Book Launch: Jamie Guiney - The Lightning
2026-05-28 18:30 - 20:00 (Europe/London) | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us at No Alibis to celebrate the release of The Lightning, published by Bluemoose Books, with author Jamie Guiney.
Book your free place here
Pre-order a copy of the book here
Wolf Island is in the Mid-Atlantic Ocean. An old lighthouse-keeper is at the end of his rope and he challenges the universe and his place in it. It is a tale of unexpected visitors, their personal histories and navigating the natural surroundings, whilst confronting the elemental rage of the sea.

Book Launch: NEITHER CONFIRM NOR DENY by John Ware
2026-06-18 18:00 - 19:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us in the bookshop for an evening with John Ware to celebrate the launch of his book, Neither Confirm Nor Deny, published by Merrion Press. John will be in conversation with local journalist Sam Mc Bride.
Book Your Free Ticket Here
About the book:
‘The State is assassinating people.’
These were the chilling words said to have been sent to Tony Blair in 1999 in a damning note bluntly summarising one of the consequences of Britain’s decades-long intelligence war in Northern Ireland. State forces had crossed a line, guided by a secret review from 1980 that quietly rewired Britain’s war, placing intelligence gathering above the law.
What followed was the creation of a vast, covert agent-running machine that penetrated loyalist and republican organisations to unprecedented depths. Supporters claim the policy saved lives, helping pave the way for the Good Friday Agreement. Critics argue it also licensed murder, subverted justice and corrupted policing beyond repair.
Full of new and important revelations, this meticulously researched book is the inside story of the decades-long struggle to expose that truth – an attritional battle between detectives and lawyers on one side, and a powerful ‘securocracy’ on the other that was determined to protect its secrets. Focusing on two of the most notorious agents, Brian Nelson and Freddie Scappaticci, it reveals how the State has doggedly fought to control the narrative, silence scrutiny and preserve its legacy.

Book Launch: Living with Lynx by Jonny Hanson EVENT POSTPONED
2026-06-29 19:00 - 20:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND OUR CONTROL WE HAVE SADLY HAD TO POSTPONE THE BOOK LAUNCH LIVING WITH LYNX BY JONNY HANSON. THANK YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING

Join us at No Alibis Bookstore for the paperback launch of Dr Jonny Hanson’s Living with Lynx: Sharing Landscapes with Big Cats, Wolves and Bears, published by Pelagic Publishing.

This book investigates a vital and controversial question for conservation and rewilding in Britain and Ireland: could and should we learn to live with lynx, wolves and bears again? We travel back in time, around the world and into the future to explore this contested topic. The author delves deep into the human psyche, considering not only his own mixed feelings about large carnivore reintroductions but also why people have such polarised perspectives on top predators. He brings his unique combination of expertise on snow leopards – and their relationship with humans – along with his experience as a farmer to illustrate the discussion.
Along the way, we meet a cast of characters from across society, including farmers, rewilders and everyone in between. It becomes clear that coexisting with large carnivores is as much about sharing landscapes with each other as it is about sharing them with wildlife. The first book to tackle this subject in detail, based on more than 50 interviews from seven countries, Living with Lynx will be of relevance to anyone with an interest in the future of nature, farming and the countryside.
Personal, detailed, unflinching and engaging, it adds a great deal to this rapidly evolving debate.

Book Launch: Sheila Armstrong - The Red Mouth
2026-06-30 18:00 - 19:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us at No Alibis to celebrate the launch of The Red Mouth by Sheila Armstrong, published by Bloomsbury.
Book your free ticket here!
Pre-order your copy of the book here!
When a dog finds a strange, alien antler in a restored bog, the owner’s first thought is to keep it for himself. But when he realises the value of his find, he is drawn back to the rich peat to keep searching. It is not one stag skeleton that is buried there, but dozens – an ancient dying ground of the Great Irish Elk.
Other things have surfaced from the bog: prehistoric settlements, bronze cauldrons, ancient butter, iron weapons – and the mutilated body of a two-thousand-year-old female. Fifty years ago, a young archaeologist named her Belroe Woman, and dedicated his life to telling the story of her sacrificial death. While state and public treat the bog body as a national treasure, others must reckon with its otherworldly influence over their lives: the peat-cutter who first unearthed her and carries this discovery like a curse; the archaeologist’s daughter who grows up in the shadow of the bog’s strange magnetism; and the young environmental scientist whose work draws her back to where it all began.
Haunting and lyrical, The Red Mouth – an béal rua – is the story of two discoveries and the four strangers who become intertwined in their wake. The deep time of the bog is both mystical and sinister: those bound to it must decide what to bury – and what to unearth.

