilcox, hence the Eisenstein and Camus.

During the 90s, no doubt influenced by Loaded and the “New Lad” phenomenon, the journalists turned Gonzo and much of the writing of the Britpop era seems more concerned with documenting manic partying involving musicians, journalists and sleepless nights to a far greater degree than it does with music. Lots of cigarettes and alcohol and nary a mention of the innovations of, for example, Jungle and Hip Hop, which were breaking new barriers by the week, while Oasis recycled The Beatles with a dash of Quo, and Damon Albarn became the new Tommy Steele.

More recent articles show a new and lazy tactic as pop music finally eats itself, and every week the music papers take a fleeting moment from rocks illustrious past and try and flog it as something fresh and innovative, an appropriate approach to documenting a musical era when it seems more important to display the right influences than it is to create something genuinely new for the 21^st Century.

That’s my jaded take on it all, anyway, and what do I know, but all the evidence that you could wish for is here for the price of a library card (!), feel free to test my thesis and reject it as the bitter and uninformed ramblings of the man who never got The Smiths.

Right then, I’m off to read that Emerson, Lake and Powell interview from 1986….

To sign in to Rock's Backpages visit the 24 Hour Library, select Rock's Backpages and enter your library ticket number and pin.

Anthony Burgess Archive Reveals Vast Body Of Previously Unseen Work

2011-11-21T09:30:00.000Z

A greatly expanded slang lexicon for the delinquent droogs of the novel A Clockwork Orange has been unearthed in a vast archive of the work and life of Anthony Burgess held in Manchester, alongside the libretto and score of an unseen opera about Leon Trotsky, and the script for an unmade TV series about Attila the Hun. Read more over at the Guardian.

A Christmas Carol Out Loud

2011-11-18T10:55:00.001Z

Ebenezer Scrooge Bob Cratchit, Mr Fezziwig, Tiny Tim and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future will be visiting Manchester on Wednesday 14 December in an extravaganza organised by the Department of English & American Studies at the University of Manchester, to raise funds for Shelter. The characters will be reading from Dickens' A Christmas Carol around the city in a variety of locations.

The tale begins at 9am at Manchester University, before heading down Oxford Road. A variety of locations along Oxford Road will provide the venue for the reading of selected highlights.

Another full reading will take place at the Friend's Meeting House (2-5) before the characters spill out into the Christmas Markets for a finale!

If you would like to donate please do: http://www.justgiving.com/EASXmasCarolOutLoud

Kindle Cloud Reader now available on Mozilla Firefox

2011-11-16T19:19:00.001Z

Amazon has announced that Kindle Cloud Reader, the HTML5-based web app that lets customers read their Kindle books in their web browser, is now available for Mozilla Firefox so the hundreds of millions of Firefox users can start reading their Kindle books instantly, simply by opening their web browser. To start reading, go to http://read.amazon.com using Chrome, Safari on iPad, Safari on desktop and now Mozilla Firefox.

Read more on Mashable

2011-11-09T10:30:00.000Z

An Encyclopaedia of Manchester: Ed Glinert

Ed’s back with his unique personal take on the recent and not-so-recent history of Manchester. And he should know: Ed is a walking tour guide and was a co-founder of the much-missed City Life magazine. Tonight, he’ll talk about his latest project: the first ever encyclopaedia of the world’s greatest city.

The Lloyds Hotel, Wilbraham Road, Wednesday 16 November, 6.00pm

Have a look at Chorlton Book Festival online brochure or read a plain text version...

Chorlton Book Festival: Discover the History of Chorlton

2011-11-08T10:30:00.000Z

Chorlton History with Andy Simpson

This local historian and author will talk about Chorlton’s history. There are plenty of books exploring the history of Manchester during the 19th century, but the surrounding rural communities have been neglected. Here is a detailed account of an agricultural community, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, that was just 4 miles from the town. Andy's new book, Chorlton-cum-Hardy: A Community Transformed, is out in December.

Chorlton Library, Monday 14 November, 7.00pm
Have a look at Chorlton Book Festival online brochure or read a plain text version...

Download library ebooks on a mobile? New feature now available

2011-11-07T14:00:00.000Z

Here at Manchester Libraries we've seen a massive increase in the number of library members downloading eBooks and audiobooks from mobile devices. In fact, the number of downloads in 2011 is 13X greater than all of 2010.

As mobile usage continues to we are pleased to share the following new Overdrive features now available on a mobile device:

Customer-defined lending allows you to choose your own lending period for each title. Example options include 7, 14, or 21 days.
Advanced search functionality gives you the opportunity to search by criteria such as title, author, keyword, publisher, format, etc. for a more custom set of results.
Enhanced searching allows you to search within results to narrow down a list of titles, and additionally, limit the results to only show titles with copies available. This means no more scrolling through dozens of pages to find a title available for checkout.
Page numbers in search results gives patrons a clear view of how many titles were generated in their search.

We hope you enjoy these new features!

Check out our free ebook and audiobook download service. Follow this link http://manchesterdownload.lib.overdrive.com or scan the QR code below with your smartphone. No QR code reader on your phone? No problem just search for QR code reader in your app store and you'll find several free versions to download...

Chorlton Book Festival: Sparkling Poetry

2011-11-07T10:30:00.000Z

An evening of sparkling poetry and prose

Award-winning poet and workshop facilitator Sarah L Dixon and the First Sundays Creative Writing Group showcase their work. Readers include Alan Clemo, Helen Marks, Lynn Myint-Maung, Emma Short and Willian West Call Sarah on 07743685221 for more information or book through the library.

Chorlton Library, Saturday 12 November, 7.00pm

Have a look at Chorlton Book Festival online brochure or read a plain text version...

Chorlton Book Festival: Playwriting workshop

2011-11-05T11:00:00.000Z

Playwriting workshop with Charlotte Keatley

Write a scene, hear how it works aloud, rewrite it, and plot your play - all in one workshop. Charlotte Keatley has writing games to get you going and keep you going on the process of creating a play. Best known for My Mother Said I Never Should, which has been translated into 23 languages and is the most performed play ever written by a woman, Charlotte Keatley has taught creative writing from Burnley to Shanghai. Her newest play Our Father opens at Watford Palace Theatre in February.

This workshop is free, but demand will be high and places are limited. Booking essential and you’d better be quick! Call 0161 227 3700.

The Edge Theatre and Arts Centre, Manchester Road
Saturday 12 November, 1.00pm-3.30pm

Have a look at Chorlton Book Festival online brochure or read a plain text version...

Chorlton Book Festival: Rubbish Revamped

2011-11-04T14:59:00.000Z

Rubbish Revamped: Reduce, Re-use, Revamp, Recycle

This family workshop, open to ages 8+, invites you to make cards from junkmail and retired library books using the practice of quilling.

Rubbish Revamped is a Chorlton-based recycled craft organisation. Its aim is to inspire the creative and thrifty-minded to convert their rubbish and neglected items into fun and fabulous craft items. Matted jumpers turn into cuddly monkeys, junkmail into jewellery, old ties into draught excluders, empty juice cartons become wallets and newspaper is woven into baskets.

Learn more at www.rubbishrevamped.org.uk and check out their fabulous photo gallery.

Chorlton Library, Saturday 12 November, 2.00pm - 4.30pm

Have a look at Chorlton Book Festival online brochure or read a plain text version...

NaNoWriMo Manchester Socials

2011-11-02T18:50:00.003Z

Tomorrow sees the first of the Manchester NaNoWriMo weekly socials. It runs from 6pm until 9pm at Yates's pub on Portland Street, two minutes from Piccadilly Gardens. See the thread for details: http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/europe-england-manchester/threads/13410

And Friday brings the first of the weekly write-ins! Again this starts at 6pm and goes on until 8pm and is happening at MadLab in the Northern Quarter. There's details and directions on the thread (directions on a comment further down): http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/europe-england-manchester/threads/11269

Good luck and keep writing!

Want to find out more about NanNoWriMo? Check out the website or Wikipedia .

Dates for your diary - lots more writers @ City Library

2011-11-01T12:50:00.002Z

Jo Bell & Max Wallis
Boat dweller and former Cheshire Poet Laureate Jo Bell is currently Director of National Poetry Day and Programmer for the Ledbury Poetry Festival. She co-authored Bluebeard’s Wives with Sophie Hannah in 2007 and her most recent collection is Navigation (2008).

Max Wallis is making a big splash in the poetry world and is currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing atthe University of Manchester. His first collection, Modern Love, looks to trace the course of a passion through thecontemporary languages of Facebook and texting.

City Library, Becker Room
Thursday 17 November, 6.00pm

Salford Women Writers
Join us as the group celebrates its new collection on the subject of, and in aid of, breast cancer.
City Library, Becker Room
Wednesday 23 November, 1.00pm

Pass On a Poem
Choose a poem, briefly introduce yourself, the poem and the poet, then read it aloud and talk about your choice.Simple. Contact Dolores Long - doloreslong@fastmail.fm if you’d like to read. You’ll be very welcome.City Library, Becker Room

Thursday 24 November, 6.30pm

Char March & Gaia Holmes (The date has been moved forward to Tuesday 13 December)
Char March is a multi-award winning poet, playwright and writer of short fiction. She lectures in Creative Writing at Leeds College of Art and Design, and is Writer-in-Residence at the Watershed Landscape Project and Hull University Business School. Her latest collection is The Thousand Natural Shocks (Indigo Dreams).Gaia Holmes’ first poetry collection, Dr James Graham’s Celestial Bed, was published by Comma in 2006 andsome of her individual poems have been adapted to film. Her poem Claustrophobia was highly commended in theBest Individual Poem category of the 2007 Forward Prize. Gaia’s new collection is Occasional China (Comma).
City Library, Becker Room
Tuesday 13 December, 6.00pm

The Four Points Ramble

2011-10-28T10:00:00.000+01:00

The Chorlton Book Festival is back, offering a variety of authors, poets, musicians, fun and games for historians and horror fans, slow travellers and book swappers, vampires and revampers in the M21 area and beyond.

Readings and music from slow travel books by Chorlton author Steve Saxton, with the assistance of early music group the Holy Maggots. Learn more about the Four Points Ramble, a charitable venture that includes walking, observing, recording, reading, writing, fundraising and selling a mixture of history, literature, archaeology, genealogy, music, wildlife and narrative.

Find out more at the Four Points Ramble website.

Chorlton Library
Friday 11 November
7.30pm

Have a look at Chorlton Book Festival online brochure or read a plain text version...

Glennyce Eckersley: Angel Expert @ Levenshulme Library

2011-10-27T14:00:00.000+01:00

Glennyce Eckersley is a well-known international, writer and broadcaster. Her first book, An Angel At My Shoulder, was an international best seller and she has since written a further ten books about angels. She has been a regular guest on ITV’s This Morning, taking part in debates, and phone-ins, talking about her books and the angel phenomenon. Her most recent television work has been on the popular Sky series Angels with Gloria Hunniford.

Glennyce lectures widely and holds workshops both here and abroad and has been a keynote speaker at World Angel Day in London and Angel Festivals in America.

Levenshulme Library, Cromwell Grove, Levenshulme M19 3QE
Wednesday 2 November, 6.30-8pm

Find out about eReaders and eBooks at Levenshulme Library

2011-10-27T10:00:00.000+01:00

There’s so much talk these days about the ‘death’ of the printed book and the rise of the eBook. We say why choose one or the other? We want both! We certainly give you both at the library. Come and find out more about our Download> eBook and audio book service (available from our website, with over 2,600 titles - free to our members, of course) and test drive some of the latest eReaders. Could be something for that all-important Christmas list...

