One of the things I liked most about London is the libraries. I was a regular visitor (and borrower) at the Barbican Library and the amazing Idea Stores chain, both of which, as a resident, I could use for free. Then there were the libraries at LSE and other academic institutions, but these I used mainly for work.
Idea Stores – at least my local branch at Canary Wharf – had a shelf of reader-recommended books. Anyone could – hopefully still can – recommend a book. You had to send them a little blurb, which they would print on a card and place on a shelf, along with the book in question.
I recommended a book once, A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr – one of my favourite books of all time. I found the blurb in my old emails today, so it can have a second debut on my blog:
Summer 1920. Tom Birkin, back from the trenches, ‘nerves shot to pieces, wife gone, dead broke,’ arrives in Oxgodby, hired to uncover a 14th-century painting on the wall of the village church. Thus unfolds a story about friendship, love, missed opportunities, a way of life, and the awareness and acceptance of the transience of all things – a perfect novel which, like that perfect summer, is over all too soon. ‘We can ask and ask but we can’t have again what once seemed ours for ever.’
I was also introduced to the book via a recommendation (sort of) – in an interview with British novelist Sarah Perry. And I borrowed it from Idea Store, though I eventually bought a copy for myself.
There's a city-wide network of Idea Stores, and you could – hopefully still can – request a book from another branch for free. My friend Rohini also frequented the same library. Sometimes on the Requests Shelf I'd see her name on a label, and text her to let her know her book arrived. It was like running into a friend, but without meeting her in person, just the book she was reading.
Singapore has an excellent network of public libraries too. Unlike the London libraries, membership is not free, but SGD 42.80 per year is a small price to pay for what I get out of it.
Aren't libraries the best?
3 comments:
So true! Loved the public libraries in Boston and also the ones in the Netherlands - like Singapore it's not free in NL, but it's a great community for sure. Our local library in Utrecht recently had a screening of blind willow, sleeping woman :)
Aw, glad you found good libraries in those places :)
The public libraries in California are just amazing. Some of the really well funded libraries require that you be the resident of that county since a small percentage of the property taxes are used to fund these public libraries. There is pretty much nothing you can't find in Santa Clara and San Jose libraries, and if that ever happens, these libraries offer services to get it from other California or nationwide libraries. I have never seen the combination of wide spaces to hang out all day, latest facilities anywhere.
I just hated the few years that I lived in Texas with its retarded library system, and that shouldn't surprise anyone who have heard what goes on in Texas -- however you are in great luck if you are in a hurry to buy a V8 truck or an AR-15.
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