No Alibis Bookstore

Book Launch: The Bureau - Eoin McNamee
2025-04-03 18:00 - 19:30 (Europe/London) | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us for an evening with Eoin McNamee to celebrate the launch of his new novel, The Bureau, published by Riverrun (Quercus). Book your free ticket here.
About The Bureau:
Lorraine would say afterwards that she was smitten straight off with Paddy Farrell. You could tell that he was occupying the room in a different way, he found the spaces that fitted him. She was the kind of girl the papers called vivacious, always a bit of dazzle to her.
Could she not see there was death about him? Could he not see there was death about her? Paddy worked the border, a place of road closures, hijackings, sudden death. Everything bootleg and tawdry, nobody is saying that the law is paid off but it is. This is strange terrain, unsolid, ghosted through.
There’s illicit cash coming across the border and Brendan’s backstreet Bureau de Change is the place to launder it. Brendan knows the rogue lawyers, the nerve shot policemen, the alcoholic judges and he doesn’t care about getting caught. For the Bureau crew getting caught is only the start of the game.
Paddy and his associates were a ragged band and honourless and their worth to themselves was measured in thievery and fraud. But Lorraine was not a girl to be treated lightly. She’s cast as a minx, a criminal’s moll but she’s bought a shotgun.
And she’s bought a grave.
It’s a great book…the underlying menace, the threats, the ghostliness, and the border as a character itself. It’s searing, elegaic, haunting, poetic, scary. And sad. – Anna Burns
For over thirty years, Eoin McNamee has been one of the outstanding writers of his generation. The Bureau is his most personal and heartbreaking novel yet, and stands shoulder to shoulder with his finest work. – David Peace

Book Launch: Ali Marie Watkins - The Next One Is for You
2025-03-25 18:00 - 19:00 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us for an evening with Ali Watkins to celebrate the launch of The Next One Is For You as part of Imagine Festival 2025. Book your free ticket here.
About The Next One Is For You:
Join us for this launch of a gripping tale of crime, rebellion and the hazy line between them – the definitive account of America’s hand in the Northern Ireland conflict. From New York Times reporter and Pulitzer finalist Ali Watkins, this true-crime saga is the long-buried story of how a group of Philadelphia gunrunners armed the IRA at the height of the Troubles.
Northern Ireland, 1975. Violence has erupted on the streets of Belfast. After years as a sleepy, guerrilla army, the IRA is clashing with Loyalist gangs and heavily armed British soldiers. But the Troubles have spilled beyond the small island: An ocean away, in the heart of Philadelphia’s Irish enclave, a teenage girl finds a letter in her mailbox. Inside is a bullet, and the message is clear: the next one is for you or your family.
Ali Watkins is a journalist for The New York Times on the London bureau, previously covering crime and law enforcement. She was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in national reporting for coverage of the Senate’s report on the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program.

Book Launch: Paving the Path to Peace by Connal Parr and Stephen Hopkins
2025-03-21 18:00 - 19:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us for an evening in the bookshop to celebrate the launch of Paving the Path to Peace by Connal Parr and Stephen Hopkins. Book your free ticket here.
About Paving the Path to Peace:
In the context of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement in April 2023, elite politicians and paramilitary groups were presented as the drivers for conflict and peace in Northern Ireland. This book shifts the focus to the role played by civil society groups which sought to mobilise for peace and reconciliation in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It begins with an analysis of peace activism in Northern Ireland during the earlier decades of violence and is followed by an in-depth case study of the Peace Train Organisation, which was set up to counter paramilitary attacks on the trainline between Dublin and Belfast. The final part assembles contributions from fifteen key protagonists in civil society organisations, reflecting upon their work and lives.　The authors seek to redress the balance in the historiography and popular perception of this critical period, arguing that civil society groups helped shift the social and political climate surrounding the conflict. The book breaks new ground in the memorialisation of the peace process, highlighting the neglected role of transnational civil society peace activism.

