mother and five years old boy reading book

October’s National year of reading theme is Word of Mouth and we’re celebrating storytelling, reading together, reading out loud and live literature.

For live literature events you can’t beat the Manchester Literature Festival which runs from Oct 16 to October 26. There are over 50 events taking place during the coming two weeks including a question and answer session with Doctor Who writer Russell T Davies and an appearance by Carol Ann Duffy at the Manchester Poetry Prize Gala. The Northern, on Tib Street, is also hosting free gigs by novelists and poets every night of the week,

There’s a great free lunch-time line-up of writers, artists and poets at Central Library too – the perfect place to dip a toe into live literature scene waters and Levenshulme Library hosts award-winning crime writer Barbara Nadel on Monday 3 November.

You don’t even need to leave the house because you can listen to some poetry from the comfort of your own home with the Poetry Archive which also provides some tips on how to listen or you can download the Penguin Podcast, a fortnightly episode of book extracts, author interviews and features.

Are you planning on attending any Festival events? Have you seen any unforgettable writers or poets live? You can share your thoughts here…write a review for Manchester Reads and post it to our comments section. We’d love to hear from you.

And finally The National Year of Reading is on the lookout for the nation’s most enthusiastic amateur storytellers so I’ll leave you with comedian Jon Culshaw explaining how to enter the Telling Tales competition and giving you a few examples of voices you can do when you’re reading out loud (think Boris Johnson and David Beckham…)

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