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community · Thursday 20 August 2026 · 6:30pm 
Jane Austen Book Club at Abbeyleix Library
At Abbeyleix Library · Main Street, Abbeyleix, Co. Laois
At Abbeyleix Library · Main Street, Abbeyleix, Co. Laois
Abbeyleix Library runs a book club dedicated entirely to Jane Austen, meeting on the third Thursday evening of every month. The next session falls on 20 August 2026. It is a single-author group rather than a general reading club, working through Austen’s six completed novels and the surrounding letters, biography and adaptations at a pace the group sets itself.
Meetings are discussion-led, with members working through one Austen novel or related text at a time and talking through plot, character and the social world Austen was writing about, rather than following a lecture format. Because the author’s full body of work is finite, the group can go deep, revisiting a favourite novel, comparing film and television adaptations, or reading Austen’s letters and juvenilia once the six major novels are done, in a way a general book club moving on to a new author every month cannot. It runs on a different Thursday to Abbeyleix’s regular Adult Book Club, which meets on the last Thursday of the month, so the two groups do not clash and readers with a particular interest in Austen have a dedicated evening to themselves. Numbers tend to be small and conversational rather than lecture-style, and copies of the relevant novel are usually available to borrow from the library ahead of each meeting.
Abbeyleix Library is on Main Street in the town centre, close to Market Square, with parking available on and around the main street.
Abbeyleix’s Georgian architecture and heritage bog gardens make it a pleasant town to spend the rest of the evening in. There is more to see in Abbeyleix and across Co. Laois.
Heading to Abbeyleix Library in Abbeyleix? Laois has plenty more to see. Read the Abbeyleix area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.