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The Tangled Leaves of Anniseed

The Tangled Leaves of Anniseed

Category Archives: Musings

New Year promises…

10 Saturday Jan 2015

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Happy new year!

Well I really don’t know where the time has gone. The last few months have flown by and now it’s 2015. I have been reading avidly but I confess that I spend so much time in front of a computer during the day job, book blogging at home has a taken a back seat, so the first of my new year’s resolutions is to rectify that!

I spent Christmas mostly snowed in, with the wood-burner blazing, listening to Nick Drake and Kate Bush and drinking whiskey; snuggled up in my Gomer Parry Plant Hire sweatshirt, thanks to Terry of Ledwardine Lore, and getting lost in re-reading Phil Rickman’s Merrily Watkins series again (I’m now up to The Remains of an Altar) and revelling in the JCB-related heroics of said Gomer. I’m very excited by the news that Sky have commissioned the series which should air later this year – keep up-to-date at Phil’s site. Can’t wait to see Gomer-related chaos on screen!

And I’ve started writing again – I’ve dusted off the draft that has languished in my drawer for far too long, and have reconfigured it. My central point-of-view character is now different, and the focus has shifted somewhat, but I’m much happier with its structure now. My second new year’s resolution is to write 1000 words a day – already I’m struggling now I’m back at work, but I do think the trick is to keep it in your head and write little but often.

Fingers crossed!

 

Summer leaves….

09 Tuesday Sep 2014

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Campaigning

Epic fail again – summer came and I forgot to blog! But that doesn’t mean I’ve been idle, far from it. It’s been a busy time campaigning for the public library service, reading lots of excellent books, and even getting a bit of allotmenting done.

I’ve attended several of the public meetings organised by Leicestershire County Council to persuade us that volunteers can run the library service. These meetings were heated. Very heated. It’s heartening that so many people care and are so angry about the proposals. The statistics quoted by the Council representatives were flawed. Their position- that this was a consultation – was exposed as a sham. We gathered signatures on petitions, demonstrated outside libraries, wrote passionate letters and emails, and even got our picture in the local rag. Their decision will be “made” next Friday. Watch this space, or even better, the Library Campaign at www.librarycampaign.com.

Books-wise, I’ve read a few…. Highlights have been The Girl with all the Gifts by M.R. Carey, a rollicking zombie apocalypse thriller with an intriguingly different central premise. Couldn’t put it down! Austerity Bites: A journey to the sharp end of cuts in the UK by Mary O’Hara also was hard to put down, mainly because it was so utterly shocking. I urge everyone with a social conscience to read this book. And Far from the Tree: Parents, children and the search for identity by Andrew Solomon was magnificent; a very long but rewarding exploration of how parents learn to love (or not) children who have “horizontal identities”, based on hundreds of interviews with real people. It made me both laugh and cry, and I think made me a better human being for having read it.

But mostly, I have been utterly lost in the off-kilter world of Phil Rickman, having now read all of his Merrily Watkins series. I can’t recommend these enough. And I love them so much I even went on a little pilgrimage to Hay-on-Wye, setting of The Magus of Hay, and was delighted to discover the infamous bookshop (site of a neo-Nazi Satanist murder…) at the novel’s core was real (although it’s actually a music shop, I think the evidence was compelling…)

If ever you get the chance to visit Hay, please do so. It’s a fascinating place steeped in quirky history, and the booksellers are keeping a very venerable tradition of reading print books alive.

Other than that, I’ve been up to lots of other things that shall remain my own business, but it’s been a good summer and many excellent books have been devoured. I’ll try and remember to share them…!

The Library Crisis: Of unicorns, mermaids and librarians…

09 Friday May 2014

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Campaigning, Librarians, Public libraries, Volunteers

This is the first of a series of posts on why I take issue with Leicestershire County Council’s (and the Government’s) agenda to have libraries run by volunteers.