Book Launch: Patrick Holloway - The Language of Remembering
2025-03-12 18:00 - 20:00 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Please join us to celebrate the launch of Patrick Holloway’s debut novel, The Language of Remembering, published by Epoque Press. Patrick will be introduced by local author Wendy Erskine. Book your free ticket here.
About The Language of Remembering:
Returning from Brazil with his wife and daughter, Oisín is looking to rebuild a life in Ireland and reconnect with his mother, Brigid, who has early onset Alzheimer’s. As her condition deteriorates, she starts to speak Irish, the language of her youth, and reflect on her childhood dreams and aspirations.
Mother and son embark on a journey of personal discovery and, as past traumas are exposed, they begin to understand what has shaped them – and who they really are.
The Language of Remembering asks how we connect to the people we love and how we move on from the past to find meaning in the present.
‘Holloway is a rare and immense talent. The Language of Remembering is full of the grit and texture and sweetness of life, the sorrow of loss, the wonderful, terrible mystery of our humanity. The characters feel real, their voices sing from the page and the writing is sublime. I loved every line of this novel, readers are going to love it too – it will soar.’ Donal Ryan
‘You can hear him a little way away but in each direction he is not there. You keep walking and in a clearing he is sitting on a bench waiting for you. You walk to him but never seem to get any closer. His arms reach out for you. He looks up and you follow his gaze and the sky, greyed by clouds, is full of little finches, golden and maple and autumn-leaved, and they fly so beautifully and freely.’
‘In a profoundly moving tale, Holloway brings us close to real, earthy, honest, human beings whose experience comes from several languages and who live through the day-to-day minutiae of both past and present. The prose is exquisite, energetic and exciting. One of the most beautiful books you will read this year.’ Mary O’Donnell
About the author:
Patrick Holloway is an Irish writer of fiction and poetry and is an editor of the literary journal, The Four Faced Liar. He is the winner of the Bath Short Story Award, The Molly Keane Creative Writing Prize, The Flash 500 Prize, the Allingham Fiction contest and he was the recipient of the Paul McVeigh Residency in 2023. His work appears in The Stinging Fly, The London Magazine, Poetry Ireland, The Moth, Southword, The Ilanot Review, Carve, The Irish Times and The Irish Independent. The Language of Remembering is Patrick’s debut novel.

Judith McQuoid Book Launch
2025-03-11 18:00 - 19:00 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us at No Alibis Bookstore for an evening celebrating the launch of Judith McQuoid’s new children’s novel ‘Giant’
Thrilling historical fiction on the childhood of beloved author CS Lewis.
Davy, a working-class boy living in East Belfast in 1908, is sent to work at the wealthy Lewis household. When he meets Jacks – the name by which CS Lewis was known to friends and family – Davy is captivated by his friend’s world of books and stories.Together the boys plunge into imagining and adventuring, and Davy discovers his own artistic talent. But when Davy is offered a job at the shipyard, and Jacks’s mother falls gravely ill, their wondrous days of make-believe seem numbered. Will they lose their extraordinary shared world forever?
Order the book here
This event is free and tickets are available here
See you then!

Charles Lang - The Oasis - Book Launch
2025-03-06 18:00 - 19:00 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
The Oasis
Charles Lang
‘This debut collection announces Charles Lang as one of the best new poets in Scotland.’ — Alan Gillis
A POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATION

BOOK YOUR FREE PLACE HERE
Pulsing with the energy of urban life, these poems traverse the gritty, playful and tender moments that shape our lives. From the thrill of evading the police in ‘The Chase’ to the nostalgia of ‘New Shoes’ and the sheer abandon of ‘The Amusements’, we are pulled deep into a world where chaos and community intersect.
With a clarion and uncompromising voice, Charles Lang maps a labyrinth of memories, blending sharp wit with darker undercurrents as he explores identity, masculinity, class and ecology. Whether reflecting on family, friendships or fleeting moments of euphoria, Lang offers an authentic snapshot of working-class lives, where beauty is found in both the mundane and the extraordinary; in the human and the more-than-human.
A sonorous celebration of language and place, The Oasis is a vivid ode to the city’s streets and stories, a testament to resilience and belonging.
Praise for The Oasis
You’re stopped by the voice in these poems. Lang’s Glaswegian idiom is easefully natural, versatile, and a thrilling pleasure to read. But more than that, the deftness of his verse – in its formal dynamism, psychological subtlety, and tonal range – is hugely accomplished. Sharpness of detail, working class experience, and rootedness in the local, in these poems, deliver a generous, nuanced, conceptually ambitious and emotionally powerful effect. This debut collection announces Charles Lang as one of the best new poets in Scotland. — Alan Gillis
With a calm eye and a companionable level-headedness, Lang talks to his reader in his natural accent and tone, taking us wryly through the amusements of ‘The Amusements’, the schemes hatched on the schemes, and on into the complications of university and young adulthood. There is a lovely direct clarity and refreshing openness to his work. — Nick Laird
The Oasis is a breathtaking debut—boldly crafted with raw honesty and a captivating quest for beauty in every corner. It challenges in its ways of surveying, which are both kind and enthralling. This collection is a remarkable achievement in connecting our inner and outer lives. Formally brilliant and perfectly paced, it feels like an exercise in refining our ways of being. — Supriya Kaur Dhaliwal
These poems opened like windows to the streets of my own childhood. The music in the language is succinct and vibrant. The urban experience is brought to life in this collection. A rare perspective indeed. — William Letford