Levenshulme Library, Cromwell Grove, Levenshulme M19 3QE
Friday 4 November, 2-4

Book Quiz and Bess's Bingo at Chorlton Book Festival

2011-10-26T14:00:00.000+01:00

The Chorlton Book Festival is back, offering a variety of authors, poets, musicians, fun and games for historians and horror fans, slow travellers and book swappers, vampires and revampers in the M21 area and beyond.

Welcome to copland’s Hard One, mostly with a book theme! He’s throwing down a literary gauntlet for Chorlton’s quizzers and readers, literati and illiterati. Quiz 7.30 till 9.00 - no more than six to a team, £1 per person, prizes and kudos to be won.Then it’s eyes down, look in for cash prizes at Bess’s Bingo between 9.00 and 10.00.

The Spread Eagle
Wilbraham Road
Thursday 10 November
from 7.30

Have a look at Chorlton Book Festival online brochure or read a plain text version...

Chorlton Book Festival - Full Programme

2011-10-25T14:51:00.000+01:00

There's just two weeks to go - the Chorlton Book Festival is back - offering a variety of authors, poets, musicians, fun and games for historians and horror fans, slow travellers and book swappers, vampires and revampers in the M21 area and beyond.

eBook Drop-inWant Santa to bring you an eBook reader this year? Test drive some of the latest models and get some expert, impartial advice. We lend eBooks too - find out more about the Download> eBook and audio book service on our website, where you’ll find over 2,600 titles. If you’re a library member who already has an eReader, smartphone or tablet computer, you can use the library’s free WiFi and download something sensational to read on the tram. Free, of course.

Chorlton Library, Tuesday 8 November, 4.00pm-7.00pm

Cath StaincliffeCath Staincliffe is an established novelist, radio playwright and the creator of ITV’s hit series, Blue Murder, starring Caroline Quentin as DCI Janine Lewis. Cath’s recent novels, The Kindest Thing and Witness, told stories of ordinary people caught up in the criminal justice system and faced with difficult and dangerous choices. Crying Out Loud is the eighth in the series featuring Manchester’s very own private eye, Sal Kilkenny. The discovery of an abandoned baby on her doorstep makes Sal’s investigation into a killer’s conviction that much harder...

Chorlton Library, Wednesday 9 November, 7.00pm

Book Quiz and Bess’s Bingo with copland smith
Welcome to copland’s Hard One, mostly with a book theme. He’s throwing down a literary gauntlet for Chorlton’s quizzers and readers, literati and illiterati. Quiz 7.30pm till 9.00pm - no more than six to a team, £1 per person, prizes and kudos to be won.Then it’s eyes down, look in for cash prizes at Bess’s Bingo between 9.00pm and 10.00pm.

The Spread Eagle, Wilbraham Road Thursday 10 November, from 7.30

The Four Points Ramble Readings and music from slow travel books by Chorlton author Steve Saxton, with the assistance of early music group the Holy Maggots. Learn more about the Four Points Ramble, a charitable venture that includes walking, observing, recording, reading, writing, fundraising and selling a mixture of history, literature, archaeology, genealogy, music, wildlife and narrative.

Chorlton Library, Friday 11 November, 7.30pm

Rubbish Revamped: Reduce, Re-use, Revamp, RecycleThis family workshop, open to ages 8+, invites you to make cards from junkmail and retired library books using the practice of quilling. Rubbish Revamped is a Chorlton-based recycled craft organisation. Its aim is to inspire the creative and thrifty-minded to convert their rubbish and neglected items into fun and fabulous craft items. Matted jumpers turn into cuddly monkeys, junkmail into jewellery, old ties into draught excluders, empty juice cartons become wallets and newspaper is woven into baskets.
Learn more at www.rubbishrevamped.org.uk.

Chorlton Library, Saturday 12 November, 2.00pm-4.30pm

Playwriting workshop with Charlotte Keatley
Write a scene, hear how it works aloud, rewrite it, and plot your play - all in one workshop. Charlotte Keatley has writing games to get you going and keep you going on the process of creating a play. Best known for My Mother Said I Never Should, which has been translated into 23 languages and is the most performed play ever written by a woman, Charlotte Keatley has taught creative writing from Burnley to Shanghai. Her newest play Our Father opens at Watford Palace Theatre in February.

This workshop is free, but demand will be high and places are limited. Booking essential and you’d better be quick! Call 0161 227 3700.

The Edge Theatre and Arts Centre, Manchester Road, Saturday 12 November, 1.00pm-3.30pm

An evening of sparkling poetry and prose
Award-winning poet and workshop facilitator Sarah L Dixon and the First Sundays Creative Writing Group showcase their work. Readers include Alan Clemo, Helen Marks, Lynn Myint-Maung, Emma Short and Willian West Call Sarah on 07743685221 for more information or book through the library.

Chorlton Library, Saturday 12 November, 7.00pm

Simon Kurt Unsworth
A spine-tingling Sunday afternoon with an author whose work has appeared in the Ash Tree Press anthologies At Ease with the Dead, and Exotic Gothic 3, Gaslight Grotesque and Black Static magazine. His story The Church on the Island was nominated for a World Fantasy Award. His first collection was Lost Places (Ash Tree Press, 2010) and the follow up, Strange Gateways, will be published by PS Publishing in 2012. His ebook, Uneasy Tales is out now.

Chorlton Library, Sunday 13 November, 2.00pm

Chorlton History with Andy Simpson
This local historian and author will talk about Chorlton’s history. His new book, Chorlton-cum-Hardy: A Community Transformed, is out in December.

Chorlton Library, Monday 14 November, 7.00pm

A Means to an End
An evening of poetry, music and song with this new poetry music group. At its core is Andy N (vocals/keyboards), previously of Wordmusic and Jeff Dawson (vocals/guitar) of Half Evil Promotions accompanied by singer-songwriters Petrova Fairhurst and Dave Hitchen. A lively celebration to launch the group’s first book, A Means to an End.

Chorlton Library, Tuesday 15 November, 7.00pm

An Encyclopaedia of Manchester: Ed Glinert
Ed’s back with his unique personal take on the recent and not-so-recent history of Manchester. And he should know: Ed is a walking tour guide and was a co-founder of the much-missed City Life magazine. Tonight, he’ll talk about his latest project: the first ever encyclopaedia of the world’s greatest city.

The Lloyds Hotel, Wilbraham Road, Wednesday 16 November, 6.00pm

Canal Street Gothic and Rosie Lugosi
Author David Thame presents readings from his acclaimed collection of stories set in and around Manchester’s gay village. A journalist has a stroke (and not in a nice way); a soap star plays pool; chinchillas kick sawdust onto the carpet and men make pancakes in the nude. Manchester as you’ve never seen it before - probably. Royalties to the Albert Kennedy Trust.

And if that’s not enough, David’s reading will be followed by a special festival performance by the legendary lesbian vampire poet Rosie Lugosi.

The Lloyds Hotel, Wilbraham Road, Thursday 17 November, 7.00pm

Charity Book Swap
A large and varied collection of books for sale, with prices from just 50p. Donations of books can be delivered on the night or collected - details from Les Jones 0161 881 9503. All profits to Oxfam.

The Beech, Beech Road, Thursday 17 November, 8.00pm-10.00pm

Manky Poets with Jackie Kay
This Festival Special features award winning Jackie Kay. All welcome £2 (£1 concessions)Chorlton Library, Friday 18 November, 7.45Writers’ Workshop with Sarah L DixonPoet, NHS secretary and Mum to Frank, Sarah offers plenty of fresh prompts to get the pen going and fill the paper. All exercises are easily replicated at home, so you can use them whenever you need inspiration. All writers welcome, prompts will allow freedom to explore your preferred style.

The workshop is free, but as ever, places are limited. Booking essential - call 0161 227 3700.

Chorlton Central Church, Barlow Moor Road, Saturday 19 November, 12.00-2.00pm

Beatrix Potter Family Event
Come and meet Peter Rabbit! Readings, games, quizzes, activities and fun for all the family. Come in fancy dress and you might win a prize. Our party celebrates this most enduring of children’s authors, her gorgeous illustrations and her wonderful cast of characters. Beatrix Potter had a Manchester connection too - find out more on the day.

This event is free and open to all.
Chorlton Library, Saturday 19 November, 2.00pm - 4.30pm

World Book Night 2012 - The 25 Titles

2011-10-25T11:19:00.000+01:00

The 25 titles to be given away at next year's World Book Night have been revealed. The books were selected partly by a public vote for the World Book Night top 100, with an editorial committee whittling down the list. One million books will be given away by volunteer book givers on 23rd April next year.

The Books

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Borrow it from us! We've got it as a book, hardback, paperback, e-book

The Player of Games by Iain M Banks
Borrow it from us! We've got it as a paperback

Sleepyhead by Mark Billingham
Borrow it from us. We've got it as a hardback, paperback

Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
We've got it in hardback, adult cassette

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Borrow it from us! We've got it in paperback, large print

The Take by Martina Cole
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Hardback, Paperback, Large Print, Playaway, MP3

Harlequin by Bernard Cornwall
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Hardback, Large Print, E-book

Someone Like You by Roald Dahl
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Paperback

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Hardback, Paperback, Large Print, Play Set, E-Format, Spoken Word, CD, DVD, Playaway

Room by Emma Donoghue
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Hardback Paperback Large Print

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Hardback, Paperback, E-Format, Vocal Score, DVD, Spoken Word

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Hardback, Paperback, Adult cassette, DVD

Misery by Stephen King
Oops. We haven't got this at the moment :(

The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Paperback, E-book

Small Island by Andrea Levy
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Hardback, Paperback, Large Print, CD, Playaway Spoken Word

Let the Right One In by John Ajvde Lindqvist
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Paperback, DVD

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Hardback, Paperback, Large Print, DVD, Playaway Spoken Word

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Paperback, Blue Ray DVD, CD, DVD

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Hardback, Paperback, CD

The Damned Utd by David Peace
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Paperback

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Paperback, CD, MP3 Spoken Word

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Hardback, Paperback

Touching the Void by Joe Simpson
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Hardback, Paperback, Digital video disk, Adult Spoken Word

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Hardback, Paperback, CD, DVD

The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak
Borrow it from us! We've got it in Hardback, Paperback, Large Print, E-book, Chinese

Find out more about World Book Night 2012

There's an opinion piece over at The Guardian

World Book Night giveaway: a night of Good Omens or Misery? (Guardian)

Catch Cath Staincliffe at Chorlton Book Festival

2011-10-25T09:30:00.000+01:00

The Chorlton Book Festival is back, offering a variety of authors, poets, musicians, fun and games for historians and horror fans, slow travellers and book swappers, vampires and revampers in the M21 area and beyond.

Cath Staincliffe is an established novelist, radio playwright and the creator of ITV’s hit series, Blue Murder, starring Caroline Quentin as DCI Janine Lewis. Cath’s recent novels, The Kindest Thing and Witness, told stories of ordinary people caught up in the criminal justice system and faced with difficult and dangerous choices. Crying Out Loud is the eighth in the series featuring Manchester’s very own private eye, Sal Kilkenny. The discovery of an abandoned baby on her doorstep makes Sal’s investigation into a killer’s conviction that much harder...

