The Ambient Book Club is a communal silent reading event with atmospheric live music performed by Thunderclap Murphy. Readers bring a book or take one from the library’s shelves, settle in, and read together while the music builds and fades around them.
The fee is €1,230. One event, one invoice. Travel outside Dublin adds 50 cent a kilometre of the round trip, so a library 80km from Dublin adds €80 for the 160km there and back.
Download this booking pack as a PDF (2 pages, 22 KB, 5 October 2026)
You get a reply within the week with available dates.
Included in the fee
- A two-hour event with a live soundtrack, at a time that suits your library
- Sound, lighting and decoration
- Set-up, facilitation and pack away by a crew of three
- Event copy, images and a social post pack for your own channels
- Outreach to local reading groups
- A report after the event
Event times
The Ambient Book Club works well as a two-hour event. A shorter or longer version can be arranged to suit your library.
Sound level
The music stays below the level of a conversation.
What the crew needs to set up
- Access to one wall power socket
- A clear space of 4m x 4m for the performance area, which usually works well in the centre of the room
- The space from one hour before doors open. The crew can set up around library users if the library is still open.
What the library provides
- One library representative for the length of the event. The crew looks after readers.
- Chairs laid out around the space. Readers can also sit on the floor, or settle wherever is comfortable.
- Reader places, reserved through the library’s own system
Readers at the Ambient Book Club
The Ambient Book Club is an event for over 18s, which keeps the space quiet for readers. Readers arrive, stay and leave as they like.
Suggestions for a reading table
Some readers prefer to draw, colour or browse. A table from the library’s own stock gives them a place to start. Wexford Town Library set out the first three on this list:
- Adult colouring printouts
- Pens and paper
- A selection of staff picks
- Graphic novels
- Art and photography books
- Books by local authors
Set-up on the day
The crew arrives with the sound system, the lighting, the decoration and the instruments. They set up in the hour before doors and pack away afterwards.
Four speakers stand at the edges of the space and the performer sits in the centre. Cables are taped down under mats and a clear path is kept. Cabling, access and floor layout are on the technical requirements page.
The report after the event
You get a full report after the event, with the headcount, readers’ comments and photographs. It is written to be lifted straight into a funding acquittal or a committee paper.
Budget routes
- Healthy Ireland at Your Library funds health and wellbeing programming across the public library service.
- Creative Ireland funds creative projects through its Creative Communities strand in each local authority.
- The local authority arts office in each of the thirty-one councils holds a programming budget of its own.
Wexford Town Library, 30 July 2026
Wexford Town Library ran the Ambient Book Club on Thursday 30 July 2026. Reader feedback from the day:
Beautiful, I really enjoyed it. Incredible musicianship.
Karen, Wexford
It went by very quickly and felt very relaxed and peaceful.
Katie, Castlebridge
Excellent idea to do this. Again please.
Mark, Wexford
The day is written up in full on the Wexford event report.
Feedback from everyone who attended was very positive. I spoke to a few people as they were leaving, who all expressed their enjoyment of the event and asked if we could host similar events in future.
Heather Law, Executive Librarian, Wexford Town Library
Booking a date
Get in touch with a date or two in mind, and we will take it from there.