Charles Lang

After the Party by Sharon Dempsey - Book Launch
2025-03-05 18:00 - 19:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
After the Party by Sharon Dempsey is a story of a young woman named Georgia, her battle for ‎justice and the lengths some mothers will go to protect their sons. When Georgia is raped by three ‎boys from influential families after a house party, she decides to speak out… only to face cruel ‎accusations and backlash in response. As she fights to reclaim her truth, the boys’ mothers use ‎every resource to shield their sons from accountability. Georgia’s attempts to take revenge from ‎these boys and their families seemingly end in failure. Torn between rage and resilience, Georgia’s ‎struggle for justice becomes a test of her strength against a web of influence, deceit and denial. A ‎powerful exploration of trauma, revenge and the dark side of maternal love.‎
RESERVE YOUR FREE SPACE HERE

Book Launch: But & Though - Jake Hawkey
2025-02-27 18:00 - 19:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us to celebrate the launch of Jake Hawkey’s debut collection, But & Though, published by Picador. Book your free ticket here.
About But & Though:
In But & Though, Jake Hawkey scrutinizes the impact of parental addiction on families, its title a nod to the language of dependency, its circles of prevarication and excuse. Hawkey’s poems chart the loss of a father and the resilient love between siblings, and take an unflinching look at a parent–child relationship sometimes painfully inverted through alcoholism. Hawkey’s fresh perspective and playful style introduces a vital, authentic new voice in British poetry.
It will appeal also to those interested in the wider literature of addiction and the complexities of urban working-class life in Britain. Hawkey approaches these subjects from highly original and personal angles, breathing life into his characters and settings. Ultimately, we come to know a young writer attempting to ‘detach with love’ as he strides forward into his own life.

An Evening with Pádraig Ó Tuama
2025-02-10 18:00 - 19:00 | Crescent Arts Centre, 2-4 University Rd Belfast BT7 1NH, United Kingdom
No Alibis Bookstore is delighted to announce an evening at the Crescent Arts Centre celebrating Pádraig Ó Tuama’s latest collection of poetry ’44 Poems on Being with Each Other and Kitchen Hymns a new collection of form and hymnody that arise neither from belief nor devotion.
Pádraig will be in conversation with award winning poet Gail McConnell for what is sure to be a memorable event. Tickets are free but booking early is recommended to avoid disappointment.
Tickets are available here.

44 Poems on Being with Each Other features a remarkable and refreshing range of exceptional poems from around the world including contributions from Wendy Cope, Constantine P. Cavafy, Chen Chen, Joy Harjo, Patricia Smith and many more. It is an anthology that will delight readers just as Pádraig’s podcast has done for millions around the world.

The Boy from the Sea, by Garrett Carr - Book Launch
2025-02-06 18:00 - 20:00 | Seamus Heaney Centre, 38-40 University Road, Belfast, BT7 1NN, United Kingdom
BOOK YOUR PLACE HERE
1973. In a close-knit community on Ireland’s west coast, a baby is found abandoned on the beach. Named Brendan by Ambrose Bonnar, the fisherman who adopts him, the baby captivates the town and the boy he grows to be will captivate them still – no one can quite fathom Brendan Bonnar.
For Christine, Ambrose’s wife, Brendan brings both love and worry. For Declan, their son, his new brother’s arrival is the start of a life-long rivalry. And though Ambrose brings Brendan into his home out of love, it is a decision that will fracture his family and force this man – more comfortable at sea than on land – to try to understand himself and those he cares for.
Told over two decades, Garrett Carr’s The Boy from the Sea is a novel about a restless boy trying to find his place in the world and a family fighting to hold itself together. It is a story of ordinary lives made extraordinary, a drama about a community who can’t help but look to the boy from the sea for answers as they face the storm of a rapidly changing world.
Compulsive reading. Compassionate, lyrical and full of devilment. – Louise Kennedy
A novel of heart-bumping power and sparkling vividness, this book evokes the seethe and surge of an island nation’s sea fables while being suspicious of sentiment, often wittily so. This is a strange, beautiful, truly compelling triumph, a story about a very specific place that somehow comes to seem an everywhere and a people who feel familiar as faces in mirrors. A breathtaking achievement. – Joseph O’Connor
The Boy from the Sea is an utterly engrossing read. Atmospheric and incredibly moving, I was captivated by the trials and triumphs of the Bonnars. A bittersweet ballad of a novel, I’ll be thinking about for a very long time. – Jan Carson
Garrett Carr teaches Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast, and he is a frequent contributor to The Guardian and The Irish Times. His non-fiction The Rule of the Land: Walking Ireland’s Border was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. The Boy from the Sea is his debut novel.

