National Libraries Day

Although I rarely set foot in a library these days - my book buying addiction sees to that - I love libraries. I also recognise their importance, and think that this present Government's shameful cutting of library funding is both short-sighted and cultural vandalism. Of course, growing up in monied houses with plenty of books and attending well-funded schools they can never understand how, to a child without money to spare, libraries were a thing of wonder and freedom. All of those books - and you could take any of them! For nothing! I was lucky to be brought up in a family that, while not exactly having money to burn, prioritised reading, and attending a school that at least attempted to cope with a child who read every book they had in the building (by - yes - ordering more from the local library!), but only the library could handle my voracious  appetites: I have warm memories of my trips there, excited by all that choice, leaving each week with a bundle of books. Speaking to my friends - plenty of whom grew up in similar working class backgrounds, and went to similarly underfunded schools - and so many of them have the same memories, about how libraries allowed us to indulge in a love of reading that has served us well to this day: to deprive another generation of such pleasure and opportunity is a terrible, terrible thing.

So I am fully behind the Literary Gift Company's Library campaign - if you buy one of their 'library bags' they will donate to the National Libraries Day Campaign. Because once these places are gone, they are gone: and that would be a tragedy.

Borges Bag available from the Literary Gift Company

Mug from the Literary Gift Company

(Incidentally, I have bought things from this company, and found them excellent).