BOOK LAUNCH - CTRL: Essays on Video Games
2026-07-01 18:00 - 19:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us in the bookshop to celebrate the launch of CTRL, a collection of essays on video games edited by Dean Fee and published by Lilliput Press. Dean and Stephen Sexton, a contributor to the collection, will be in conversation with local writer Dara McWade.
***BOOK YOUR FREE TICKET HERE***

In CTRL, writers turn their focus to one of the most influential – and persistently misunderstood – art forms of the modern era. Through memoir, criticism, and narrative exploration, these essays chart the ways video games intersect with memory, identity, imagination, and the complicated business of being human.
Here, games become ciphers for joy and escape, but also for pain, addiction, burnout and longing. They emerge as places where we grow up, fall apart, find solace, test our limits, and rewrite ourselves. The essays in this collection explore how virtual landscapes imprint on real ones, how play becomes a way of thinking and how game worlds both mirror and distort the worlds we inhabit.
Ranging from pixelated nostalgia to sprawling open worlds, CTRL interrogates gaming’s contradictions – its artistry and excesses, its transformative potential and its shadows. Alongside these personal narratives lie broader questions: Where does this medium go next? Can it retain its creative integrity amid rapid technological shifts and the pressures of capital? What does it mean to call games art when they so often outgrow the boundaries we try to place around them?
Insightful, intimate, and alive with curiosity, CTRL captures the emotional and cultural force of video games, and the stories we carry with us when we put the controller down.
Featuring Essays By:
Sheila Armstrong
Rob Doyle
Joe Dunthorne
Donal Fullam
Úna-Minh Kavanagh
Róisín Kiberd
Anna Loughran
Darragh McCausland
Lisa McInerney
John Patrick McHugh
Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan
Brenda Romero
Stephen Sexton
Paul Whyte
Games featured include:
Final Fantasy IX
Fallout: New Vegas
Pokémon
Doom
Tomb Raider
Disco Elysium
The Stanley Parable
Wanderstop
Urban Chaos
The Elder Scrolls
The Witcher
Lemmings
Star Wars
Grim Fandango
Monkey Island 2
Discworld
Bioshock
Hotline Miami
Red Dead Redemption

BOOK LAUNCH: Troubled Waters - POSTPONED NEW DATE TO BE CONFIRMED
2026-07-02 18:00 - 19:00 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
BOOK LAUNCH POSTPONED
NEW DATE TO BE CONFIRMED
Join us in the bookshop for an evening with Tommy Greene to celebrate the launch of his new book, Troubled Waters : How Lough Neagh Is Being Destroyed by Corporate Greed and Political Neglect. Tommy will be in conversation with local journalist Sam McBride.

About the book:
In the summer of 2023, the people of the UK and Ireland were stunned when a foul-smelling green algae bloom blanketed the surface of Lough Neagh – the largest freshwater body on these islands – suffocating aquatic life and signalling an unprecedented environmental disaster.
Troubled Waters is a damning exposé, which uncovers the shocking destruction of the lough, source of almost half of Northern Ireland’s drinking water and a place steeped in historical and cultural significance. Award-winning journalist Tommy Greene delves deep into a gripping tale of greed, corruption, ineptitude and environmental catastrophe that has unfolded in plain sight against a backdrop of governmental instability and systematic cover-ups.
With unrivalled access to the story, Greene exposes the fierce battle that will determine the future of this once-thriving ecosystem which now teeters on the brink of ecological collapse.

Poetry launch: Milk & Moon-water - Milena Williamson
2026-07-23 18:00 - 19:30 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us in the bookshop for an evening with Milena Williamson to celebrate the launch of her new pamphlet, Milk & Moon-water, published by the Emma Press.
***Book your free ticket here***

A Sudden Stitch. Unfruitful Land. A Fever. In Milk & Moon-water, Milena Williamson uncovers 11 Old English metrical charms – ancient incantations spoken to ward off harm – creatively translating them into magical and medicinal spells for the modern reader. Alongside each reimagining is an original charm poem, a remixed and new telling of an old text. Covering the climate crisis, illness, ageing and fertility, this collection of charms ranges from the incantatory to the unhinged, and reengages with the ancient practice of looking to the land and the body for answers to life’s new and persisting questions.