So, what’s my problem? Isn’t it a good way to ensure that our public library service survives? Surely, it’s a nice, easy little job that volunteers will love to do…

Point One: the staff

That phrase “nice little job” has haunted me my entire professional life.But just as not everyone that works in a hospital is a doctor, and not everyone that works in a school is a teacher, not everyone that works in a library is a librarian.

To become a librarian you need to have a degree in Information and Library Science (ILS), preferably at postgraduate level with a first degree in a specialist subject. So if you want to be a law librarian, you’ll have a law degree as well as your ILS degree, and if you want to be a medical librarian, you’ll have a medical degree. (Interestingly, when I was applying to be a librarian back in the 1990s, I had to get much higher grades than my friends who were applying to be teachers.) Traditionally you’ll also then become Chartered (like an accountant or surveyor) which, in grandiose terms, is a licence to practice your profession given by the Queen, but on a more prosaic level, means that you’ve gained enough experience and demonstrated enough commitment to continuous professional development that your peers (in the form of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) judge you to be good at your job.

A degree in Library and Information Science will teach you how to interrogate, retrieve, organise, interpret, synthesize, and evaluate information of any type in any format, and crucially, how to make it accessible to other people, as well as teach them these vital information literacy skills. As we’re in the Information Age and the range of formats that information comes in are now wider than ever, a librarian’s knowledge-base needs to be wider than ever – they are becoming more highly-skilled as the internet advances, not less.

We’re certainly not an anachronism.

An ILS degree also teaches you the intricacy of copyright and data protection law, database design and management, organisation management (libraries are managed the same as any other organisation so we need those skills too!), marketing, teaching (librarians also teach so we cover the same content as a PGCE)…. And before I start bandying about words like informatics and metadata and content management systems, let’s just say that we know a lot about a lot of things.

So the librarians in a library aren’t generally stamping your books out, or showing you where the books on local history are. These are library assistants, how make sure that the day-to-day running of the services go smoothly. The librarians will be the ones managing the service at a local and national level, answering complex information enquiries, and ensuring that the resources you might want to use (both print and digital) are available for you to use. We’ll be negotiating access to electronic information with content aggregators so people can use it (not all information is free nor is it all the internet – another myth!).

The key thing to remember about a professionally qualified librarian, is that we’re not in it for self-promotion or money – none of us are rich! – we gain our skills so that we can help others.

And because it costs a bit more to employ a librarian than a library assistant, there aren’t many librarians left in the public library service. The service has already been eroded over the last twenty years by a vicious culling of librarians (but badgers are cuter so they get more press!). The ones that are left are running ragged trying to provide a seamless service for members of the public. In the sixteen years that I have been involved with Leicestershire public libraries, there has been a “restructure” almost every year. In each of those restructures, librarians were deleted by the Cybermen (sorry, Council), so the number has dwindled year on year.

It’s been a time of austerity for us for about twenty years.

So when the Council withdraw their support for community-led libraries after five years, which is their plan, those community libraries will have no access to professionally qualified staff. And when a few community-led libraries do “okay”, they’ll be cited by politicians as proof that the idea works, and the remaining libraries and librarians will be under threat too. I think everyone in our society deserves the service of professional library staff supported by well-trained assistants. And these people deserve to be paid for the work they do in supporting and empowering their communities.

In the meantime I think it’s unfair and disingenuous to expect the surviving Librarians to support the community-led libraries, when their workload will already be excessive. Would you expect any other profession to train and support their unpaid replacements? Would we tolerate this if it were teachers, police officers, judges, vets, solicitors, etc?

Love Your Librarian. We are the defenders of your right to information. That’s why the powers-that-be don’t want us around. We are the superheroes!

But as long as someone stamps the books… Oh, but that’s all automated now so we don’t need library assistants either…

The library assistant is generally an intelligent, inquisitive, organised and public-spirited soul. They work very hard for low rates of pay, which is why cutting their jobs from the smaller branch libraries is so sickening. But they’ve absorbed information from the librarians, had a lot of training, and are knowledgeable about their branch, dedicated to providing a service to the public.