Book Launch - A Dream of White Horses by Paul Scraton
2025-01-30 18:00 - 20:00 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us for an evening with Paul Scraton to celebrate the launch of his new novel, A Dream of White Horses, published by Bluemoose Books. Paul will be in conversation with author Marcel Krueger (author of Babushka’s Journey and Iceland). Book your free ticket here.
About A Dream of White Horses:
Ben travels through the night from London to a Baltic island. On the journey he listens to voice messages his friend Pascal has made to accompany photographs he began taking at fourteen of every room he ever slept in. The messages tell the story of a family, of migration, exile and the search for home in a fractured world.

Oliver Jeffers - Where to Hide a Star - Book Signing
2024-12-14 11:00 - 12:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join Us for a Book Signing with Oliver Jeffers
Saturday 14th December 11am – 12.30pm

Reserve your FREE space here
Celebrate twenty years of The Boy in this highly anticipated new adventure from the internationally bestselling picture book creator of Lost and Found, Oliver Jeffers!
Once there was a boy who would often play hide-and-seek with his friends the star and the penguin. The star was always easy to find, but one day it went missing. So, the boy radioed the Martian for help and soon found himself on an exciting spaceship rescue mission to the North Pole! But there, he discovered that he wasn’t the only one who had always dreamed of having a star as a friend… The out-of-this-world, long-awaited sequel to the much-loved Boy stories, loved all around the world – now introducing a brand-new character!

Photo Credit – Yasmina Cowan

2025 Neil Shawcross Calendar Launch
2024-11-30 15:00 - 16:00 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
It’s that time of year folks! Our annual Shawcross-No Alibis calendar will be with us soon! The lovely calendar features images by local artist Neil Shawcross.
Neil will be in No Alibis Bookstore on Saturday 30th at 3pm to sign.
Calendars can be collected in store, but if you can’t make it please contact the shop via email (david@chaptersbookstore.live) to arrange shipping.
Calendars priced at £15

LAUNCH EVENT: Rebel Women by Margaret Ward
2024-11-28 18:00 - 19:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us to celebrate the launch of Margaret Ward’s new book, REBEL WOMEN: Cumann na mBan in Belfast and the Glens of Antrim, 1914–1924, published by Beyond The Pale Books.
About REBEL WOMEN:
The early years of the twentieth century saw nationalists in County Antrim fighting for their survival during a war intended to achieve the complete separation of Ireland from Britain. Belfast, with its large Presbyterian population, became the centre of Ulster unionist resistance and republican defiance. Here, Cumann na mBan was organised in Belfast Central Branch and Craobh Iarthar – the West Belfast Branch.
The small nationalist population in the isolated communities of the Glens of Antrim, where some of the last native speakers of the Irish language lived, also took up arms, despite being vastly outnumbered. There were Cumann na mBan branches in Ballycastle, Cushendall, Dunloy, Glenravel, Loughguile, and Glenariffe.
Sectarian violence, pogrom, partition and defeat was the eventual outcome. Throughout, republican women played an essential role. From the earliest years of Cumann na mBan to the War of Independence, the Treaty and the ‘Northern Offensive’, they were significant figures in the republican movement. Not only did they organise arms dumps, shelter men on the run, hide money and documents, provide weaponry for operations, care for the wounded and organise effective communication systems, they also paid the price in terms of raids and imprisonment.
Their story has never before been told. Using new archival sources and information from some of the relatives of these forgotten activists, renowned feminist historian Dr Margaret Ward gives us a compelling account of the courageous contributions of over fifty women who were members of Cumann na mBan, or who were attached to the IRA.

Angela Graham Poetry Launch
2024-11-14 18:00 - 19:00 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us in No Alibis for an evening celebrating the publication of Angela Graham’s latest collection ‘Star- poems for the Christmas season’. Get your free ticket here
‘It takes a real poet to make those of us jaded by Christmas re-imagine the season. Angela Graham performs the feat of translating the festival into an urgent challenge, fraught with our contemporary problems and yet full of joy. This book, with its lovely illustrations, will be used for a very long time.’ – Gwyneth Lewis, inaugural National Poet of Wales

Night & Day by John Connolly - Book Signing
2024-11-02 13:00 - 14:00 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us for a Book Signing in No Alibis Bookstore
with
John Connolly

Following the highly acclaimed Nocturnes and Night Music, Night & Day is filled with eerie surprises and dark delights. Night & Day takes us from the dusty shelves of an uncanny library filled with fictional characters to a bunker deep beneath the earth where scientists seek revenge on old Nazis, from an English marsh haunted by a mother and her son to a country house where a grieving widower finds comfort in a most unlikely source. Concluding with the author’s account of how an obscure horror film brought him closer to his lost father, and how nostalgia can help through our hardest times, this is a collection that will move, entertain, and keep you reading late into the night.
This is a FREE event. Get your Free Ticket Here

