Category: Libraries & Bookshops

  • The British Library

    The British Library is a wonder. It contains the Magna Carta and handwritten lyrics of Beatles songs as well as everything else in between and it is free. As a child I remember it being part of the British Museum. I recall going there to see the Egyptian mummies and being bowled over by the […]

  • 170 something years on

    From history lessons I knew all about the 1815 Corn Laws and the1832 Reform Act but The Libraries Act of 1850 obviously passed me by. It gave boroughs the power and indeed the responsibility to establish free libraries giving access to literature and information to all. It should be understood that this was not something that […]

  • My book buying addiction and a dodgy conscience

    Despite what I have recently written about libraries, and I do indeed believe they are very important, I really use them very little. I’m not quite sure why but I do love to own my books. It is an inconvenient feeling and in many ways it would be better otherwise. And then there is the […]

  • Horses and Harnesses

    The library in the Somerset village where I lived as a teenager was small and square and had once been a shop. It was only open on certain days, including Saturday. This was when I usually visited. Luckily I had quite simple reading needs at the time and these bookshelves supplied me well. Pony books, […]

  • Dear Mr Perks

    The best relationship I have ever had with a library was as a sixth former in Minehead. By the time I was doing English A level I was completely obsessed with reading and with literature. It is probably the only time in my life when I truly read around a subject instead of simply reading […]