You can reserve books for free online and collect them from your nearest library. We'll email you when your book is ready to collect.

Chorlton Library
Wednesday 9 November
7.00pm

Learn about eReaders at Chorlton Library

2011-10-24T09:00:00.000+01:00

The Chorlton Book Festival is back, offering a variety of authors, poets, musicians, fun and games for historians and horror fans, slow travellers and book swappers, vampires and revampers in the M21 area and beyond.

eBook Drop-in
Want Santa to bring you an eBook reader this year? Test drive some of the latest models and get some expert, impartial advice.

We lend eBooks too - and it's free - find out more about the Download> eBook and audio book service on our website, where you’ll find over 2,600 titles. If you’re a library member who already has an eReader, smartphone or tablet computer, you can use the library’s free WiFi and download something sensational to read on the tram. Free, of course.

Chorlton Library
Tuesday 8 November
4.00pm - 7.00pm

Wythenshawe Forum is Forty!

2011-10-20T13:27:00.002+01:00

Wythenshawe Forum is forty! There's loads going on in the library and throughout the Forum centre during next week. The shopping area known as the Civic, was constructed in the 1960s in the town centre (known locally as the Wythenshawe Civic Centre)and in 1971, the Wythenshawe Forum was opened, which included a library, a swimming pool and a theatre.

According to wikipedia..."The estate was built initially without shops, amenities or services, and there was very little employment directly to hand. Various residents' associations were set up to address these problems, but progress was very slow. Wythenshawe eventually expanded, and businesses were attracted to the area with the creation of the Sharston Industrial Estate and, later, the Moss Nook and Roundthorn industrial complexes. Wythenshawe gradually acquired all the amenities and facilities that the original planners had neglected to include, such as schools, shops, pubs and churches. The area also got its own hospital, and Wythenshawe Hospital grew out of the earlier Baguley Hospital after the Second World War in 1948."

There are thousands of photos of Wythenshawe on the library Local Images Collection, including some great seventies cars - my personal favourites! Here are a few from the time when the Forum was built including the official opening ceremony in 1971...

NaNoWriMo - 30 days and nights of literary abandon!

2011-10-19T18:52:00.003+01:00

The 2011 NaNoWriMo noveling extravaganza begins in just 13 days!In preparation for this years wild and wordy festival of writing, check out NaNoWriMo.org (and that very hypnotic clock). The site is now built upon the extra-sleek framework of Ruby on Rails, which means the forums are speedier than ever...

What's NanoWriMo? Well...Wikipedia says...'National Novel Writing Month is an annual internet-based creative writing project which challenges participants to write 50,000 words of a new novel in one month.The project started in July 1999 with just 21 participants, but by the 2010 event over 200,000 people took part - writing a total of over 2.8 billion words.'

Visit NaNoWriMo.org tonight to check out all the shiny newness, including an all-star cast of pep talkers, the 2011 batch of web badges, our revamped forums, and special noveling goodies in the store.

You can also find the local chapter closest to you, this year there is a group in Manchester, catch up on news and events there in the regional forum or find out about the history of NaNoWriMo.

If you know any kids, teens, or teachers who would enjoy this challenge, send them over to NaNoWriMo's Young Writers Programme. Director Chris Angotti has cooked up the best resources yet for our 50,000-plus young novelists around the world.

Even more info:
National Novel Writing Month - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
NaNoWriMo (@NaNoWriMo) on Twitter
NaNoWriMo | Facebook

The Chorlton Book Festival is Back...

2011-10-18T10:00:00.000+01:00

Magma launches a new poetry competition

2011-10-17T14:35:00.000+01:00

The Magma 50th Issue Poetry Competition is now open. Magma are accepting previously unpublished poems of up to 80 lines on any subject. Poems will be judged by George Szirtes and the first prize is £500 with a second prize of £200 and third prize of £100. What's more, poems of up to 10 lines will also be considered for the Magma Editors Prize: first prize £500, second prize £200 and 10 special mentions.

The competition closing date is the 30th November and the entry fee is £4 per poem or £15 for four poems. For Magma subscribers, it is £3 per poem or £9 for four poems.

The winning poems will be published in Spring 2012 issue and prizewinners will be invited to a reading in early Spring 2012. Visit www.magmapoetry.com/competition for more details, where you can enter online or download the postal entry form.

Take a look inside Central Library...

2011-10-14T10:16:00.004+01:00

In 2010, Manchester Central Library and the neighbouring Town Hall Extension closed for a three-year programme of extensive refurbishment and restoration. Hop over to Flickr to see more photos and take a look at what's going on behind the site hoardings, inside the empty library and extended library in the Town Hall Extension.

Unless otherwise stated, these pictures are by Barrie Leach. You can see more of his work, documenting the refurbishment in the Library and Extension, in the Town Hall Complex Transformation sets at www.flickr.com/photos/manchester-city-council/sets/

Poetry and Science: Humphry Davy

2011-10-11T10:34:00.000+01:00

Manchester Science Festival presents Poetry and Science: Humphrey Davy

Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829) was the foremost chemist of his day. He is now best known for the miner’s safety lamp (also known as a Davy lamp) though he also isolated more chemical elements than any other individual.Few people know that he also wrote poetry throughout his life, the vast majority of which he did not publish.

Professor Sharon Ruston will give a lecture on Davy and his work followed by a seminar in which participants will read and discuss some of Davy’s poems. The session will consider the links between poetry and science using copies of manuscript sources.

Monday 24 October6PM

Becker Room
First Floor
City Library
Elliot House
151 Deansgate
Manchester
M3 3WD

Tickets are free but booking is advised - www.manchestersciencefestival.com

Manchester Literature Festival starts today - take a personal tour...

2011-10-10T11:24:00.000+01:00

Manchester Literature Festival 2011 gets under way TODAY and runs until 23 October, with so many events it’s hard to choose between them. A number of recurring themes weave throughout festival fortnight, from literary tours and prizes to special storytelling events for youngsters, so to help guide you through this year's massively varied programme, our friends at the MLF team pick out some of their favourites.

Digital Marketing Assistant Sarah-Clare Conlon
The strong strand of modern European writing has really caught my eye at Manchester Literature Festival this year. I'm a huge fan of short fiction, so the European Short Stories event (Tuesday 18 October, 6pm, International Anthony Burgess Foundation, £5/£3 concs) has found itself firmly at the top of my list of must-sees. With critically acclaimed Norwegian writer Bjarte Breiteig and Thijs de Boer, a rising star on the Dutch literary scene, this should be a real treat.

The day before sees Crime In A Cold Climate (Monday 17 October, 7.30pm, International Anthony Burgess Foundation, £5/£3 concs). As a bit of a Kurt Wallander aficionado, I’m really looking foward to these readings and discussion.

I’m also hoping to pop in to the Latvian & Macedonian Poetry evening (Wednesday 19 October, 6pm, International Anthony Burgess Foundation, free, but do book) and the European Poetry Night (Friday 21 October, 6pm, International Anthony Burgess Foundation, £5/£3 concs), both of which feature award-winning writers.

Festival Director Cathy Bolton
I’m always drawn to literature that provides empathetic insights into unfamiliar cultures and landscapes and, after my visit to the Jaipur Literature Festival earlier this year, I’m particularly excited about our series of events showcasing South Asian writers.

Sunday 16 October has two events featuring women writers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh: Tahmima Anam and Dipika Rai, in conversation with The Guardian's literary editor Claire Armitstead, then Kishwar Desai and Moni Mohsin, in conversation with journalist Anita Sethi (1pm and 2.30pm, Manchester Town Hall - these events are £5/£3 concs each or you can take advantage of our special 241 ticket offer and get tickets for both events for just £5/£3 concessions by phoning 0843 208 0500 and quoting "MLF 241" at the time of booking). These are followed the next day by Navtej Sarna and Shrabani Basu (6pm, Waterstone's Deansgate, £5/£3 concs; available for groups of four or more at the special rate of £3 per ticket).

I’m intrigued to know how these six authors manage to weave reflections on complex moral and political issues into entertaining, character-driven stories. All three events promise to be really interesting.

Festival Coordinator Jon Atkin
Inspired by the piano-playing Filip Topol at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation at last year’s Festival, I’m really looking forward to the musical-themed events again this time round.

Sarah Dunant (Sunday 16 October, 7.30pm) has collaborated with early music group Musica Secreta on a semi-dramatised version of her atmospheric novel Sacred Hearts, about cloistered nuns in 16th-century Ferrara. The choir, dressed as nuns, sing some of the actual music that visitors to the convent would have heard, while Dunant and a couple of actors narrate the story, and the setting of Manchester Cathedral should add to the mood. Tickets are £12/£10 concs (if you book four or more tickets together, our special MLF Reading Group Ticket Offer is available for £10 each - book online or through the Box Office on 0843 208 0500).

The day before, MLF presents another event featuring a melding of spoken word and music. Portrait of Words and Music (Saturday 15 October, 7.30pm, Royal Northern College of Music, £10) is a wonderful collaboration between local poet Michael Symmons Roberts and Manchester Camerata, who were looking to find new ways to present music to local audiences. Michael will be reading some new poetry that he has written in response to the specific programme for the evening, which includes Mozart and Benjamin Britten. With the combination of a top poet and a leading orchestra, it sounds to me like an event no one will want to miss!

Download a Manchester Literature Festival brochure. For full details of all events at MLF 2011 and how to book, visit the website at www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk

Cath Staincliffe @ Levenshulme Library

2011-10-06T09:30:00.000+01:00

Levenshulme Library will be getting a visit from queen of crime Cath Staincliffe as part of the Levenshulme Festival. Cath Staincliffe is an established novelist, radio playwright and the creator of ITV’s hit series, Blue Murder, starring Caroline Quentin as DCI Janine Lewis.

Cath’s recent novels, The Kindest Thing and Witness, told stories of ordinary people caught up in the criminal justice system and faced with difficult and dangerous choices. Crying Out Loud is the eighth in the series featuring Manchester’s very own private eye, Sal Kilkenny.

The discovery of an abandoned baby on her doorstep makes Sal’s investigation into a killer’s conviction that much harder...

Want to read more? You can reserve Cath's novels for free from the library online catalogue and pick them up from a library near you...

Wednesday 26 October
7-8.30pm
Levenshulme Library
Cromwell Grove
Manchester
M19 3QE

Poetry Business Workshop @ City Library

2011-10-05T09:00:00.000+01:00

As part of the Manchester Literature Festival two of the UK’s most admired poets and directors of the Sheffield-based Poetry Business, Peter and Ann Sansom bring their inspirational workshop to Manchester.

Spark new ideas and develop first drafts through a series of fun and challenging writing exercises. The workshop will take place in the calming period surroundings of City Library’s beautiful Becker Room. Please book early as places will be limited. Book on 0843 208 0500 or visit www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk

Saturday 22nd October, 10.30am – 1.30pm
Becker Room
Manchester City Library
Elliot House
151 Deansgate
Manchester
M3 3WD

Tickets: £15/£12 concessions

Literary Reputations: Katherine Mansfield

2011-10-04T09:30:00.000+01:00

October 10-23 sees the sixth Manchester Literature Festival, when our city welcomes a fantastic array of writers from across the world. The 2011 line-up includes Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, Sarah Dunant, Antonia Fraser, Anthony Horowitz, Andrew Motion and many more distinguished and critically acclaimed guests.
As usual, the library service is playing its part, with five top quality events in City Library’s beautiful Becker Room.

