Author: Susan Brice

  • Government Library Acts

    Although many would associate the 19th century with much that was dark, dirty and downright bad, it has to be said that there was also a concern for education and social mobility. The 1850 Public Libraries Act was a product of this and thus borough councils were given the power to establish free access to […]

  • Community

    This funny little community library is in Grantchester Meadows in Cambridge. It’s a little bit scruffy and contains a weird collection of things including some children’s board books, some sheet music and what looks like the contents of a whole text book, maybe some research for a thesis? There was also a basket of apples […]

  • Brighton Rock – Graham Greene

    This is one of those books that I’ve always been aware of but only recently managed to get around to reading. The adjective that immediately comes to mind is gritty. The story is based in 1930s Brighton and is full of a grey, grimy underclass fighting for power in a gang saturated, gloomy seaside town. […]

  • September 2023

    I enjoy my U3A sessions on poetry, prose and plays but sometimes the bits around the edges prove to be the most interesting. Over coffee and a discussion about the vagaries of American politics, the person I was chatting to asked if I had read the book Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I hadn’t, although […]

  • August 2023

    A few weeks ago, I went to see Aspects of Love in London, a West End revival of this Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Originally it opened in 1989 and I would have seen it soon afterwards. It was the beginning of the singing and acting career of Michael Ball and he played the young romantic […]

  • Books to read before you die

    Over a cup of coffee I rather randomly looked at lists of 50 or 100 books that one ought to read before the end is nigh. There are obviously many versions put out by different publishers etc but as you might expect there was a great deal of commonality. Pride and Prejudice was in every […]

  • The Bookshop Book

    Always lovely to find someone who shares some of your views and maybe thinks as you do. I would love to sit down with coffee and cake and talk to Jen Campbell who has written a book called: The Bookshop Book and has filled it with bookshop chat and observations from interesting emporiums all around […]

  • Seth Rhyming with Plate

    As I walked into the kitchen, Petroc Trelawney, my favourite Radio 3 presenter was talking about a book called An Equal Music, by Vikram Seth. However, he didn’t say Seth as I had been pronouncing it i.e. the Biblical Hebrew way. Instead he said Sate, as I said, rhyming with plate. In India this is […]

  • The Farmer’s Wife – Helen Rebanks

    I have read 2 books by James Rebanks, the husband of the above author. ‘The Shepherd’s Life’ and ‘English Pastoral’ are both excellent reads, written in a cogent and pleasing style and mainly autobiographical. Both books though do have an agenda that the author wants to communicate and that is concerning sustainable farming and our […]

  • Normandy Library

    A sweet little community library that I saw in a small public garden in Lisieux, Northern France.