Don’t ever forget that the volunteers are replacing paid staff – people will have lost their jobs in your local library. It wasn’t library staff that caused the recession, so why should they suffer?

And mmm…. it’s odd and disturbing, but I can’t help but notice that there is also a gender issue hidden in the Council agenda. The majority of library staff are female, working part-time, and for low rates of pay. Why is always the women who lose their jobs first? Why is it women who do proportionately more volunteering? There’s so many issues there….

Next time I’ll look at what a library actually is, and what a community-led library might be. Just what is a library volunteer and what might they be expected to do? I’ll also be looking at issues of ethics and equality, the legal background.

Teen Killers: Life Without Parole

26 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by Anniseed in Musings

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Crime, Prison, Reading, Real Lives, TV

Last night I found myself accidentally watching a documentary on BBC3 which has left me with some profound feelings, so I wanted to share it – it also links to one of my previous posts about the prison system in Britain. It’s part of the channels Crime and Punishment series, and this installment featured several young men in American jails, who have been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

It was a very disturbing film (and my only complaint is that I could have done without the stylised mortuary shots of the victims, which was very voyeuristic). The young men talked of their crimes and how they felt about themselves and their future. Some had experienced that long dark night of the soul in which they had confronted their inner demons, taken responsibility for their actions, and finally understood why they were in prison. Others had not. But one story in particular made me cry.

Sean Taylor was sentenced to life imprisonment for shooting dead an innocent bystander caught up in gang violence. In prison, he continued to live the life of a gang member, viewing the world through that narrow prism and getting into constant trouble with the authorities. But Sean was fortunate. An older inmate decided to look out for him, and every day would approach him and ask him a particular question. Here Sean leans forward and shares the question that was to save him:

“What have you read today?”

So Sean started reading. And it opened up his eyes to whole new worlds, made him delve into his own inner self, and make the tremendously brave decision to change his life. Through reading, he discovered Islam, and this showed him another path. He gathered his fellow inmates together and told them he was no longer going to be a gang member – he was going to live a better life, even though he was incarcerated, and he would help anyone else who wished to do the same. His transformation was to change not only his life, but the lives of many others. And the State Governor was moved to commute his sentence to parole.

Now Sean lives back in his home community, working with young people to try and stop them from getting involved with gangs, and to steer them away from lives of violence. It’s impossible to know how many lives his actions have actually saved, but his brave effort to pay back society for his own crimes were admirable. He spoke as an intelligent, committed and articulate man, and his story moved me greatly. I am inspired.

Proof, if any be needed, that reading can change lives.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b041yb2b

 

Rant! The (mis)information age

31 Monday Mar 2014

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Information, Libraries, Petitions, Prisons

Yet again, I’m stunned by the crass ignorance of our leaders.

Moves are afoot to ban prisoners from receiving books from outside the prison – meaning that prisoners who are attempting to rehabilitate themselves through education will no longer be able to do so. Prisons are currently required by law to have libraries but the provision varies wildly in quality. Reading – both for courses and qualifications but also for leisure – is the best way to expand the mind and to give people the opportunity to reflect on their lives and to envision alternatives. Every librarian will tell you that reading changes lives, and never is this more true than in a prison. Denying prisoners this right is denying them the chance to change, and benefits no one, least of all society at large. I’ve met plenty of people who proudly state that discovering books and libraries literally saved their lives, pushing them onto a different path – including ex-offenders who I’ve mentored through work experience in the library with the Leicestershire Cares charity.  Authors have spoken out this week against the proposals and there is a petition to sign at change.org – plus a great article by former prisoners in The Independent.

But who cares about prisoners?

Of course this is all part of the Government’s wider agenda to disenfranchise the most vulnerable members of our society.

Never has the assault on libraries been so vicious. School libraries are not a legal requirement (unlike prison libraries) so there is no obligation on schools to teach the critical life skill of information literacy or promote reading for pleasure, other than the occasional half-arsed government dictat which leaves libraries out of the equation when they are best placed to deliver this.  And despite all the empirical evidence from the OECD and other international research organisations that boldly states that access to a good quality school library not only improves examination results, but also children’s life chances. (Don’t get me started!).