This event examines the life and career of one of the 20th century’s most influential short story writers, Katherine Mansfield. In Katherine Mansfield - The Story-Teller (Edinburgh University Press), Kathleen Jones (pictured) creates a new picture of Mansfield: one that goes beyond her death in 1923 and includes the attempts by her widower to manipulate the posthumous publication of her unpublished work.

Kathleen Jones is a best-selling literary biographer of such diverse figures as Christina Rossetti and Catherine Cookson. She is also a published poet and short fiction writer.

Wednesday 19 October, 1.00pm

Becker Room
City Library
Elliot House
151 Deansgate
Manchester
M3 3WD

It's the...Commonword Poetry Factor

2011-10-03T15:27:00.002+01:00

As part of the Manchester Literature Festival talent-spotted young performance poets from across the north will be entering the Commonword pitching competition in a bid to convince a panel of distinguished judges (poets and promoters Helen Clare , Baba Israel , Segun Lee French and Gerry Potter) that they have what it takes to make it on the live poetry circuit.

There's a cash prize, and winners will receive some follow up mentoring from one of the judges and the opportunity to take part in a performance poetry event at the 2012 Manchester Literature Festival!

Come along for the entertainment and some top tips on how to improve your stage presence.

Commonword Poetry Factor
Contact Theatre
14 October · 19:30 - 22:30

Tickets : £5 / £3 concessions . Book on 0161 274 0600 or http://contactmcr.com

Manchester Literature Festival @ City Library presents Hallie Rubenhold

2011-09-28T10:30:00.000+01:00

October 10-23 sees the sixth Manchester Literature Festival, when our city welcomes a fantastic array of writers from across the world. The 2011 line-up includes Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, Sarah Dunant, Antonia Fraser, Anthony Horowitz, Andrew Motion and many more distinguished and critically acclaimed guests.
As usual, the library service is playing its part, with five top quality events in City Library’s beautiful Becker Room.

Hallie Rubenhold is an historian and broadcaster and an authority on British 18th-century social history. Mistress of My Fate is her first novel and will begin a series entitled The Confessions of Henrietta Lightfoot. In her candid and eyebrow-raising memoirs, the unforgettable Henrietta seeks to set the record straight about the events that shaped her.

Hallie is the author of the acclaimed study of Georgian low-life, The Covent Garden Ladies and Lady Worsley’s Whim: An Eighteenth-century Tale of Sex, Scandal and Divorce. She also acts as an historical expert for television, including working as advisor on the Channel 4 series City of Vice. Find out more about Hallie on website http://www.hallierubenhold.com/my-books.html

Monday 17 October, 1.00pm

Becker Room
City Library
Elliot House
151 Deansgate
manchester
M3 3WD

Manchester Literature Festival @City Library presents Marilyn Heward Mills

2011-09-27T15:53:00.004+01:00

October 10-23 sees the sixth Manchester Literature Festival, when our city welcomes a fantastic array of writers from across the world. The 2011 line-up includes Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, Sarah Dunant, Antonia Fraser, Anthony Horowitz, Andrew Motion and many more distinguished and critically acclaimed guests.
As usual, the library service is playing its part, with five top quality events in City Library’s beautiful Becker Room.

Marilyn Heward Mills discusses her latest novel The Association of Foreign Spouses. Set in Ghana in the turbulent 1980s, it tells the story of Eva, who arrives in the country with visions of a paradise, inspired by her new husband’s exuberant praise of his homeland.

The reality of draining heat and humidity, bare shelves in the shops and intermittent water stoppages remind her how far she is from the comforts of England. How she and her new-found friends cope forms the core of this engrossing story.

Marilyn Heward Mills was born in Switzerland and brought up in Ghana. Her first novel, Cloth Girl, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award.

Admission is free, but advanced booking is strongly advised, as space is limited. You can book your place at these, or any other festival events by calling 0843 208 0500 or visiting www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk

Friday 14 October, 1.00pm

Becker Room
City Library
Elliot House
151 Deansgate
Manchester
M3 3WD

Calling all sci-fi fans...

2011-09-23T09:00:00.000+01:00

Manchester's sci-fi book club, which meets monthly at Madlab in the Northern Quarter, have announced their book choices for the next four months. The next meeting is Tuesday 18 October and you're invited!

October's book is Rule 34 by Charles Stross.

DI Liz Kavanaugh: You realise policing internet porn is your life and your career went down the pan five years ago. But when a fetishist dies on your watch, the Rule 34 Squad moves from low priority to worryingly high profile. Anwar: As an ex-con, you'd like to think your identity fraud days are over. Especially as you've landed a legit job (through a shady mate). Although now that you're Consul for a shiny new Eastern European Republic, you've no idea what comes next. The Toymaker: Your meds are wearing off and people are stalking you through Edinburgh's undergrowth. But that's ok, because as a distraction, you're project manager of a sophisticated criminal operation. But who's killing off potential recruits? So how do bizarre domestic fatalities, dodgy downloads and a European spamming network fit together? The more DI Kavanaugh learns, the less she wants to find out.

November is Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Ender's Game took the sf world by storm,winning both the Hugo and Nebula, and rose to the top of nationalbestseller lists.

Andrew "Ender" Wiggin thinks he is playing computer simulated war games; heis, in fact, engaged in something far more desperate. The result of genetic experimentation,Ender may be the military genius Earth desperately needs in a war against an alien enemyseeking to destroy all human life.

In January we'll be stepping into the world of noir phantasmagoria and reading Zoo City by Lauren Beukes, the second novel from the author of the highly-acclaimed Moxyland.

Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job – missing persons. Being hired by reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a teenybop pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass and their animal companions live in the shadow of hell’s undertow. Instead, it catapults Zinzi deeper into the maw of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she’ll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives – including her own.

And it's the classic Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury for February.

Guy Montag is a book-burning fireman undergoing a crisis of faith. His wife spends all day with her television "family," imploring Montag to work harder so that they can afford a fourth TV wall. Their dull, empty life sharply contrasts with that of his next-door neighbor Clarisse, a young girl thrilled by the ideas in books, and more interested in what she can see in the world around her than in the mindless chatter of the tube. When Clarisse disappears mysteriously, Montag is moved to make some changes, and starts hiding books in his home. Eventually, his wife turns him in, and he must answer the call to burn his secret cache of books. After fleeing to avoid arrest, Montag winds up joining an outlaw band of scholars who keep the contents of books in their heads, waiting for the time society will once again need the wisdom of literature.

So - the next book is Rule 34 by Charles Stross, which we will be discussing at the Madlab on 18th Oct 7-9pm. Find Madlab at 36-40 Edge Street, M4 1HN.
You're more than welcome to come, it's free and informal and friendly! See you there? Oh and you can borrow a copy of Rule 34 from Madlab - books should arrive next week!

You can contact the book club on Twitter @mcrsf_madlab using #mcrsf and keep up to date with Manchester Sci-Fi book club posts at Madlab: http://madlab.org.uk/content/tag/mcrsf/

There's also a group on Google

Smut in the Suburbs!

2011-09-22T09:52:00.001+01:00

The writing collective behind thepopular Chorlton Arts Festival 2011 Flash Mob short story competition and spokenword evening plus regular performances at Bad Language, Manchester LiteratureFestival, Oxfam Bookfest, Twestival, Not Part Of and Bad Shoes Festival areback with a new event for Didsbury Arts Festival.

Smut Night takes place on Wednesday28 September at 8pm at the Northern Lawn Tennis Club on Palatine Road inDidsbury and marks the launch of a brand-new anthology of stories on the themeof love and lust, Quickies: Stories ForAdults.

The collection includes pieces bythe five FlashTag writers (Sarah-Clare Conlon, Fat Roland, Tom Mason, DavidHartley and Benjamin Judge), 10 local authors specially commissioned for theproject (including novelist Emma Jane Unsworth, whose debut Hungry, The Stars & Everything hasjust hit the shelves to critical acclaim), and 15 writers who were successfulin the recent open submissions process (including Claire Massey, Sarah Hilary,Adrian Slatcher and Tania Hershman).

The night will feature readingsby the contributors, including Bristol Prize-winner and Whalley Ranger ValerieO'Riordan; Didsbury author Socrates Adams, whose debut novel Everything's Fine is being launched atManchester Literature Festival in October, and South Manchester-based ChrisKillen, author of The Bird Room,described by The Guardian as "darkly comic" and by The Independent as"exciting and perfectly formed".

There will also be a special headlineslot from David Gaffney, the reputed "grandmaster of flash fiction" (Bookmunch) and "one of the foremostwriters in the short fiction arena" (TheShort Review). He is the lauded author of three flash fiction collections, Sawn-off Tales, Aromabingo and The Half-lifeOf Songs, plus the novel Never Never,and he will be reading the story he has written especially for Quickies along with some of his otherwork.

What a night!

FlashTag writer and organiserSarah-Clare Conlon says: “I’ve been gagging to run a literary-based Smut Nightfor ages and this seemed like the ideal opportunity – I think an evening oftongue-in-cheek saucy and romantic stories in the curtain-twitching suburbswill go down a treat!”

See flashtagmcr.wordpress.comfor more, with updates via Twitter @FlashTagMcr.

Taken from Life - Death in the Family Album

2011-09-12T12:35:00.001+01:00

Taken from Life: Death in the Family Album

Victorian social history and photography of the dead - a talk by Audrey Linkman offering a fascinating and sensitive exploration of Victorian bereavement photography – a forgotten tradition which commemorated love and loss.

Audrey Linkman helped to found the renowned Documentary Photographic Archive, now housed at Greater Manchester County Record Office. She specialises in 19th century portrait photography and the Victorian family album. Her books include Photography and Death, recently published by Reaktion Books, and The Victorians: Photographic Portraits.

You can reserve these books for free from the library online catalogue.

Reservation is essential for this event as there is limited availability.
Contact Alison Gill for information and bookings on 0161 832 5284.

Thursday 6 October
6-8 pm

City Library
Becker Room, First Floor
Elliot House, 151 Deansgate
Manchester M3 3WD
Booking: 0161 832 5284
or archiveslocalstudies@manchester.gov.uk

Publishers & Authors: Do You Use SoundCloud?

2011-09-10T10:00:00.000+01:00

Many authors and publishers take advantage of YouTube to promote their books. Now GalleyCat show you how publishers and authors are using online audio sites like SoundCloud to promote their books. SoundCloud is a platform where you can upload and share audio clips, from music to audiobook clips to recorded readings. The site has more than six million users sharing recordings every day... read more at GalleyCat.

2011-09-09T15:00:00.001+01:00

You're invited to the Modernist Issue 2 special launch event at 6.00pm on Thursday 15th Sept 2011 at

ferrious

arch 61

Whitworth Street West

Manchester

M1 5WQ

Issue 2 will be available to purchase - hot off the press! Tickets available here...

Come along for a spot of wine and a chance to win ‘la Lune Sous Le Chapeau’ lamp, designed by Man Ray for his own desk in Paris in the 1930s, now re-issued by Cassina and generously provided by ferrious – it could be yours if you bob along on the 15th of September.

Don't forget the new course - Introduction to Contemporary Visual Arts: Modernism will be running from October at Cornerhouse - book your place here.