Book Launch: One of Us is Guilty by Steve Cavanagh
2026-08-07 18:30 - 20:00 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us at No Alibis Bookstore for the launch of Steve Cavanagh’s newest thriller One of Us is Guilty, published by Headline.
Reserve your free place here.
Pre-order your copy of the book here.
A PERFECT COUPLE. BUT ONE OF THEM IS A KILLER. WHICH ONE?
Patrick Vanderpool, son of a billionaire media mogul, is destined for power. But the affair he’s having could ruin everything.
Vanessa Vanderpool, married to one of America’s most influential men, has her own ambitions. But the affair he’s having could ruin everything. When the other woman is found brutally murdered, there are only two suspects…
One of them is guilty. But which one? Conman turned defence lawyer Eddie Flynn must risk his life to find out… The Sunday Times Top Five bestseller returns with a brand new thriller featuring the unforgettable Eddie Flynn.

Book Launch: The Killer's Mark by M. W. Craven
2026-08-22 12:00 - 14:00 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Join us at No Alibis for the launch of The Killer’s Mark by M. W. Craven, published by Constable.
Book your free ticket here
Pre-order the book here
About the book:
A MONSTER. A MOTHER. A MURDER?
When Vice Admiral Boyer, RN (retd) died without leaving a will, his estranged daughter inherited his – not inconsiderable – estate.
Called home to sort through his belongings, she found an AegisBox – a tamper proof safe within a safe designed to self-destruct if anyone without the code attempts to open it. Unable to walk away without the truth, she uncovered something so horrifying it launched the biggest investigation in the National Crime Agency’s history. Five years later, Washington Poe is unwittingly, and unwillingly, sucked into its gravity…
Finally able to escape the authority they railed against, Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw are enjoying their new jobs as private detectives or – as the sign on their door says – ‘Gumshoes for Hire’. When a teenage girl walks into their office, looking for the mother she long believed to be dead, they agree to take the case. As Poe and Tilly investigate the girl’s claims, they find themselves drawn into a murky world of trafficking, pornography and prostitution.
Will they be able to help the girl find her mother, or will the dark forces at work, who will stop at nothing to protect themselves, get there first…

Paperback Launch: One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This - Omar El Akkad in Conversation with Michael Magee
2026-09-30 20:00 - 21:30 | Mandela Hall. Queens University Belfast, Mandela Hall .77 University Road, Belfast, Antrim, BT7 1NF, United Kingdom
Join us at the Mandela Hall for the launch of the paperback edition of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This with author Omar El Akkad, who will be in conversation with Michael Magee. This is a ticketed event, and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to MAP: Medical Aid for Palestinians.
Buy your ticket here on TicketSource.
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is an urgent and necessary reckoning about what it means to live in the West today. This is a book for those that have tired of moral emptiness. This is a book for everyone who wants something better.
Omar El Akkad is an author and journalist. He was born in Egypt, grew up in Qatar, moved to Canada as a teenager and now lives in the United States. He is a two-time winner of both the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award and the Oregon Book Award. His books have been translated into 13 languages.
Michael Magee is a graduate of the creative writing PhD programme at Queen’s University, Belfast. His writing has appeared in Winter Papers, The Stinging Fly, The Lifeboat and The 32: The Anthology of Irish Working-Class Voices. Close to Home is his first novel. It was shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2023 and won the Rooney Prize for Literature 2023.

Oliver Jeffers - The World of Oliver Jeffers Book Tour 2026
2026-12-20 12:00 - 14:00 | No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Oliver Jeffers – The World of Oliver Jeffers Book Tour 2026
FREE TICKETS HERE
This is a free event but booking is essential
The World of Oliver Jeffers Tour – Public signing
Join us in-store as we have the wonderful Oliver Jeffers here signing copies of his brand new children’s book A Day Off School Illustrated by Kevin Waldron and the new paperback edition of
There’s a Ghost in This House.
A free art print will be gifted with either book bought. Additional publishing by Oliver will also be available to buy on the day.
A Day Off School tells the story of Herbie, who stays home from school when he has the sniffles. At first, Herbie is delighted to have a day all to himself. A day to play Space Blasters uninterrupted, do some painting and to read his book in bed! But, by lunchtime, Herbie has done everything on his list and soon – despite his best efforts – his thoughts turn to school. What if something really fun is happening? Like an extra playtime or a dog loose in the corridors? What if Herbie is missing out?
There’s a Ghost in This House brings a unique and disarmingly witty take on the traditional ghost book that will go far beyond Halloween. Hello, come in.
Maybe you can help me? A young girl lives in a haunted house, but has never seen a ghost. Are they white with holes for eyes? Are they hard to see? She’d love to know! Step inside and turn the pages to help her on an entertaining ghost hunt, from behind the sofa, right up to the attic. With lots of friendly ghost surprises and incredible mixed media illustrations, this unique and funny book will entertain young readers over and over again!