But who cares about children?

Public libraries, which are a statutory requirement, are being deliberately set up to fail, so when the government finally decides to repeal the 1964 Public Libraries Act, no one will care enough to protest any more, since the quality will be so dire they will no longer be valued. Volunteers are important, but they are NO substitute for highly trained professional staff who adhere to a code of professional ethics and have such a wide knowledge-base. Libraries are not simply rooms full of books – they are access to information, with people on hand who know how to access, interpret, synthesise and communicate that information. They are an absolute lifeline to the poorest sections of our communities, providing the education that the education system doesn’t have time or will to do. And with the simultaneous threats to voluntary organisations such as the Citizens’ Advice Bureaux, they have never been more important.

But who cares about poor or uneducated people?

I’m sick of hearing that everything is on the internet and free. This is simply WRONG. Ask a librarian why. It’s also a myth promulgated by those in power to further disenfranchise you without you realising it. The internet is basically full of people who think they’re experts spouting off – the cult of the amateur, white noise that passes for content. There is good solid information out there, but it’s drowned in dross. A librarian can help you sift through it – but when we’re gone, you’re on your own. Good luck with that, really.

Good quality, reliable, accurate information is not, by and large, free. A couple of years ago there was an article in The Guardian about the future of University libraries, in which a student was interviewed and proudly declaimed that libraries were obsolete, as he got all the information he needed for his degree for free from the internet, naming several sources. These sources were all a) provided by the University Library and b) VERY, VERY expensive. Once he was out of University, he would find that he would no longer be able to access this information. Lots of professionals I speak to bemoan the fact that they can’t get access to the research and information they need to be able to do their jobs properly.

But who cares about students?

Librarians do. And libraries provide. They are an essential part of our society and encapsulate the utopian dream that no human being is worthless or without hope. That we all have the right to learn and grow and develop and experience a multitude of worlds and realities through reading. That we are all, essentially, equal.

And that is simply revolutionary.

It’s what those in power want to take away from you.

Even if you don’t use a library yourself, support them anyway. Because when they’re gone, some essential part of ourselves is gone – our society will be a different shape, and it won’t be good.

Celebrating Freadom

27 Friday Sep 2013

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Banned Books, Censorship, Reading

Well, it’s Banned Books Week again in America. It’s a curious phenomenon – adults refusing to allow young people to read. But it happens all the time. And many of the books that adults try to ban are simultaneously judged to be classics – Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley… even Eric Carle’s masterpiece The Hungry Caterpillar has run into trouble!

Joining this impressive list in 2012, the top ten of most frequently “challenged” books included Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey, Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James (perhaps unsurprisingly!), The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and Beloved by Toni Morrison (yet again).

As a librarian and bibliofiend I find the whole concept of stopping children reading utterly bizarre and totally pointless. I suppose it’s all about control – trying to meld young minds into a particular world view that wide reading simply explodes. I passionately believe that young people have the right to read.

In literary criticism, reader-response theory argues that the act of reading is active, not passive; that the reader themselves constructs the meaning of a text based upon their own experience, understanding and psychology, and that this interpretation of a text can change over time. The text itself is a catalyst for a unique individual experience rather than an end in itself, and there is no “right” way to experience a text. I feel that this is particularly true of young readers who have a very different experience of the world than adults. They often apply different meanings and have different reactions to a text than an adult may, due to less reading and life experience and less awareness of the wider world and the complex interrelations and contexts of the “adult” world. So, should we be navigating this burgeoning awareness for them? It’s a tempting and laudable aim, but I think it’s dangerous territory. It’s too easy to unconsciously impose our own viewpoints at this critical stage and to make value judgements about what young people read, and by extension, about young people themselves. Conversely, encouraging independence in reading is demonstrating trust and facilitating openness. If a young person is affected by what they’ve read, then talk to them about it, address their worries and help them put content into context.