The Manchester Room @ City Library subscribe to The Modernist .

Random Book Awards – A Longlist

2011-09-09T09:30:00.000+01:00

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011 shortlist was announced on Tuesday 6th September 2011.The shortlisted titles are:

Julian Barnes - The Sense of Ending
Carol Birch - Jamrach’s Menagerie
Esi Edugyan - Half Blood Blues
Stephen Kelman - Pigeon English
A D Miller - Snowdrops
Patrick deWitt - The Sisters Brothers

Reserve books for free at the Manchester Library online catalogue...

In other literary award news, poet and author, Jackie Kay, has been awarded the 2011 Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book of the Year, in partnership with Creative Scotland, for her autobiography Red Dust Road. A fiction heavy Guardian First Book Award longlist has also been announced.

I'm very excited by the Ned Kelly Awards for Australian Crime Writing. The winners were announced last week including The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGreachin (Viking) for best fiction and Prime Cut by Alan Carter (Fremantle Press) for first fiction prize. Want to know more? No worries, just check out the booksellerandpublisher.com.au or The Age.

There are at least 50 literary awards in the UK each year, ranging from the highly specialised – the Boardman Tasker prize for Mountain Literature, whose 2010 winner was Ron Fawcett autobiography Rock Athlete – to the general, such as the Costa awards, which cover five genres, culminating in the book of the year. Some, like the Booker, honour a particular book, while others, such as the David Cohen prize, are designed as tribute to a life's work.

Read more over at The Guardian.

Red Ceilings Press - New Chapbook Release

2011-09-08T12:29:00.004+01:00

the little shed of various lamps by Nikolai Duffy
limited edition chapbook A6, 44pp, 40 copies
available from The Red Ceilings Press

Nikolai Duffy is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has published various essays on experimental writing practices, contemporary poetry, small press publishing, and sculpture. His poems have appeared in Stride Magazine; two sequences are forthcoming in E.ratio and Owt. He lives in Manchester. This is his first book, chap or otherwise.

Double short-listing for ‘The Peeps’

2011-09-08T09:53:00.004+01:00

The Peeps - a fully-illustrated hard-back book that outlines the fortunes of Manchester’s industrial suburb of Ancoats - has been short-listed for two prestigious awards in the space of two months.

In July, the 144-page book was short-listed in the ‘Best of Photographic Books from the World’ at the Photography Festival in Arles, France. In August, meanwhile, the producers of the book (Manchester-based Axis Graphic Design) were notified that The Peeps had also been short-listed in the prestigious Roses Design Awards, organised by creative publication ‘The Drum’ to promote excellence in innovative design.

Bridging two worlds of art and urban regeneration, The Peeps tells the story of Ancoats through the eyes of artist Dan Dubowitz who was appointed artist for the regeneration of Ancoats in 2003. Ancoats was once unimaginably different. One of the world's earliest industrial suburbs, it was dark and dense, noisy, frenetic, violent and unhealthy. It was also vibrant and creative. It had a striking vapour, sound and feel. The area today has undergone a striking regeneration. New streets, pavements and civic spaces have been laid down.

A series of installations, known as The Peeps, have been created for the area. Built into the fabric of the buildings, the brass peep holes offer a fleeting glimpse of a walled-in-space, a tunnel, a disused toilet, a bell tower, a gauge. Dan Dubowitz, records through photographs, interviews, commentary and contemporaneous tests, the recent past and the current regeneration of the suburb. It is a fascinating, beautifully illustrated and designed volume that eloquently depicts the common narrative of industrialisation, slow decay and rebirth.

Reserve a copy of The Peeps from the Manchester Libraries online catalogue. It's free to reserve books and we'll email you when it's ready to collect. You can chose to collect the book from any Manchester Library and return it to any Manchester Library when you've finished! We also have a reference copy of The Peeps in the Manchester Room @ City Library so why not come in and pay us a visit...

Tomorrow: Celebrate the 200th issue of PN Review

2011-09-07T16:23:00.001+01:00

Celebrate the 200th issue of the UK’s leading poetry magazine, PN Review, at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester on Thursday 8th September for wine, discussion and debate.
The evening will include:

Patrick McGuinness, PN Review contributor and Booker-prize longlisted author, lecturing on Donald Davie and the editing of PN Review.

The New Editors’ Forum: a discussion about poetry magazine publishing now and in the future. Chaired by John McAuliffe (Manchester Review) and featuring panel members Rory Waterman (New Walk magazine), Carol Rumens (the Guardian) and James Byrne (The Wolf). Followed by audience questions

Poetry reading by Tara Bergin and Jeffrey Wainwright.

Drinks at 5.30pm for 6pm lecture. Click here for more information about the venue.

PN Review is the outstanding poetry magazine of our time. Founded in 1976 as Poetry Nation by Michael Schmidt and Brian Cox at the University of Manchester, PN Review has appeared six times a year since 1981. The magazine is edited by Michael Schmidt; Donald Davie and C.H. Sisson were previously on the editorial board. Each issue includes an editorial, letters, news & notes, articles, interviews, features, poems, translations, and a substantial book review section. The complete PN Review digital archive was launched in January, a vast online resource spanning four decades of literary writing, accessible at www.pnreview.co.uk.

Important changes to Manchester Library Services

2011-09-01T10:40:00.002+01:00

September sees a number of changes in libraries as a result of budget reductions. Click here to find out more about changes to opening hours from September 5 and the closure of Rack House and Clayton Libraries later this month.

Do you recall pianist John Ogdon in his Manchester years?

2011-09-01T04:00:00.000+01:00

We have received the following request from writer Charles Beauclerk. Can you help?

I’m writing a biography of the pianist John Ogdon (1937-89), to be published by Simon & Schuster in 2012, and was wondering if you would be willing to post the information below in case any readers knew him or his family?

John Andrew Howard Ogdon, 1937-1989

Can anyone recall John Ogdon in his Manchester years (1945-1962)? Born in Mansfield Woodhouse, Notts, it he and his family moved to Prestwich in 1945, when he was offered a scholarship by the Royal Manchester College of Music (at the tender age of eight!). From 1945 to 1955 the Ogdon family lived at 5 Mardale Close, Prestwich, and then from 1956 to 1964 at 77 Bury New Road, Besses o’th’Barn, Whitefield.

His parents were Howard and Dorothy Ogdon. Howard, who was born in 1899, taught English at Stand Grammar School from 1945 to his death in 1962. John Ogdon, who was their youngest son, attended Lady Wiltons Church of England Junior School in Simister, near Heaton Park from 1945 to 1947, and from there went on to Manchester Grammar School (1947-53). He then returned to the Royal Manchester College of Music, as it was called, for a further five years, both as student and teacher. He lived with his parents at 77 Bury New Road until his marriage to Brenda Lucas, a fellow student of the RMCM, in July 1960.
There were five children in all: Philippa (b.1923), Paul (b.1925), Ruth (b.1929), Karl (b.1930), and John (b.1937).

If you have have any information on John Ogdon or any of the Ogdon family during their Prestwich/Manchester years, please could they phone me on 01473 828943 or write to Charles Beauclerk, Benton Lodge, 125 Benton Street, Hadleigh, Suffolk. IP7 5AY, or email: c.beauclerk446@btinternet.com
Even the most trivial details can be of value!

Flash Language Literary Pub Quiz

2011-08-31T01:48:00.000+01:00

Do you know your Austin from your Zola?Bring a team to Barcelona Bar on Thomas St on 7th September from 7:30pm onwards and and take on the Flash Language Literary Pub Quiz.

Manchester's finest live literature performers will leaf through the pages of fiction history and paper-cut your brain until it bleeds words.

Entry is £1 per person and prizes will be amazing. And it goes without saying that there will be a return of the infamous picture quiz!

Barcelona Bar, Thomas Street 7pm
Wednesday 7 September

Check out the Facebook event page for more details.

Western Europe Sees Huge Shift Toward E-books

2011-08-26T02:00:00.000+01:00

Europe has lagged behind the U.S. in widespread adoption of e-books, but a new report suggests that they are finally taking off. The e-book market in Western Europe grew by 400 percent in 2010, a new report finds. By 2015, e-books should make up 15 percent of total book sales in the region. (By contrast, in the U.S., they were already at 6.4 percent in 2010.)
Read more at paidcontent.co.uk

Bad Language at The Castle Hotel

2011-08-24T08:35:00.003+01:00

Bad Language will be running another event of poetry, prose and giggles on Wednesday 31 August with a special guest slot from Max Wallis.

Max Wallis is a poet, performer, editor and model and currently a student at University of Manchester. His poetry book Modern Love is published by Flipped Eye Publishing Limited and is available now here. He is also founder, creator and director of somethingeveryday.co.uk.

If you wish to take part in the open mic section, please e-mail events@badlanguagemcr.co.uk from 6th August onwards to book a 4 minute maximum slot. A few slots each month are saved for newbies so if you've never read before they'd love to hear from you.

Bad Language at The Castle Hotel
Wednesday 31st August 7.30pm
Check out the event page on Facebook for more details.

Dictionary Compilers Create Endangered Words List

2011-08-24T05:30:00.001+01:00

Don't try asking directions to Barton Aerodrome nowadays, especially if you are driving a charabanc!

Aerodrome and charabanc are among the words presumed to have become extinct in the past year, according to lexicographers.

Collins Dictionary experts have compiled a list of words which have fallen out of use by tracking how often they appear.

Read more over at The Guardian.

Hugo Winners 2011

2011-08-24T05:30:00.000+01:00

The winners of the 2011 Hugo Awards were announced over the weekend, celebrating almost sixty years of recognising 'the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements.'

The winners were:

Best Novel (1813 ballots): Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis (Ballantine Spectra)
Best Novella (1467 ballots):The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang (Subterranean)
Best Novelette (1469 ballots):“The Emperor of Mars” by Allen M. Steele (Asimov’s, June 2010)
Best Short Story (1597 ballots):“For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, September 2010)Best Related Work (1220 ballots):Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It, edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O’Shea (Mad Norwegian)
Best Graphic Story (1263 ballots)Girl Genius, Volume 10: Agatha Heterodyne and the Guardian Muse, written by Phil and Kaja Foglio; art by Phil Foglio; colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form (1755 ballots):Inception, written and directed by Christopher Nolan (Warner)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form (1466 ballots):Doctor Who: “The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang,” written by Steven Moffat; directed by Toby Haynes (BBC Wales)
Best Editor, Short Form (983 ballots):Sheila Williams
Best Editor, Long Form (898 ballots):Lou Anders
Best Professional Artist (1304 ballots):Shaun Tan
Best Semiprozine (1112 ballots):Clarkesworld, edited by Neil Clarke, Cheryl Morgan, Sean Wallace; podcast directed by Kate Baker
Best Fanzine (870 ballots):The Drink Tank, edited by Christopher J Garcia and James Bacon
Best Fan Writer (814 ballots):Claire Brialey
Best Fan Artist (993 ballots):Brad W. Foster
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (1138 ballots):Lev Grossman

Full Manchester Literature Festival programme now live!

2011-08-23T15:51:00.001+01:00

Only 6 weeks to go until the sixth Manchester Literature Festival! To get prepared for the big fortnight pick up your very own copy of the official programme from our libraries or visit the Manchester Literature Festival website where the full programme is now live.

This year's festival presents a packed programme including four new literary commissions, an exciting international strand, a host of events focusing on young people and children and an outstanding line-up of celebrated writers, with tickets on sale NOW!

