Book Week NI Revisited
We’ve just about recovered from a very busy Book Week NI! I hope you were able to get along to some events to celebrate books and reading – there were numerous right across all our Libraries.
Photo: Elly Griffiths and Jillian
For me the highlight was ferrying Elly Griffiths about between the three venues – not to mention getting to interview her in two of those- Holywood and Carrickfergus. There were great audiences and she really is a dream to interview – I didn’t need to work too hard!
Pete also had fun interviewing Jo Spain in Bangor and Antrim – unfortunately our schedules clashed and I wasn’t able to get to either of those – but we did get to interview them all together for the Podcast.
Photo: Jo Spain, Pete, Danielle Thomas and Julie Gilmour
The week was varied – from Wendy Erskine and Garrett Carr talking about their successful debut novels, to a Big Reading Group meet up in Belfast Grand Central Station where we got to meet up with some of our loyal readers. Popular children’s author Piers Torday visited two local schools to talk about his books and the importance of reading – this talk was interactive and streamed to a further dozen or so schools.
Photo: Glenn Patterson and Eamonn Mallie
There was also a scintillating interview with Glenn Patterson by Eamonn Mallie about Glenn’s new true crime book The Northern Bank Job. If you missed that you can watch it again on our Youtube channel Livestreamed Events from Book Week NI 2025
Saturday started off with our first Library Con at The Cube in QUB for families featuring comic and graphic novels as well as an interview with Piers Torday and local SF author RB Kelly discussing the value of fantasy, horror and SF in keeping children reading into the teens and beyond. 
The afternoon saw our final library event in Lisburn City Library with ‘It Would Be a Crime Not To’ Panel with Elly Griffiths, Jo Spain and Steve Cavanagh – such an entertaining and fun event!
Photo: Piers Torday, R B Kelly and Peter Cinnamond Library Con
If you did miss any we do have podcast interviews with most of the authors – check them out here BookCited Podcast Specials Daily Author Conversations for Book Week NI 2025
There were many more events across all our libraries over the week, featuring authors such as Stuart Neville, Brian McGilloway, Bernie McGill, Tony Macaulay, Jamie Guiney, Linda Hagan and James Murphy to mention a few! It really was a great week!
And I can’t sign off without mentioning our podcast episode with Ronan Hession - the author of Leonard and Hungry Paul which you may have seen now showing on BBC1 (and on iPlayer) It is getting great reviews – and of course I would recommend that you get hold of the book itself as well - it is available in all formats from our Catalogue
For those in the know – “You may wish to note the above” Until next time 😊
