Summer Travels, Part One: Bookish Sites

Friends, I have so much to tell you. So much, in fact, that it will require multiple posts. My recent travelling adventures took me to a lot of interesting places, many with bookish or historical links that I think you’ll appreciate. On top of that, I have some pictures from earlier in the summer I’ve been meaning to share, so I thought I’d do it all in one go.

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First of all, I finally made it to the Library of Birmingham, one of the UK’s (and Europe’s) largest public libraries. It’s a beautiful, impressive building, but it’s impossible for me to dissociate my visit from all the recent news about enormous reductions in opening hours, hundreds of members of staff losing their jobs due to cuts in funding, and other austerity related woes. TL;DR: I loved visiting, but it made me sad, too. I want us to have nice things, and nice things can be state of the art facilities, sure — but also adequately funded, professionally staffed services that truly meet the needs of their communities.

I also felt a lot like I did when I visited the new Manchester library last year: impressed and inspired and with frequent spells of library envy, but also grateful for my own library’s more modest but also warmer and more human space. We have child-made displays and rhymetime posters and teen book reviews — lots of little things that hopefully allow people to take ownership of the library, and which communicate that what goes on there, what we make it into together, is every bit as important as the library building itself. Maybe it’s because I only visited them briefly, but both Manchester and Birmingham libraries felt more far removed from the people who use them than I’d have liked.

More photos:

The gorgeous Shakespeare room, which has been housed in three different sites throughout its existence.


The children’s library, which I liked better than Manchester’s but still not as much as my own.






The lovely rooftop garden.
Also, when I was in London I had the opportunity to visit Word on the Water, one of the UK’s two floating bookshops (the other is The Book Barge, which I visited a few years ago and loved). I came across it entirely by chance, while walking along the Regent’s canal from King’s Cross to Little Venice on a beautiful August day, but in a way that made it even better. The walk was lovely, by the way, and it’s definitely one I’d recommend if you’re looking for something to do in London on a sunny day. A few photos:















My travels also took me back to Manchester; I didn’t make it to the Central Library this time around, but I did get to revisit some of my favourite sites. This leg of my trip made me really miss Iris and Amy, who I took to all these places when I was living there.

I went back to the beautiful John Rylands library for an exhibition on the Gothic tradition. It wasn’t as detailed as the one the British Library did last autumn, but it’s still worth visiting if you’re in town.





I also went back to the People’s History Museum, one of my favourite museums in the UK. I wanted to go again both because I missed it and to see some of the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners documents they hold. I really enjoyed my visit — as I said, the museum has always been one of my favourites, but I have continued to learn about the history of protest it represents in the years since I moved away from Manchester, so I was better able to contextualise some of what I saw now.

Also, I got a WSPU badge at the gift shop. I love it so much I’ve been wearing it on my jacket ever since.










Awesome comics display at Waterstone’s Deansgate:



Lastly, once I was back down south I went to see Meg Rosoff deliver the 2015 Philippa Pearce Memorial Lecture at beautiful Homerton College.

The lecture will be made available online and I didn’t take very detailed notes, so I’ll give you the very short version: Rosoff was as funny and thoughtful as you’d expect. Her introduction made me borrow Pearce’s The Little Gentleman from the library the very next day; as for the lecture itself, I especially loved the part where she explained that the title she picked, “Don’t be afraid to be afraid”, comes from A Wrinkle in Time: the scene where Meg learns to embrace her flaws affected her in ways that last until this day. She spoked about writing your truth; explained that gender will always be her main subject because she finds it “deeply resonant”; and talked about all the complicated realities about how people experience gender identity and sexual orientation that are thankfully slowly being normalised through the wider range of stories we tell. Also, she signed my copy of the brilliant Picture Me Gone and we talked for a few minutes about our mutual love for Margo Lanagan (she’d called her one of her favourite writers during the lecture, along with Philip Pullman and David Almond). It was a great event, and it was lovely to be able to say hi to one of my absolute favourite writers afterwards.


The entrance to the Great Hall.




yay!
Next up: Edinburgh, which is still the absolute best. Expect many words, and also a million photos.