The Festival opens with celebrated novelist and journalist Colm Tóibín, newly appointed as Professor of Creative Writing at The University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing, in conversation with Booker Prize winning author Alan Hollinghurst.

Other highlights include Andrew Motion’s Manchester Sermon, the unveiling of Anthony Horowitz’s Sherlock Holmes mystery, the ever-popular Afternoon Tea at Manchester’s iconic Midland Hotel with broadcaster Sue MacGregor, Antonia Fraser’s talk on Harold Pinter, Claire Tomalin on Charles Dickens in the Gothic Town Hall, and a passionate and ambitious performance of Sacred Hearts in Manchester Cathedral with Sarah Dunant.

The 2011 line-up also includes Tahmima Anam, Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, Jeffrey Eugenides, Antonia Fraser, Michael Frayn, David Lodge, Jonathan Meades, Andrew Motion, Catherine O’Flynn, Francesca Simon, Claire Tomalin and Zhu Wen.

Manchester Literature Festival, sponsored by HSBC Premier, takes place from 10 to 23 October 2011 at venues across the city. Tickets on sale NOW - to find out more and to book visit www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk or call 0843 208 0500.

You can also follow the Festival on Twitter@McrLitFest and if you want to Tweet about MLF, please use the hashtag #McrLitFest. Visit www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk for more information!

Local History Source Guide Updated

2011-08-23T10:19:00.000+01:00

A newly updated information guide to historical archives linked to the LGBT community in the North West is launched this week following the huge success of earlier issues.

The LGBT History Source Guide is an introduction to the extensive archive and printed material held at the Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives and elsewhere relating to the history of Manchester 's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community.

The guide, which was last reprinted in 2009, was launched last night at a packed event at the Lesbian & Gay Foundation on Richmond Street.

Jeff Evans, a researcher at Manchester Metropolitan University , with help from Sylvia Kölling, told the dramatic and salacious story of the police raid on a drag ball in Manchester which caused a national scandal in 1880.

This incredible story was researched by Jeff and Sylvia using original local and national newspapers and court reports held in archives across Manchester and beyond. Many of these primary sources, like this Manchester Guardian newspaper report, were on display at the event.

The guide is being newly-reprinted after demand outstripped supply of the 2009 version. It's also accessible online on issuu.com. The new and updated guide features up to the minute information, including the influential papers of Alan Horsfall - the founder and secretary of the North Western Homosexual Law Reform Committee.

Councillor Paul Fairweather, lead member for gay men, said: "Manchester 's LGBT community has been incredibly influential in the city's social and cultural history and although it is sometimes difficult for people to find historical information about the community, the interest in the subject is undeniable. For people who are looking to research the LGBT's history, the guide is an indispensible source."

If you hold archive or historical material relating to Manchester's LGBT community, or would like to be interviewed to document your own involvement with them, then please do not hesitate to contact us for advice on either 0161 832 5284 or archiveslocalstudies@manchester.gov.uk.

Edwin Morgan Poetry Prize announced

2011-08-23T01:00:00.000+01:00

The winners of the Edwin Morgan Poetry Competition were announced on the 17th August at a prize ceremony at The Edinburgh International Book Festival. The winning poet, Jane McKie, was awarded £5000 for her poem ‘Leper Window, St Mary the Virgin’. Judge Vicki Feaver said: “Each stanza leads the reader further on a sensual and historical journey from a world where leprosy is no longer a scourge to a world where its sufferers went on healing pilgrimages."

McKie triumphed over a five-strong, all-female shortlist chosen by judges Vicki Feaver and Kona Macphee. Runners-up were Gillian Andrews, Sarah Jackson, Jane Yeh and Lydia MacPherson.

Leper Window, St Mary the Virgin by Jane McKie
The contagion of lepers
has lifted.
The low glass, where they crouched
even lower,
remains, but their breath,
their rash, their lack
has passed into the lace
of shadows in the yard.
Where God looked
but did not touch,
the lip of sandstone
is purled with fissures.

Poetry @ City Library - Simon Rennie and Steph Pike

2011-08-22T13:50:00.000+01:00

Steph Pike is a poet who has performed extensively across the Northwest. Her poetry combines politics, passion and lyrical imagery. She has been published in several anthologies and her first collection of poetry, Full of the Deep Bits was published in 2010 by Knives Forks & Spoons Press.

"like a winter morning
like a shallow afternoon
like an evening drowned
the government paying tribute
crouches like a cancer
staring through unbreakable glass"
from War on Terror
Simon Rennie is the founder of the legendary ‘Inn Verse’ Open Mic night. Simon’s well-received first collection, Little Machines, was published by Knives Forks & Spoons Press in 2009 and he is now launching his second, Unless Otherwise Stated. He is currently studying for his PhD at the University of Leeds.

"And here our grass-stained jeans would kneel,
our bark-rough hands would press the stone;
braving the wind we would hear the words
sung aloud for all who feel
or ever felt - you are not alone -
we thought or wished we heard."
from Listening at the Statue to the Fallen

Monday 12 September 6pm
FREE
City Library
Becker Room, First Floor, Elliot House,
151 Deansgate, Manchester M3 3WD

For more information contact Libby Tempest 0161 234 1981/07535 426678 or email Libby on l.tempest@manchester.gov.uk

It's grim down south...

2011-08-18T12:05:00.003+01:00

Todays' guest post is from Calum Kerr, a writer and lecturer. His flash-fiction collection, 31, is still available from www.calumkerr.co.uk, and you can read his daily fictions at flash365.blogpost.com.

It’s Grim Down South
I was born in Lytham St Annes thirty-eight years ago, moved to Manchester to go to University at the age of 19 and then, last month, I moved to Southampton. I didn’t choose to move. No, I moved for love, and we don’t choose who we fall in love with. So, I’m happy to be here, but I didn’t move here for the place, and I miss the north. More specifically, as a writer, I miss Manchester.There are so many clichés out there about how distance makes the heart grow fonder, and you never know what you had until it’s gone. But what has made these phrases into clichés is the truth they hold.

It’s only having left Manchester – and the chance to look back at what I’ve left behind through the lens of Facebook and Twitter – that I can see what a wondrously literary place it is, especially compared to where I am now.Now, I need to pause for a moment, before it seems that I am doing a disservice to Southampton and environs. I have, it is true, only been here for a little over a month, and it may turn out to be just as bustling with writery-types as Manchester. But somehow, I’m just not getting that vibe.

You see, what you don’t realise about Manchester when you live in it is the extraordinarily varied range of things going on all the time. There are open-mic nights and readings pretty much every night of the week, whether it’s Bad Language at the Castle Hotel, Stirred at Sandbar, Write Out Loud in Sale, the many events organised by Manchester Libraries, or Carcanet, or Waterstones on Deansgate, or the Didsbury Arts Festival, or Chorlton Festival, or Manchester Festival (not forgetting Not Part Of...), or just the many, many reading and writing groups scattered around – Commonword, Monday Night Group, South Manchester Writer’s Workshop – and on, and on, and on.

Within each of these occasions and events are the people who run them, who take part in them, who attend them. The people who make the whole machine run. As well as these events they run blogs, websites, magazines, anthologies, competitions, even publishing companies, all with the aim of getting people writing, getting people reading, keep the world of words turning over.

It’s an amazing contraption which ticks along on its own, making Manchester into a literary hub unlike any other.And do you know what the worst thing is for me? The list above is just of those things, places, events that I have taken part in or been aware of. I’m sure the real list is hundreds of items longer with all the things going on of which I never even heard, and now it’s too late!

So now I see it as my mission to bring some of this writing zeal to Southampton. I’m going to try plugging into the networks down here. A great open-mic has recently started up in Winchester – Poetry Platform @ The Railway – and I’ve made contact with Peter Hunter from Apples and Snakes. My next stop will be the libraries who are always wonderfully supportive wherever you go, and then a hunt for the reading and writing groups.

Maybe that’s why fate sent me down here, so that I could bring a little bit of Manchester to the south. Either way, don’t worry, Manchester, even if it’s just to visit, I will be back.

Guest post on the Lit List!

2011-08-11T10:43:00.000+01:00

If you’ve got an article or post idea that you think would be great on the Lit List please contact me (s.lawson[at]manchester.gov.uk) and let me know! I’d really like to see some guest posts here from Manchester and beyond. Possible topics include:

Social media and writers
Mobile technology and libraries
e-Books and e-Readers
Creative writing
Poetry events
Book reviews
Short stories

Also…check out the Categories list on the right for more topics!

JK Rowling's real family tree...

2011-08-10T09:37:00.003+01:00

When BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? airs the second episode of its latest series in Britain on Wednesday, August 17, viewers will see a very emotional J.K. Rowling come to grips with learning a cherished family story was not entirely true -- that the WWI hero she thought was her great-grandfather was actually a case of mistaken identity. Yet her real great-grandfather was a WWI hero as well and the mistake was an honest one that could easily have happened to any of us.

Read more about JK Rowing's real family tree...

Join Melvin Burgess at the Manchester Salon

2011-08-09T10:28:00.000+01:00

Join Melvin Burgess on Tuesday 06 September 2011 as he discusses the researching and writing of 'Kill All Enemies'. Published on 1 September, Melvin's latest novel deals with the real life stories behind some of the statistics we read about young people, the young people who are chucked out of school - the losers, the wasters... the kids no one wants.

Remembering when he was a kid and thinking about those kids - rough as hell, dangerous kids - the sort of people no one wanted you to mix with or have anything to do with, Melvin has searched them out and attempts to tell the real story behind them in a way that young people can properly identify with them.

To research for the book, Melvin went into Pupil Referral Units (PRU's, where excluded students are sent) around the North West, as well as to other places where young people got together out of school, and asked them to tell him their stories. He found out what he always suspected: so many of those people weren't losers, they weren't wasters - they were heroes; real, one hundred per cent modern heroes, just having other priorities than school. 'Kill All Enemies' is a celebration of the lives of young people who have other things to worry about besides just school - and who are penalised for it.

In his approach to writing, Melvin says "Every writer knows that editing, dramatising, and interpreting events is an essential part of storytelling. For me, writing is an exploration. You set up your events and characters and then try to explore them as best you can, via the imagination, and some surprising results come up. Exploring people and their stories imaginatively can lead to more interesting and revealing truths than the bald facts. Imaging how being a different person in a different situation is the best possible way to understand things that we know very little about."

This Salon will be a chance to examine the process of writing gritty, realistic novels and how important the process of being immersed in the subject can be for developing stories. Join the next Salon in the discussion area of Blackwell University Bookshop, The Precinct, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9RN. Please arrive around 6:30pm for drinks and nibbles, ready for a prompt 6:45pm start - expected to finish just after 8:15pm.

Tickets are £5 (£3 concessions) payable in advance, which entitles you to a £3 discount for anything bought from the bookshop on the evening. Purchase tickets in advance, using the PayPal Donate button on the Manchester Salon website (feel free to donate on top of the £5 ticket), in-store or by phone from Blackwell University Bookshop, Manchester 0161 274 3331.