Susan Cahill Book Launch
2024-10-30 18:00 - 19:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us in No Alibis Bookstore to celebrate the Launch of Susan Cahills’s book ‘The World Between the Rain’. This launch event is free to attend but reserve tickets to avoid missing out!
Get your tickets via TicketSource here!
It’s the week before Halloween and Marina is about to turn thirteen. Her father died a year ago. Her mother has strangely fallen asleep and no-one can wake her.
She is sent to live with her mysterious grandmother who tells her that that you can enter a strange world between the ever falling rain in the west of Ireland. Marina enters a haunting watery world full of strange creatures, demons, gods and dream makers. Meanwhile, in our world a strange sleeping sickness has taken over.
Will Marina be back in time? Can she survive?

Let's Dance by Lucy Sweeney Byrne: Belfast Launch
2024-10-17 18:00 - 19:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us for an evening to celebrate the launch of Lucy Sweeney-Byrne’s second collection of short stories, Let’s Dance, published by Banshee Press. Lucy will be introduced by local author, Alexander Poots.
Book your free ticket HERE.
This collection of dark, hilarious and provocative short stories explores women on the brink – of love, of joy, of disaster – with Lucy Sweeney Byrne’s signature wit, insight and daring.
I’ve seen how the clouds look when viewed from above, stretched pink and gold-tinged for miles and miles and miles. I’ve seen a single cumulus cloud against a blue sky from my seat outside a café below, thrumming still in upness. I’ve seen the making of The Matrix bonus feature on the DVD, Keanu Reeves being lifted in his harness, Harvey Weinstein smiling and slapping backs on his way to somewhere else. I’ve seen dirty clothes pile up in a laundry basket, and hairs in the drain. I’ve seen smoke rise from the bonnet of my car.
A newlywed grapples with the chasm that has opened up between her and her husband on the subject of children. A young mother tries to eke out a life for her family on an island named for a dead man, unaware of the psychic toll that is taken on her by the land and sea. And a woman at a drug-fuelled house party ruminates on the dark past she shares with one of the guests. Utilising forms ranging from flash fiction to novella, Let’s Dance is a glittering display of fiction’s ability to probe, startle and entertain.
Lucy Sweeney Byrne is the author of the short story collection Paris Syndrome (2019, Banshee Press), met with critical acclaim and shortlisted for numerous awards, including the Edge Hill Prize, the Kate O’Brien Award, the Butler Literary Award, and the John McGahern Prize. Lucy’s short fiction, essays and poetry have appeared in The Dublin Review, The Stinging Fly, Southword, AGNI, Litro, Grist, 3:AM magazine, and other literary outlets. She also writes book reviews for The Irish Times.

George Hamilton Book Launch
2024-10-16 18:30 - 19:30 | Crescent Arts Centre, 2-4 University Rd Belfast BT7 1NH, United Kingdom
No Alibis is delighted to host an evening celebrating the launch of George Hamilton’s latest book ‘The Hamilton Notes’ with special guest speaker Connor Phillips. Join us in the Crescent Arts Centre for what is sure to be a fantastic evening. This event is free of charge but be sure to reserve a ticket to avoid disappointment. Tickets available here: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/no-alibis-bookstore-ltd/t-eaydaea
The incomparable George Hamilton returns with a superb offering of travails and anecdotes spanning his five decades on our airwaves and on our screens, always at the heart of Irish culture.
Picking up where his first offering, The Nation Holds Its Breath, left off, George continues to illuminate the path that took him from the Cregagh Road in Belfast to the most extraordinary locations across the world. Whether going behind the scenes of his beloved Lyric FM show or reliving the dramatic events of the 100-metre final at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the reader will be captivated once more by George’s storytelling as he expertly weaves tales and paints the most evocative pictures.
Sport, music and travel are intertwined throughout – George’s love for all three evident on every page. His writing style is consistently surprising; the reader is never quite certain where George is taking them but few will be able to resist being caught up in the stories and going along for the ride.

The Forest Yet to Come by Sam Thompson
2024-10-10 18:00 - 19:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us for a very special event to launch the third and final instalment of the Wolfstongue series by Sam Thompson.
Reserve your FREE space here.
‘Once you start, you can’t turn back. Deep in the Forest is a cave, and in the cave is a chamber, and in the chamber are the dreams. They could yet come true.’
Faolan and Sally have no memory of their lives before they arrived at the Land ten years ago. In this self-sufficient community, good fortune comes from mysterious beings known as the shapes, and no one is to venture into the Forest; a dangerous place full of fearsome wolves. When a strange gentleman named Reynard emerges from the Forest, he quickly befriends Faolan and Sally.
But the community are both suspicious and enthralled by his storytelling. In the wake of a terrible attack, the shapes seem to abandon their people. Faolan flees into the Forest seeking the wolves that have always fascinated him, and Reynard and Sally are banished.
Their pursuit of Faolan leads them to uncover many mysteries. As they are drawn further in, the community they once knew begins to fracture. There is no keeping the Forest out any longer, and nothing will ever be the same again.
Book your free ticket at the Ticketsource event link below.

