Chorlton Book Festival at various venues

On Saturday 21 September (6.30pm, Chorlton Central Church) Brian Groom presents his latest title, Made in Manchester, which provides a rich and vivid history of Britain’s second city through the people who made it. ‘What Manchester thinks today, England thinks tomorrow.’

There’s a literary celebration of all things aquatic on Tuesday 24 September (6.30pm, St Clements Church) when David Gaffney and Sarah-Clare Conlon invite you to ‘Just Add Water’ with their poetry and prose about the sea. This serves up a deep dive into the watery world, from lighthouses and oilrigs to shorebirds and whales.

David Gaffney’s latest book is Whale, a collection of short stories and flash fiction published by Osmosis Press and inspired by a beached whale on the Cumbrian shoreline, and Sarah-Clare Conlon’s most recent poetry pamphlet is Lune (Red Ceilings Press), which takes the river that meets Morecambe Bay in Lancashire as well as moonphases and tides as its jumping-off point.

Longford: A Manchester Love Story gives you an insight into the background to the John Rylands Library, which opened to the public in 1900 and was founded by Enriqueta Augustina Rylands in memory of her husband. On Friday 27 September (2pm, The Edge Theatre & Arts Centre), join Stretford-based author Juliette Tomlinson as she reads from and chats about her debut novel, set in 1864 and “the story of an empire built by a true Manchester man by the woman who loved him”.

Also on Friday (6.30pm, Chorlton Central Church), multi-award winning playwright Linda Brogan present Twelve Words, a book about the famous Reno nightclub in Moss Side, which hosted the likes of Bob Marley, Muhammad Ali and Tony Wilson, and the personal stories of how three women born in Moss Side embarked on an excavation that changed their lives.