Some background readings

Jodi Picoult and the Anxious Parent, by Ginia Bellafante, NY Times 17 June 2009

Sympathy for the devil, by Melvin Burgess, for the magazine Children's LIterature in Education

What is teenage fiction, by Melvin Burgess, MelvinBurgess.net

Kill All Enemies, book review by Yasmin Redfearn, Kathrine Payne and Hannah Mason, Manchester Salon July 2011

Melvin Burgess interviewed, by Yasmin Redfearn, Kathrine Payne and Hannah Mason, Manchester Salon July 2011

Kill All Enemies promo video inspired by work experience students after reading 'Kill All Enemies', YouTube July 2011

4 book deal for UK self-published author

2011-08-08T14:36:00.000+01:00

Unable to find a publisher for her novel British writer Louise Voss decided to self publish Catch Your Death in the Kindle UK Store. Hoping to attract readers to an unknown author, Voss priced the eBook at the low price of £0.95. The low price helped Voss’s book climb the Amazon charts and the eBook is currently No. 4 in the ‘Suspense’ category of the Kindle UK Store. According to the London Standard the book held the No. 1 position in the Kindle UK Store for the month of June where it sold 50,000 copies.

via Galleycat - read more at ebooknewser

Library Theatre Company announces Autumn 2011/Winter 2012 season

2011-08-08T10:21:00.001+01:00

A world premiere of All The Way Home, a new play by Salford-born writer Ayub Khan-Din; an adaptation by national treasure Alan Bennett of Kenneth Grahame’s much-loved The Wind in the Willows; and a revival of The Daughter-in-Law, a rarely seen masterpiece by DH Lawrence, are the three Autumn 2011/Winter 2012 productions in the Library Theatre Company’s second season at The Lowry.

Ayub Khan-Din’s new play, All The Way Home, set in the city in which the play will be seen for the first time, will be directed by Mark Babych, formerly the Artistic Director of the Bolton Octagon Theatre. A deeply emotional comedy-drama, All The Way Home reunites members of a Salford family undergoing as huge a change as that of their home city.

Set in 2002, the production stars a number of very well-known faces including three Coronation Street regulars in Naomi Radcliffe, Kate Anthony, and Sean Gallagher; and Susan Cookson, who starred in two series of hit BBC2 sit-com Early Doors. Ayub Khan-Din is best known for writing the award-winning play East is East, which was turned into a hugely successful film in 1999; West is West, which enjoyed a run in the cinema earlier this year, and Rafta Rafta, which toured the country in a 2008 National Theatre production.

This year’s Christmas production from the Library Theatre Company will be Alan Bennett’s acclaimed adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s evergreen children’s favourite The Wind in the Willows. The tales of Ratty, Mole, Badger, and Toad have been enchanting us for generations, and this adaptation is sprinkled with Alan Bennett’s trademark flair, wit, and humour. The production runs for 55 performances between Friday 2 December 2011 - Saturday 14 January 2012.

DH Lawrence’s rarely seen The Daughter-in-Law, a gritty drama set at the time of the miners’ strike exactly 100 years ago, also be directed by Chris Honer, completes the Autumn 2011/Winter 2012 Library Theatre Company programme at The Lowry.

With its wonderfully authentic dialogue and deep understanding of relationships, The Daughter-in-Law affirms DH Lawrence, famous for his novels and poetry, as a playwright of the front rank. The Daughter-in-Law runs between Thursday 23 February - Saturday 10 March 2012.

The Library Theatre Company’s annual 10-day re:play Festival, which brings together under one roof the best of theatre seen in Manchester and Salford’s non-theatre spaces over the preceding 12 months, returns for 2012 for the fifth time, at a venue to be confirmed.

The theatre’s Actor’s Toolbox, a workshop programme running for five weeks aimed at actors and members of the profession, will be held in association with Actors’ Centre North. The course, which will cost £145, will focus on the work of northern writers, takes place every Saturday in October at the Zion Arts Centre, Stretford Road, Hulme, Manchester 15. More information is available from Actors’ Centre North on 07818 462981.

As well as producing regularly at The Lowry, the Library Theatre Company will also stage Manchester Lines, its second site-specific piece in the city of Manchester, in summer 2012. Written by Manchester poet and writer Jackie Kay, directed by leading director Wils Wilson and with music composed by Errolyn Wallen, Manchester Lines follows the company’s huge success of its adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Hard Times, which played to packed houses in a converted Victorian mill in June 2011.

The theatre’s outreach programme in schools and with community groups throughout the city continues to thrive. The theatre has recently secured funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation to develop StoryBox, a three-year programme working with people with Alzheimer’s and dementia.

World Duty Free, based at Manchester Airport, sponsor a project with primary schools in Wythenshawe in connection with The Wind in the Willows, as well as sponsoring the theatre’s annual ‘adopt-an-actor’ scheme where schools and community groups ‘adopt’ actors in the theatre’s Christmas production before meeting them after a performance during the run.

The programme also includes a popular monthly play-reading group, a community theatre group based in inner-city Manchester, and the norfox young people’s theatre company - the company’s summer production Tall Tales, Tantrums, and Gordon Brown, takes place at the Capitol Theatre at Manchester Metropolitan University on Friday 12/Saturday 13 August - and a Careers’ and Development programme in association with Cornerhouse. More information is available from the Community and Education Department on 0161 234 1922.

Tickets for All The Way Home, The Wind in the Willows, and The Daughter-in-Law are on sale now at theatre’s website at www.librarytheatre.com, or via Quay Tickets on 0843 208 6010.

The Story of the 1880 Manchester Drag Ball

2011-08-05T09:46:00.000+01:00

Join us for the launch of the updates LGBT History Source Guide. Jeff Evans of Manchester Metropolitan University and Sylvia Kölling of Manchester University will be telling the spectacular and salacious story of the 1880 police raid on a drag ball in Manchester and its aftermath which caused a national scandal.

The story, researched in local and national newspapers and court archives, is one example of many signposted in the revised Manchester’s LGBT History Source Guide. Primary sources will be on display at the event. No booking required - just turn up!

The source guide introduces archive and printed material held across Manchester and beyond relating to the history of Manchester's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community. It is the first port of call for anyone interested in the history of Manchester's LBGT community.

The new 2011 version includes the recent deposit of correspondence and newspaper cuttings by Allan Horsfall, founder of the North Western Homosexual Law Reform Committee in 1964. Find out more and view the source guide online over at the library website

Monday 22 August @ 6pm
Lesbian & Gay Foundation
5 Richmond Street
M1 3HF on Mon 22 Aug at 6pm.

Please feel free to send this invitation to your contacts. If you would like an event poster to print and display please email s.lawson@manchester.gov.uk

New! Manchester Archives LGBT History gallery on Flickr
The photographs below can also be viewed directly on Flickr site where you will find many more sets on Manchester Archives Flickr photostream.

More free music online from Manchester Libraries

2011-08-04T10:06:00.000+01:00

There’s been a huge increase in free music for Manchester library members after the recent acquisition of Music Online.

This web-based music streaming service offers thousands of hours of jazz, world and classical recordings, from Afrobeat to Zydeco and everything in between. And with the Smithsonian Institute’s world famous Folkways collections there too, there’s bound to be something for every discerning listener bored of a diet of pop. It’s a great way to discover new music without parting with any cash.

Manchester Library members can log onto the website, enter their ticket details and play music free on computers or web-enabled phones. Joining the library is free.

Music Online is just one part of what’s on offer from the library website – as well as music streaming, there are free, downloadable eBooks and audio books, news archives, thousands of pages of reference works and encyclopedias, business information, pictures of Manchester and even help for anyone who needs to pass the driving theory test.

Flash fiction writers follow Chorlton success with Didsbury anthology and event

2011-08-02T13:26:00.001+01:00

The writing collective behind the popular Chorlton ArtsFestival 2011 Flash Mob writing competition and literary salon are currently invitingsubmissions of short stories for their latest project, running in conjunctionwith Didsbury Arts Festival.

The five published flash fiction writers and award-winningbloggers behind the idea are Sarah-Clare Conlon, Ian Carrington, Tom Mason, DavidHartley and Benjamin Judge. All five regularly read their works of flashfiction (also called micro fiction or short short stories) at literary eventsand open mic nights in and around Manchester,and have performed as part of Manchester Literature Festival and Oxfam

Bookfest.

Having already organised various successful events including a pop-up literary showcase for Twestival, Chorlton Arts Festival’s first-everflash fiction competition and spoken word night, and a literature quiz for theNot Part Of fringe to Manchester International Festival the groupdecided to propose a new idea for Didsbury Arts Festival 2011. They will be publishing an anthology ofstories on the theme of love and lust, and hosting an evening during thefestival with readings by various contributors and a special performance by Manchester-basedflash fiction writer and novelist David Gaffney (who is also judging the annualDAF short story competition).

Submissions are now open for the FlashTag anthology; theclosing date is Sunday 7 August so you need to act fast! Stories are invitedfrom anyone over the age of 18 on the day of the event, be they publishedauthors or first-time storytellers. Entry is free and stories must not exceed400 words. All entries will be judged anonymously and the successful storieswill appear in an anthology called Quickies: Stories For Adults.

The collection will be launched at a fun-filled literaryevening during Didsbury Arts Festival on Wednesday 28 September at the NorthernLawn Tennis Club on Palatine Road.Full details of how to submit are on the website athttp://flashtagmcr.wordpress.com with updates via Twitter @FlashTagMcr. Thegroup can be contacted via flashtagmcr@gmail.com.

FlashTag organiser and judge Sarah-Clare Conlon says: “Wewanted to follow up our success at Chorlton Arts Festival in May with somethingcompletely new, and it struck us no one in Manchester has done a literary-basedSmut Night. We thought it’d be great to hold it in the suburbs, so we’ll belaunching our anthology of tongue-in-cheek saucy and romantic stories at aspecial evening of readings and fun.”

The third Didsbury Arts Festival runs Saturday 24 Septemberto Saturday 1 October; more details can be found on the website at www.didsburyartsfestival.org.

Short stories saved from Radio 4 axe?

2011-08-02T11:44:00.001+01:00

BBC Radio 4 seems to have performed a partial u-turn on its decision to cut the number of short stories it airs from three to one per week, with a compromise of two weekly broadcasts.

Listeners, authors and celebrities such as Joanna Lumley and Stephen Fry are among 5,500 of those who signed an online petition opposing the move to reduce the number of short stories aired, which was borne out of Radio 4 controller Gwyneth Williams’s desire to extend the programme "The World at One"

Read more at The Bookseller http://bit.ly/rhs1IG

5-4-3-2-1 SF Gateway ready for lift off....

2011-08-01T10:15:00.001+01:00

Wow! The Science Fiction Gateway launches in September and will release thousands of out-of-print titles by classic genre authors as eBooks. The SF Gateway will launch with more than a thousand titles by close to a hundred authors building to 3,000 titles by the end of 2012, and 5,000 or more by 2014.

Gollancz’s Digital Publisher Darren Nash said, “The Masterworks series has been extraordinarily successful in republishing one or two key titles by a wide range of authors, but most of those authors had long careers in which they wrote dozens of novels which had fallen out of print. It seemed to us that eBooks would offer the ideal way to make them available again. This realization was the starting point for the SF Gateway.”

Wherever possible, the SF Gateway will offer the complete backlist of the authors included and will be closely integrated with the recently announced new online edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, which provides an independent and definitive reference source of information on the authors and books included.

The Gateway site will also act as a major community hub and social network for SF readers across the world, allowing them to interact with each other and recommend titles and authors. The site is planned to include forums, blogs, regular promotions, and is envisaged to become the natural home on the net for anyone with an interest in classic SFF.