How Banksy Saved Art History by Kelly Grovier - Book Launch
2024-10-03 18:00 - 19:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join Us For A Book Launch with Kelly Grovier
Book your Free space HERE

A new take on the history of art – from da Vinci to Warhol – as reinterpreted and ultimately reinforced by the international phenomenon that is Banksy. Few would dispute that Banksy is the most famous urban artist in the world today. That he is also one of the most perceptive art historians of our age might come as a surprise to many. But the myriad memorable works he has created over the past thirty years constitute an audacious commentary on the history of image-making – a captivating critique waiting to be pieced together. Armed with little more than stencils, spray paint and an anonymizing cloak of after-hours darkness, Banksy has forged an alluring identity for himself as an incorrigible prankster who doesn’t embrace tradition but shreds it. What actually illuminates Banksy’s audacious murals, impromptu urban sculptures and vandalized paintings, however, is a profound understanding of the story of art. Banksy recasts masterpieces as powerful comments on contemporary issues: climate change, consumerism and the struggle for peace, and reveals these works to be surprisingly elastic, resilient and relevant. In this fully illustrated and entertaining exploration, bestselling author Kelly Grovier traces art history through Banksy’s lens, presenting many of his most recognizable works: from his droll lampooning of the Lascaux cave paintings to his reinvention of Monet’s enchanting water-lily pond, a reboot of Géricault’s tragic gut-wrenching vision to Vermeer’s girl now instilled with street cred, everyone’s genius is grist for his unmerciful mill. Far from being diminished in their significance, however, the works that Banksy ruthlessly parodies are ultimately refurbished by the ordeal. Banksy’s iconoclastic works force us to rethink our affection for, and appreciation of, great works of art that define cultural history.
Kelly Grovier is a columnist and feature writer for BBC Culture, and his writings on art have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, the Independent, The Sunday Times, the Observer, RA Magazine and Wired.

Kelly Grovier is the author of several books, including A New Way of Seeing: The History of Art in 57 Works (2018), On the Line: Conversations with Sean Scully (2021) and The Art of Colour (2023), all published by Thames & Hudson. He is co-founder of the scholarly journal European Romantic Review.

Juliana Adelman Book Event
2024-10-02 18:00 - 19:00 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
No Alibis Bookstore is delighted to welcome Juliana Adelman for an evening to celebrate her novel ‘The Grateful Water’ (New Island Books, 2024), in conversation with historian Elaine Farrell (Bad Bridget, Penguin 2023).
Free tickets for this event are available here: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/no-alibis-bookstore-ltd/t-xmopgam
See you there!

When a young butcher spots a strange shape on the banks of the River Liffey in the hot summer of 1866, the city of Dublin is gripped by a grimy case of infanticide. Detective Martin Peakin, an amateur entomologist and full of regret for his failed engagement, sets off in search of the murderer, eager to impress his superiors. But, as Peakin draws closer, he begins to realise that not all is as it seems.
Everyone related to the case is hiding something, while his own secrets threaten to bubble to the surface. The river binds these Dubliners together, but who will it divide in the end? And will Peakin actually solve this most shocking, ordinary and desperate of crimes?The Grateful Water – sticky with blood and secrets and guilt – will suck you in until the last page.

Kieran Connell & Maurice J. Casey Book Launches
2024-09-26 17:30 - 18:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
No Alibis Bookstore is delighted to be hosting an evening with Kieran Connell and Maurice J. Casey to celebrate the launch of their new books. Tickets for this event are free and are available here: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/no-alibis-bookstore-ltd/t-rpyepjd
See you there!
Multicultural Britain : A People’s History, Kieran Connell
Between the end of the Second World War and the early twenty-first century, Britain became multicultural. This vivid book tells that remarkable story. Kieran Connell, an historian of Irish and German heritage who grew up in Balsall Heath, inner-city Birmingham, takes readers into multicultural communities across Britain at key moments in their development.

Hotel Lux : An Intimate History of Communism’s Forgotten Radicals, Maurice J. Casey
Hotel Lux follows Irish radical May O’Callaghan and her friends, three revolutionary families brought together by their vision for a communist future and their time spent in the Comintern’s Moscow living quarters, the Hotel Lux. Historian Maurice Casey reveals the connections and disconnections of a group of forgotten communist activists whose lives collided in 1920s Moscow: a brilliant Irish translator, a maverick author, the rebel daughters of an East London Jewish family, and a family of determined German anti-fascists.

