When I was a child, I was a bit of a misfit at school. I preferred reading books to playing sport so when I found my lack of ability at games had left me on the sidelines, I often retreated to the library. The librarian at my primary school got to know me and what I liked. I spent many contented hours reading the wonderful novels she recommended while my friends ran about in the playground.
My parents were also great readers, so our Saturday family outings were more often to the local municipal library than the local sporting field. My siblings and I contentedly spent hours browsing the shelves and were allowed to borrow whatever we liked. That was fun, but even better was getting home and cracking open the first book. That was an adventure.
Or so I thought. When my husband and I downsized recently, we gave almost 40 boxes of books to charity. There is no escaping chores, it seems, even if you put them off for decades. It’s also why, as I packed endless boxes and lugged them to the car, I made a promise to myself that the first thing I would do when we moved was join the local library.
The staff have also been brilliant and the atmosphere – in my local library at least – is calm, relaxed and friendly. Maybe I am biased, but book lovers are generally not thought of as rowdy or demanding, though library staff might disagree with me.Despite the calm and the quiet, libraries are also dangerous and subversive places. They exist to pass on not just pleasure and information but new ways of thinking and viewing the world.