British Science Fiction Award-winner Alastair Reynolds said: “When I first started reading SF seriously, as a teenager growing up in Wales, one of the first walls I hit was the realisation that many classic and influential works of the field were either out of print or so hard to obtain that they may as well have been. SF is a forward-looking genre but its past has always been as fascinating as its future, and for that reason the SF Gateway is an exciting and groundbreaking venture, which should prove an enormous asset to the field.”

Double Arthur C. Clarke Award-winner Pat Cadigan added: “This is exactly what I've been hoping for now that the digital book is becoming more widespread. I have always said that the eBook will not be the death of the physical book – the eBook will save so many wonderful books from being lost. We have to remember that what we read is the book – what we read it on, whether ink and paper or pixels on a screen, is just the interface. I'm honestly thrilled about this new project and delighted to be on the list.”

The SF Gateway will be officially launched by Gollancz in September. Visit the website for announcements and more author details. You can also talk to the SF Gateway on Twitter and on Facebook.

If you like reading sci-fi and want to meet like minded people and chat about SF you should definately visit the Manchester Sci-Fi Book Club. The monthly meetings take place at Madlab on Edge Street and the group are always looking for new members. The next meeting is Tuesday 16th August 7 – 9 pm to discuss Anvil of Stars by Greg Bear.

You can contact the group via Twitter @mcrsf_madlab using #mcrsf , keep up to date with Manchester Sci-Fi book club posts at Madlab: http://madlab.org.uk/content/tag/mcrsf/ and join the manchester SF group on Google.

Foyle Young Poets closes for entries midnight Sunday

2011-07-29T16:29:00.002+01:00

T-minus 48 hours & counting: Foyle Young Poets closes for entries midnight Sunday 31st July 2011!

The award is a chance for any young poet aged 11-17 to be discovered and accelerate their writing careers. Since it began 14 years ago the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award has kick-started the careers of some of today’s most exciting young poets.

Full details & to enter online: www.foyleyoungpoets.org

10 unconventional bookshops...

2011-07-28T15:17:00.002+01:00

* An illegal speakeasy, a barge, an abandoned factory, a Spanish castle and a barbers all feature in this great post from Flavorwire - 10 Unconventional Bookstores For Your Browsing Pleasure http://bit.ly/qvJkkb.

* Warning: No Manchester content

Man Booker Dozen announced

2011-07-27T12:30:00.004+01:00

The 2011 Man Booker Prize fiction longlist was announced yesterday. The list includes one former Man Booker Prize winner; two previously shortlisted writers and one longlisted author; four first time novelists and three Canadian writers. The titles were chosen by a panel of five judges chaired by author and former Director-General of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington.

Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House)
Sebastian Barry On Canaan's Side (Faber)
Carol Birch Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate Books)
Patrick deWitt The Sisters Brothers (Granta)
Esi Edugyan Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail - Profile)
Yvvette Edwards A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld)
Alan Hollinghurst The Stranger's Child (Picador - Pan Macmillan)
Stephen Kelman Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)
Patrick McGuinness The Last Hundred Days (Seren Books)
A.D. Miller Snowdrops (Atlantic)
Alison Pick Far to Go (Headline Review)
Jane Rogers The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)
D.J. Taylor Derby Day (Chatto & Windus - Random House)

The Kindlegraph

2011-07-27T09:42:00.000+01:00

Kindlegraph lets authors send personalized inscriptions and signatures ("kindlegraphs") directly to the electronic reading devices of their fans. The service is free, and it is powered by Twitter - you authenticate who you are by signing in to Twitter, and once you have done so you can request an autograph. If your chosen author accepts, the autograph will be sent straight to your Kindle. I think it's a sweet idea, but does it work? Has anyone tried it out? Let us know in the comments...

To see it in action, watch the screencast.

kindlegraph.com

2011 CWA Gold Dagger shortlist announced

2011-07-26T09:06:00.000+01:00

The longlist for the 2011 CWA Gold Dagger was announced at the at the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival on Friday, 22 July.

The eight authors in contention for this year's coveted prize are, in alphabetical order:

Tom Franklin Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (Macmillan)

Lucretia Grindle The Villa Triste (Mantle)

Steve Hamilton The Lock Artist (Orion)

Mo Hayder Hanging Hill (Bantam Press)

Michael Koryta The Cypress House (Hodder & Stoughton)

M. J. McGrath White Heat (Mantle)

A.D. Miller Snowdrops(Atlantic Books)

Denise Mina The End of the Wasp Season (Orion)

CWA

Reserve books, ebboks and audibooks for free from the library's online catalogue...

blankpages seeking poetry and fiction editor

2011-07-25T16:10:00.002+01:00

blankpages, Blank Media Collective’s online magazine for emerging artists, is looking for a Poetry Editor and Fiction Editor to join a dedicated team of volunteers.

blankpages magazine, part of Blank Media Collective, champions emerging artists, writers, musicians and performers by showcasing their work in their monthly digital magazine.

Reporting to the Editor and Assistant Editor, you will be seeking out exceptional poetic/ prose fiction talent, and showcasing it in blankpages’ monthly online issue. A creative flare is essential, as is the ability to spot engaging and exciting work.

Think you've got what it takes? Have a look at the job spec for more information...
http://www.blankmediacollective.org/news/comments/opportunity_blankpages_editors

Coders and Poets - Join your forces!

2011-07-25T12:06:00.001+01:00

Coders and poets - join forces for a speculative 1-day workshop, looking to explore how poet/writers and coder/artists can bring their skills together to make new experimental work.

The brief:
"A dynamic piece of writing which changes as you experience it, in response to data/linguistic information in the real world or online"

The day will run as follows:
10am - 12pm: Presenting solutions
Lunch
1pm - 5pm: Developing new work / Play-time

Where: Mad Lab in Manchester, Manchester Digital Laboratory, 36-40 Edge Street Manchester M4 1HN

When: Thursday 28th July – 10am-5pm

This project is led by Nathan Jones and John O'Shea
Partners:
http://www.mercyonline.co.uk/
http://www.re-dock.org

The Guardian first book award submissions 2011 (UK)

2011-07-19T12:27:00.002+01:00

Publishers have submitted 136 titles for the Guardian first book award 2011 . The Guardian is also asking bloggers and booksellers to suggest overlooked or missing debut novelists to the Book Blog and so far 111 comments have been submitted with one contributor suggesting the Guardian 'launching a parallel audience prize for first book where all submissions come from readers rather than publishers'. Makes sense to me! Maybe we need a Manchester award where the city's readers vote for their favourite literary debut? Who would you have included on the Guardian's list?

Take a look at the first Ebook vending machine...

2011-07-18T12:20:00.004+01:00

A new ebook vending machine was on display at the Tokyo Ebook Fair last week. Japan is a country known for selling almost anything in vending machines, so it should come as no surprise to see one for ebooks. For more on this story hop over to the-digital-reader.com (via Teleread).

Don't forget library members can download free ebooks and audiobooks from Manchester Libraries. Just visit manchesterdownload.lib.overdrive.com. New to the service? Get started with a Guided Tour or our Quick-Start Guide.

Not a library member - join online!

Fill in our simple online form and we'll give you a membership number. You can use this to make reservations, write reviews and to access online reference materials straight away. Then just visit any of our libraries, we'll give you a ticket and you can start borrowing.

Forward Poetry Prize shortlist announced

2011-07-14T10:29:00.001+01:00

Britain's Sean O'Brien is among those shortlisted for this year's Forward Prize for Poetry, an award he has won on three previous occasions.

His work November will compete in the best collection category, as will Night by David Harsent - another previous recipient of the £10,000 prize.

Sean, who helped us say farewell to Manchester Central Library at a reading in March 2010, can be seen performing in the Great Hall here.

John Burnside, Geoffrey Hill, Michael Longley and D Nurkse are also cited.

For more information on the shortlist visit the BBC website here

Join us for the launch of Angela Smith's new book

2011-07-12T15:50:00.000+01:00

Those of you active on Manchester's live poetry scene might already know Angela Smith, Puppywolf's latest author signing. Join Angela on Wednesday 20 July for the launch of her new collection of poetry: This is the Me I Would Be if I Dared.

Angela Smith has everything that defines a good poet: range, dexterity and intelligence, and also an impish sense of fun. A favourite on the Manchester live scene, yet producing poetry that reads beautifully on the page, her work inspects love and everyday existence from oblique angles. Angela was born in the Rhondda Valley and wrote her first poem at the age of seven

The event is free entry and takes place at the Becker Room, 1st Floor, City Library, 151 Deansgate, Manchester, M3 3WD (the library that's a stand-in for Central Library while it's being renovated). It begins at 6.30pm and lasts an hour. Angela will be joined by existing Puppywolf author Cathy Bryant, along with Emma Decent and Steph Pike.

Visit the Puppywolf website.

Stop Press! Poet Mihaela Moscaliuc will be joining Michael Waters and Malcolm Carson tonight at City Library

2011-07-11T12:03:00.001+01:00

Shoestring poets Michael Waters and Malcolm Carson (TONIGHT 6.30pm, City Library) will also be joined
by the poet and translator Mihaela Moscaliuc. Mihaela was born in Romania and has recently published Father Dirt (Alice James Books) 2010. She also co-translated Carmelia Leonte's Death Searches for You a Second Time, 2003, and teaches at Monmouth University and on the MFA programmme at Drew University.

How to use social media to get your book to #1 on Amazon

2011-07-08T14:23:00.003+01:00

Novelist John Green has used social media to push his book to number one in the charts on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. John Green’s work-in-progress novel, “The Fault in Our Stars”, reached the top spot on both Amazon’s and B&N’s sales charts last week less than 24 hours after he promoted it through his social networks, and without the help of his publisher, Dutton Children’s Books. Find out how he did it over at the Teleread blog. Follow John Green on Twitter.

Project Gutenberg is 40! Download a free history...

2011-07-08T10:15:00.000+01:00

To commemorate its 40th anniversary this week, Marie Lebert has written a history of Project Gutenberg, from its first document on 4 July 1971 to the posting of its 30,000th book in April 2011 (“The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia”). You can download the PDF at gutenbergnews.org

Have you tried the Project Gutenberg mobile site? It's simple to download books straight onto your netbook, pc, phone, kindle or iPad. If you have a qr code reader on your phone scan the code above and you'll be taken right there!

Polari First Book Prize for queer fiction

2011-07-07T13:57:00.001+01:00

The long list for the Polari First Book Prize for Queer Fiction has been announced:

Julian Corkle Is A Filthy Liar – DJ Connell
Same Again Please - Michael B Jones
London Triptych – Jonathan Kemp
The Bird Keeper – Issy Festing
Love, Hope and High Heels – Clare Campbell
I Don’t Remember You – Stephanie Lennox
Children of the Sun – Max Schaefer
Autofellatio – James Maker
Homo Jihad – Timothy Graves
C'est La Vie – Bruce Hodson

Among this year’s judges is chair and host, Time Out’s Gay and Lesbian Editor Paul Burston; he and his team announced the final long list at the London Literature Festival on July 4th (winners will be announced on September 19).

We've already got about half of the list in stock at the library and you can reserve them for free at the online catalogue - we'll email you when it's ready to collect. Why not 'suggest' we buy the other titles on the list too - using our 'suggest a book' form also on the online catalogue...