Ghosts of a Family by Edward Burke - Book Launch
2024-09-19 18:30 - 20:00 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Ghosts of a Family : Ireland’s Most Infamous Unsolved Murder, the Outbreak of the Civil War and the Origins of the Modern Troubles
By Edward Burke

Please RSVP to
info@merrionpress.ie
At 1.20 a.m. on 24 March 1922, five men, four dressed in British police uniforms, broke into the North Belfast house of Owen McMahon, a well-known Catholic publican. They fatally shot McMahon, four of his sons and Eddie McKinney, an employee of the family. Nobody was ever charged for these ruthless and cold-blooded murders.
In retaliation for these and other Belfast murders, the IRA assassinated the former head of the British Army, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, and a subsequent British ultimatum to the Irish government sparked the first salvos of the Irish Civil War days later. The reluctance of the unionist Belfast government to pursue loyalist killers drove the rift between Northern Ireland’s two main communities even deeper, laying the foundations for the Troubles at the end of the twentieth century.
Over 100 years later, Edward Burke has expertly uncovered the identity of the McMahons’ likely murderer. This is a riveting cold-case investigation that invokes the smoke-filled streets of Belfast during the cataclysmic violence of 1920–22, and explores how the ramifications of the McMahon killings are still being felt to this day.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr Edward Burke is a historian at University College Dublin, specialising in the study of political violence, insurgencies and paramilitarism. His previous books are An Army of Tribes: British Army Cohesion, Deviancy and Murder in Northern Ireland (Liverpool, 2018) and Ulster’s Lost Counties: Loyalism and Paramilitarism since 1920 (Cambridge, 2024).

Dr Ian Miller A History Of Ireland in Ten Body Parts - Book Launch
2024-09-05 18:00 - 19:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us for an Evening with Dr Ian Miller to celebrate the launch of
“A History of Ireland in Ten Body Parts”
Ian will be introduced by Dr Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire.
Skulls, heads, hands, height, legs, sex organs, blood, brains, stomachs, ears and corpses – discover Irish history through the prism of the body. From the brutal beheading of the 25-year-old, red-headed Clonycavan Man some 2,000 years ago, and the rich vein of information that has been preserved in his ‘bog body’, to the ancient skulls stolen from islands off Ireland’s west coast believed to be those of giants – here medical historian Dr Ian Miller brings readers on a uniquely entertaining journey through Irish history.
Encounter the famous scribes, including St Patrick, who preserved our knowledge of ancient Ireland by hand. Discover the fears of excessive tea drinking that were once such a great cause for concern on this isle. Meet the doctors who revolutionised Irish medicine in the 19th century – along with the gruesome bodysnatching that accompanied it. Here, fact and folklore intertwine to take you on a fascinating journey through Irish history as you’ve never experienced it before.

Dr Ian Miller is Lecturer in Medical History at Ulster University, Northern Ireland. Ian is author of six medical history books on topics including the force-feeding of hunger strikers and how the Irish diet changed after the Irish Famine. His work has featured in several BBC and RTÉ radio shows, and on Disney Plus.
Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire is an Irish lecturer and professional chef. He was awarded Ireland’s first PhD on food history, in October 2009.
This is a FREE event.
Reserve your place here

Carlo Gébler Book Launch
2024-08-29 18:00 - 19:00 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
No Alibis is delighted to celebrate the launch of Carlo Gébler’s latest work ‘A Cold Eye’. Join us for what is sure to be a fantastic evening. Tickets for this event are free but advance booking is recommended to avoid disappointment! Tickets available here https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/no-alibis-bookstore-ltd/t-avmrjjr
If the past is another country – what happens when we revisit it, one day a year?
Carlo Gébler has done just that. Here is the story of Ireland – from the tail end of the Troubles to the Good Friday agreement, to the glory days of the Celtic Tiger to the recession to Brexit and on to the present, where, it appears, everything we thought we could take for granted is no longer a given.
Drawing from journals he has kept for over four decades, Gébler stitches together days of his life into something bigger than his own lived experiences – a vivid patchwork history of the island over thirty-five years, capturing those sweeping changes in sharp, funny, slantwise pieces that will prompt readers to reflect on the strange process of how we got here.
This intelligent and affectionate compilation, written in Gébler’s sparkling prose, is a joy. Whether read from beginning to end or dipped into, it will appeal to anyone with even a passing interest in the astonishing evolution of our island.