As young people approach adulthood they are curious about the world and need a safe environment in which to vicariously experience different aspects of life. Often, reading about “stressful” things can act as catharsis, enabling them to experience and express their worries about all kinds of issues that may be affecting them. Fiction in particular is a uniquely safe forum in which they can explore the world and start to formulate their responses. Dave Pelzer may or may not have written a true story but the popularity of A Child Called It amongst young people speaks for itself. Teenagers want to understand things that they’re worried about.

No teenager, having read Junk by Melvin Burgess, will think that taking drugs is a good idea – but neither will they feel “preached at” or patronised. This book treats them as an individual, an adult, and subtly encourages them to think about the reality of drug-taking. In relation to sex, young people are far more prudish than we might imagine! If they encounter sex scenes in a novel they are more likely to skip them than an adult reader would, or simply not understand the content. And if they enjoy them – of course that’s fine, they’re young adults dealing with a growing awareness of sexuality. How many of us, as teenagers, secretly read our parents’ books, looking for naughty bits?!

It‘s all about context, of course. We often cite context as a reason for censoring a book, but forget that context is often an adult perception. Of course we want to protect our young people from some things – but the reality is that we can’t. All we can do is give them knowledge and the skills to negotiate life’s sometimes difficult path for themselves. As adults we understand the world holistically; we’re more aware of the bigger picture. For example, I can’t watch films or read books which include torture – because as a member of Amnesty International I know that these things are very real. But that’s my response, learnt from my life experience and part of my unique psychology. Other people will have a different response and if I impose my own view upon them, that is unfair. As much as we resist the imposition of other adults’ views on our territory (e.g. a parent complaining about a book on religious grounds), we need to recognise when it’s our issues that are too much at the forefront, too. Even if they are well-meaning, they can still cause damage. I’ve read books that have upset me – but I don’t regret reading them. They’ve enabled me to understand the world more and they’ve become part of me as much as the books I’ve loved.

Find out more about Banned Books Week at http://www.ala.org/bbooks/banned.

 

Kindling Confusion (2): E-readers and oranges are not compatible

10 Wednesday Apr 2013

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E-books, Kindles, Luddism, Reading

Okay so I confess – I went and bought a Kindle. Just a bog standard one. (Well, there was an offer on!)

I’ve been experimenting with it for the past few weeks and I admit it’s not as horrendous as I imagined. It doesn’t give me a headache which is good. I can download books instantly, which is great. Some of them are quite cheap, which is also great. It’s not particularly heavy in my bag which is good for my shoulder. It’s okay, really. I’ll use it.

But I have some gripes!

First, you don’t know which exact page you’re on, which I can imagine would be tricky if you needed to cite a reference (that’s the librarian in me).

Second, every formatting error shrieks at me from the screen (that’s the proofreader in me), and I’ve encountered a lot of errors so far. Grrrr!!! Grumpy face.

Third, the default when you connect to Amazon seems to be that the “Buy” button is highlighted so I’ve accidentally bought quite a few expensive e-books by pressing the button for a fraction of a second too long. Good job you can cancel orders or I’d be broke…

Fourth, you cannot read on a Kindle and eat an orange at the same time. You get splatter on the screen which is then on every page. You can’t just turn a page over and the stain goes away….

Fifth, you can’t read it in the rain while waiting for a train. A water-damaged paperback I can read and throw away. A fused Kindle, not so much.

Sixth, and perhaps the most serious problem…. People talk to you less. Random strangers don’t ask what you’re reading. They don’t ask if it’s good. They don’t offer their interpretation of it or give you a spontaneous review. They don’t even spoil the ending for you.

Reading becomes less social.

Some people might prefer it that way, but I like the bizarre conversations reading a book can provoke. So while the Kindle will stay in my bag, it will stay in my bag, if you get me. Print is still my first love.

