National Libraries Day

Tomorrow is National Libraries Day.  I always use our local library and regularly reserve books on line that I want to read.  The one thing I don't enjoy anymore is the collecting and returning of books as nine times out of ten it doesn't involve human interaction.  There are machines which allow you, after scanning the bar code on your ticket, to issue and return books yourself.  You can also now look for any books you have reserved as the shelves for these are in the body of the library and no longer behind the counter.  You can go through a whole library visit without speaking to anyone.  Sometimes I like this;  other times I really don't.  But, I suppose we should be grateful that this process in now in operation as without it I expect we wouldn't have a library at all and that would be far far worse, wouldn't it?

There are events at many libraries on Saturday and people are asked to get involved and visit a library that day or in the week before.  The organisers suggest that to support your local library you should think about joining if you aren't already a member and if you are that you should use the library by taking out or reserving a book or two.   I was going to do this anyway so earlier this week I returned two books I had read, renewed two I still want to read and collected one I had reserved.

Happy Reading!

Save Our Libraries Day

Today is 'Save Our Libraries Day' here in the UK.  A worthwhile cause I think, don't you?  Here in Stoke we are to lose two libraries at Fenton and Burslem and also the mobile library.  Unfortunately non of the events listed are to be held near here which is a shame because despite the wind and rain I would have gone along to listen to the read-ins and add my voice to the protest.  I have supported my local library this week by taking out two books to read and reserving one on line.

I've always had a great love of books and of libraries. When I was a child a visit to our nearest town to take books out of the library was a huge treat. I remember the large, heavy doors, the brown tiled floor, the whitewashed walls, the tall sash windows letting in light and the dark wooden shelves groaning under the weight of many books; each one unique, each one a ticket to adventure and learning;  a trip to another world.  I loved being able to chose my own books and take them to the desk.  I was fascinated by the boxes of  reader's tickets and the date stamp and ink pads, so much so that I would often play libraries on the table at home with my Mum and Dad's books, torn up slips of newspaper in an old shoe box as the tickets and a hot water bottle top as the date stamp.  As a teenager I read avidly and I think got my love of history from writers like Jean Plaidy, Anya Seaton, Margaret Irwin, Juliet Dymoke, Norah Lofts and Georgette Heyer.  I read anything and everything set in the Regency period and in the time of the English Civil War - this stemmed, I think,  from reading 'Children of the New Forest', 'For the King' and 'Gambol for a Throne' as well as the usual Secret Seven, Little Women, What Katy Did, Wind in the Willows and the 'Wells' series by Lorna Hill.

My tastes in reading have changed over the years as discovering Dorothy L Sayers, Josephine Tey, Margery Allingham and Agatha Christie in my early twenties lead me towards my present love of mystery and crime novels with many genres including biography, classics, modern classics and contemporary literature  in between.

I could go on forever listing books I have read and loved not to mention those I have read without any abiding impressions, those I had to read at school and for 'O' levels, 'A' levels and degree and those I'm ashamed to say that I abandoned after a few pages.

The book I'm reading at the moment  is 'The House at Seas End' by Elly Griffiths an author recommended to me by a friend last year.  I enjoyed her first book  'The Crossing Places' which introduced the characters of Dr Ruth Galloway, cat loving forensic archaeologist and DCI Harry Nelson of the North Norfolk Police Force.  Her second book 'The Janus Stone' was just as fascinating and the characters and story lines introduced in the first book carry through into the second and third novels which are set around Kings Lynn and the North Norfolk coast.

I'd be pretty lost without books;  my life would be poorer if I didn't have them and libraries to borrow them from.  I do buy books too, of course.  I expect we all want to own our favourite books by our favourite authors but I couldn't possibly afford to buy every book I wanted to read.  Libraries are of course, so much more than just books.  Our local library is always busy with people using the computers, school parties listening to books being read to them, book reading groups and other community activities.  Libraries enrich the lives of so many people in many different ways - we need to keep them and help them flourish because once they have gone we will surely never see their like again.