Paddy Hillyard Book Launch
2024-08-28 18:00 - 19:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us in No Alibis Bookstore to celebrate the Launch of Paddy Hillyard’s book ‘Decades of Deceit’. This fabulous event is free but book tickets to avoid disappointment!
Free Tickets available here
The book is available to purchase here: https://chaptersbookstore.live/product/decades-of-deceit/
This book is a forensic account of the Stalker inquiry into RUC shoot-to-kill operations in 1982. It attacks the official narrative that there was no conspiracy to remove Stalker and details the efforts by his own police force to invent disciplinary charges. MI5’s secret security strategy in N Ireland is central and remains so to this day

Poetry Ireland Review 143 Belfast Launch
2024-08-27 18:00 - 19:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us for readings and the Belfast launch of Poetry Ireland Review Issue 143, edited by Mícheál McCann. This event will be hosted by Mícheál and will feature readings from contributors local to the bookshop: Stephen Sexton, Emma Must, Brian Kerr, Paul Maddern and Trish Bennett.
Reserve your FREE space here.
More about this issue of Poetry Ireland:
Poetry Ireland Review Issue 143, edited by Mícheál McCann, is now available to purchase. The issue features new poems from Stephen Sexton, Vona Groarke, Emily Cooper, and Paul Muldoon, as well as work from emerging poets Isabel Dwyer and Rafael Mendes, among many others. Irish-language editor Aifric Mac Aodha’s selection includes poetry from Mícheál Ó hUanacháin and Orlaith Ní Icí.
Special additions to the issue include a set of poems from Pulitzer Prize finalist Mary Ruefle and the poetry of the late Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, translated into Irish by Colm Ó Ceallacháin. It also features a collaborative essay remembering poet and teacher Gerald Dawe.
In this summer issue, there are a total of 18 books reviewed which speak on internationalism, surrealism, and disability, including collections from Elaine Feeney, Ciarán O’Rourke, and Susan Rich, as well as debut collections from Trudie Gorman and Milena Williamson.
Other prose in this issue includes Ellen Orchard’s essay on how a poem can bear witness along with Laoighseach Ní Choistealbha’s essay discussing writing poetry in the Irish language today.
The artwork in issue 143, which weaves together the personal and the collective, is from photographer and visual artist Eslam Abd El Salam, based in Belfast.
Presented in partnership with Poetry Ireland.
Poetry Ireland is funded by The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon & the National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Stuart Neville Book Launch
2024-08-15 18:00 - 19:00 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us in No Alibis to launch Stuart Neville’s latest novel ‘Blood Like Mine’. This is a free event but booking tickets ahead is advised to avoid disappointment!
Tickets are available here: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/no-alibis-bookstore-ltd
Rebecca Carter and her daughter Monica, nicknamed Moonflower, travel the American West, always on the move, always hiding, always looking behind them, always keeping Moonflower out of sight. They speak to no one, only interacting with people when it’s absolutely necessary. But wherever they go, bodies are left behind.Special Agent Marc Donner of the FBI has been tracking a killer for the best part of two years. A murderer that strikes once every few weeks. The victims are all men, many disappearing only to be found months later, dumped in forests or rivers or quarries, far from their places of death.
“Stuart Neville at his considerable best. A shocking and powerful thriller that is as moving as it is gripping. This is a book you will not forget in a hurry and which will leave you hungry for the next instalment” – MARK BILLINGHAM
Pre-order a signed first edition (special Indie edition!) copy using the link below
https://chaptersbookstore.live/product/pre-order-blood-like-mine-stuart-neville-pub-15-aug-2024/

STEVE CAVANAGH - WITNESS 8 - BOOK SIGNING
2024-07-27 10:30 - 11:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us for a Book Signing with Steve Cavanagh in No Alibis Bookstore on

Saturday 27th July at 10.30am

BOOK YOUR FREE TICKET HERE

The very definition of a page-turner!’
IAN RANKIN
Steve Cavanagh’s twists hit you between the eyes. You never see them coming’
ANTHONY HOROWITZ
This guy is the real deal. Trust me!
LEE CHILD
Steve Cavanagh writes the best hooks in the business.
MICK HERRON

About Witness 8
WHAT IF THE ONLY WITNESS TO A MURDER IS MORE TWISTED THAN THE KILLER?
Ruby Johnson is a nanny and maid to wealthy families in Manhattan’s West 74th Street.
She knows their routines. Their secrets. One night, on her way home, Ruby witnesses a neighbour’s murder.
She knows the victim. She knows the killer. She makes an anonymous call to the police and names the murderer.
But Ruby didn’t tell the truth… Because there’s something wrong with Ruby Johnson. Eddie Flynn, conman turned trial lawyer, must defend an innocent man accused of this terrible crime.
As Ruby’s deadly game begins, one thing is certain.
It won’t be the last murder this witness is involved in…
‘A fantastic thriller writer’ MARK BILLINGHAM’