Dazzled at The Self-Publishing Conference

24 Sunday Mar 2013

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Conferences, Publishers, Self-Publishing, Writing

I’ve had a fantastic day at the Self-Publishing Conference, organised by Troubador Publishing, and have come home with my head spinning from all the information I’ve tried to cram into it – not too shabby for a snowy Sunday, when the temptation to instead stay warm under the duvet was rather strong! The conference was very professional and well-organised with some fabulous speakers, and there was a really exciting vibe about self-publishing from everyone present. It was a great opportunity to hear industry experts and to get a fuller picture of this rather bewildering brave new world, and despite the snow, there was a good mix of people who ventured forth to find out more.

Mick Rooney, editor of the The Independent Publishing Magazine, kicked off by explaining the different types of self-publishing service that are out there and how to choose one, providing an essential picture of the self-publishing landscape and current trends in the business. It’s easy for the unwary to spend a lot of money on a service that simply won’t meet their needs, and Rooney stressed the importance of asking questions of any service you’re thinking of using (don’t just Google it!), and matching this to complement your own skills. The idea of buying a book from a service provider so you can assess its quality is simple but I can imagine that many people might miss this trick. He also raised the issue of traditional big publishers like Penguin and Simon & Schuster launching self-publishing imprints, which is a controversial development in the industry that I wasn’t aware of, and the dangers of using POD (print-on-demand) and vanity services. Self-publishing does involve financial risk and he advises that if you can’t afford to self-publish, then wait.

Helen Corner, founder of Cornerstones Literary Agency, gave a fascinating talk on self-editing. Creative writing unleashes your creative power but self-editing is the essential process of reining it in, and is a crucial step in producing a successful book – turning it from merely “good” to “dazzling”. Talking us through scenarios and providing anecdotes of real writers’ experiences, she stressed that the key to self-editing was to accept feedback – if you’re truly confident about your writing, then you can accept people challenging it. It’s also important to connect with your own “inner editor”, as instinctively you know what works and what doesn’t, and feedback will resonate on an emotional level. If you’re not ready for feedback, then your book is not finished! It was good for me to hear her echo my mantras  – put things to one side for a while and you’ll view them with more objectivity, and reading your work aloud helps you identify what doesn’t work.

Harry Bingham, from The Writers’ Workshop, gave us an insight into the traditional publishing world and the role of agents. As many of us have suspected, publishers are taking on fewer writers than ever before, and the opportunities for debut writers are diminishing. But he stresses that if you’re realistic about your work and its potential market, then you do have a shot. For anyone considering approaching the big name publishers without an agent – don’t. They won’t consider you without one. And to get an agent, Bingham says, is simple – all you have to do is write a “dazzling” book (that word again!) and not be an idiot! Agents receive circa 2000 manuscripts a year, and on average, will only pick up two of those to promote to publishers. So the competition is intense. Write that dazzling book, get proper editorial feedback on it before you send it to an agent (as an editor and an agent are not the same being), and write a good covering letter which is professional and doesn’t contains gimmicks.

Ben Cameron from Smith Publicity gave us tips on how to create an effective marketing strategy, which very kindly pointed out the importance of bloggers!  Like all the speakers, he highlighted the importance of getting a book professionally designed and using editorial services to make your book as good as it can be. He also stressed that it’s vital to identify your readers and what media they consume, and provided good tips on how to use press releases, reviews and social media. The latter is not a replacement for traditional publicity – “followers” or “friends” do not equal sales – and should be used appropriately and not exclusively. He emphasised that publicity is the pitch not the product, and helped to demystify the element of self-publishing that is perhaps most daunting to writers.

I didn’t get to attend every session, but in those I did get to and the plenary with the speakers’ panel, it was a pleasure to hear all the experts share a little of their expertise and experience and to network with writers who are all on their own unique journeys into this realm. Self-publishing has perhaps been unfairly lumped in with vanity publishing, and the idea that “self-published” equals “rubbish” was roundly booted up the backside by all involved. It’s increasingly being seen as a positive choice, an opportunity to open up the landscape of creativity by diverging from narrow mainstream trends and reductive market forces. It’s clearly not an easy option – you get back what you put in, but with professional support and advice it’s a very viable option for many good books that otherwise would never be shared with the wider world. It’s definitely here to stay.