Things I am thankful for 3 and 4

Ever since I can remember I've loved books and reading. I remember my Mum reading me the tales of Flopsy Bunny and Little Grey Rabbit and of reading myself; books like Enid Blyton's Secret Seven and Mary Norton's The Borrowers books. I loved Wind in the Willows, The Secret Garden, Children of the New Forest, Gamble for a Throne and Lorna Doone plus a series of books whose names now escape me about three sisters from Northumberland who became a ballet dancer, a horse rider and a flamenco dancer - I'd love to know what these books were called. Later I worked my way through the books of Georgette Heyer, Margaret Irwin, Jean Plaidy and Anya Seton. Some of the books I studied at school have become favourites like Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. I remember reading Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham at school and discovering the Lord Peter Wimsey novels by Dorothy L Sayers at the library. Nowadays I tend to read more modern fiction and crime fiction - writers like PD James, Priscilla Masters, Val McDermid, Susan Hill, Kate Atkinson, Stephen Booth, Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson and John Harvey are just some of my favourites. I've recently discovered the wonderful novels of Henning Mankell and the Imogen Quy novels written by Jill Paton Walsh - set in Cambridge in the fictitious St Agatha's College.

Of course, I wouldn't have been able to read all these books without libraries. We lived in a small village where a mobile library came every other week. We were also members of the library in our nearest town which was a bus ride away. I loved both these libraries and choosing books to read. Where ever I've lived I've always joined the nearest library - I can't imagine life without them. Of course today they offer far more than books; you can order books on line and check the progress of your order, attend a reading or writing group, use the Internet, borrow CD's or DVDs, find out about local activities, local history or family history and at some even have a cup of coffee. They are light, airy, welcoming places - but it is the libraries of my childhood that I remember the most, the dark wood and tiled floors, the rows and rows of books, the librarians with their boxes of tickets and inky date stamps. I loved this so much I used to play libraries on the table at home with the books from our shelves, slips of paper for the tickets and a hot water bottle top as a date stamp. So, you can see that books and libraries have been and still are a big part of my life and I'm thankful for that.

A Bookish Day

Today is World Book Day and as one of my greatest passions is reading I thought I’d think about what books I have enjoyed over the years. I’ve always loved books; there were always books around the house when I was growing up. I also remember going to the library with Mum and choosing books to bring home to read. Sometimes we would go to the library in the nearest town but we also used to have a mobile library come to the village probably once a month. On rainy days I used to play libraries on the table with Mum’s books, a shoe box of cut up bits of paper as library tickets and a hot water bottle top as a date stamp. Those were the days.

I remember devouring Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and Secret Seven books. I loved Little Women and What Katy Did, also The Secret Garden, The Borrowers, The Wind in the Willows and a series of books about sisters who became ballet dancers and went to boarding school – I can’t remember what they were called though. I adored Children of the New Forest and Gamble for a Throne because I was fascinated with the English Civil War and Cavaliers and Roundheads. In my first year at grammar school we read Tiger in the Smoke. In the second year we did Jane Eyre and I came top of the class in English much to my and everyone else’s surprise. In the third year we read A Tale of Two Cities and I fell for Sydney Carton – what a wonderful literary character.

One day, when I was about fourteen, I was at home alone, feeling bored and I picked up a book from Mum’s bookcase and began to read, and read, and read; I just couldn’t put the book down. It was a wartime utility copy of Friday's Child by Georgette Heyer – I was completely hooked and from then on I read every single one of her books, I just loved them. From there I moved on to other historical novels by writers like Jean Plaidy, Anya Seaton, Margaret Irwin and the Lord Peter Wimsey novels by Dorothy L Sayers. In between then and now I have, of course read too many books to mention; I have many, many favourites including To the Lighthouse by Virginia Wolf, North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell and the wonderful A Month in the Country by J L Carr. Today, I read mostly murder mysteries by authors like Reginald Hill, Stephen Booth, Ian Rankin, Susan Hill, P D James,Val McDermid and Priscilla Masters. I particularly love Stephen Booth and Priscilla Masters because they write about places I know – The Peak District, North Staffordshire and Shropshire. They are my comfort zone. I also enjoy reading Robert Goddard’s thrillers, Alexander McCall Smith’s novels set in Edinburgh and any book by Joanne Harris or Joanna Trollope.

So today, on World Book Day, what am I reading? I have nearly finished one of Andrew Taylor’s atmospheric detective novels set in the 1950s and have to choose now between a booked loaned to me by a good friend – Rosehill, Portraits of a Midlands City by Carol Lake or The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld – the choice of the on-line reading group I’ve recently joined. Oh, choices, choices, and I haven’t even touched upon my love of book shops – especially if they have a coffee shop and lovely squishy, comfy leather chairs for browsing and reading purposes. Absolute joy.

Oh, and today is also St. David's Day and 'Tommy Comes Home' day – we collect him at five o’clock - I'll keep you posted.