Books are brought to life
Book Week Scotland is the country’s biggest celebration of reading and writing and returns for its eighth year with hundreds of events from intimate community gatherings to flagship shows with well- loved authors.
In South Ayrshire, there is a selection of interesting free events:
Laughter Lines with Ronnie Russell is on Wednesday November 20 from 2pm- 3pm in Girvan Library, Montgomerie Street.
It’s an afternoon of laughter with Ronnie Russell – featuring cartoons and hilarious anecdotes about life’s adventures. Free but ticketed.
Elsie Inglis: The Woman Who Would Not Sit Still! is performed on the evening of the same day, 7pm- 8.30pm at Troon Library.
Doctor Elsie Inglis was one of Scotland’s most inspiring women – a surgeon, a suffragist and the founder of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Service during World War I. The British War Office in 1914 rejected her offer to provide a unique all- women medical service for the war front. She was told, ‘ my good lady, go home and sit still.’
Thankfully, other Allied Nations welcomed the service. 1,500 women in 14 hospital units saved thousands of soldiers’ lives in France, Serbia, Russia, Romania and Greece. Some of these women were from Ayrshire.
Dundonald- based playwright and folk fanatic Dave Dewar will tell the tale in an illustrated talk.
A Death in the Family takes place on Thursday November 21, between 7.30pm- 9pm at the main Carnegie Library in Ayr.
Join an evening with two authors who have written about the sudden death of a family member and the impact that event had on their family.
Catherine Simpson will speak about her book, When I had a Little Sister, a searingly honest and heartbreaking account of growing up in a farming family, and of Catherine’s search for understanding what led her younger sister to kill herself at 46 after a lifetime of being stalked by depression.
It’s a story of sisters and sacrifice, grief and reclamation, and of the need to speak the unspeakable. Catherine Czerkawska will speak about her latest book, A Proper Person to be Detained. On Christmas Night in 1881, John Manley, a poor son of Irish immigrants living in the slums of Leeds was fatally stabbed in a drunken quarrel. The frightened murderer went on the run, knowing that capture could see him hang. A few generations later, Catherine began to tease out the truth behind her great- great- uncle’s tragic death. This is the story of a murder and its aftermath. Free but ticketed.
And Ronnie Russell is back again running the Happy Families! Cartoon Workshop on Saturday November 23, 2pm- 3.30pm at Ayr Carnegie Library. It is also free but ticketed.