With thanks to Troubador Publishing (www.troubador.co.uk) for organising this excellent event, and a plug for the next conference on 30th March  2014 – don’t miss it, and bookmark the website at www.selfpublishingconference.org.uk!

Kindling confusion… (1)

06 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by Anniseed in Musings

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E-readers, Technology

Okay so I admit it – I’m finally contemplating getting an e-reader. This is embarrassing because I’ve insisted for the last few years that a) I would hate reading on one, and b) they were a temporary craze – the reading equivalent of clackers. My boss called me a Luddite recently because I claimed I would never buy one. I think I might still be right about my first point, and as to the second, well, I think they will be superseded in a few years by the next generation iPads or something similar that does “everything”, as teenagers do seem reluctant to adopt a dedicated device. But this week I’m having a few second thoughts.

An e-reader will never replace print books for me. Every book is individually designed – and the cover, paper quality, font and format are as much a part of the sensuality of the reading experience for me as the actual words. Pixels just don’t cut it when you’re curled up on the sofa with Wuthering Heights – it has to be my 1929 hardback edition, with its foxed paper and musty smell. My copy of The French Lieutenant’s Woman has to be exactly the copy I bought from W.H. Smith’s to study for my A-Level English exam. I admit to shamelessly choosing books for their covers. And I can’t resist the temptation of an antiquarian book fair, with the name of previous owners of editions inscribed carefully inside the cover; my copy of Shelley’s Poetical Works was presented to one Frank Birch as a 1st Class Prize at Easter 1880, by Superintendent Isaiah Farren, and later became the property of Doris Birch (his daughter?) in 1914. My copy of The Toynbee Convector would be meaningless without Ray Bradbury’s autograph on the flyleaf. And Benjamin Zephaniah wouldn’t have been able to sign my copy of Propa Propaganda if it was on an e-reader. Ultimately, nothing beats browsing the fiction section in a library or bookshop – online just isn’t the same.

But I’ve noticed a lot over the last few months that whenever I’m looking for a book on a specific topic on Amazon (usually non-fiction), I’ll find something that sounds perfect for my needs, to find that it’s only available in a Kindle edition. (At which point I shout a lot at my laptop and Amos – the cat -decides it’s safer to be elsewhere). And the pricing difference is sometimes remarkable. Also, as I meet more new writers, they’re often self-publishing books that sound right up my street, but only in e-format. It’s frustrating for laggards like me.

I can get behind the idea of an e-reader for three reasons – holidays (I read so much and so fast it’s a big issue when I’m packing); storage (my landing is a health and safety nightmare with its piles of books that I trip over every morning as I blearily make my way to the bathroom); and study (some textbooks are just ridiculously heavy – the irony of medical textbooks that give you a hernia). But in terms of reading for pleasure in everyday life, I’ve resisted all attempts to sway me.

Last year I gave in and bought a smart phone, something else I never thought I’d need. It’s great that I can now check my emails, get directions, mooch on Facebook and do lots of other distracting activity all the time. I can’t get the damn thing to make a phone call, but it’s the extras, right? I now find I can’t live without it, or leave it alone for more than a few minutes at a time. I’ve become one of those irritating people who are constantly communicating with the world at large through their phone when they should be paying attention to the people they’re actually with. But as the phone does give me massive headaches, I think I may have to go cold turkey for a bit.

No way am I going to abandon print for a piece of bland plastic. But over the next few weeks I am going to look at how I might use an e-reader for a small proportion of my reading. I can’t imagine I’ll be a total convert to the idea, but it might have a place. I don’t think the e-revolution is going to go into reverse any time yet, so this Luddite might have to learn to adapt and survive.

(Oh, and my friend Theresa just might win a bet!)

What You Read is Who You Are

21 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by Anniseed in Book News, Musings

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Reading, Research

I was heartened but not at all suprised on reading the report in The Bookseller which found that children and young people still enjoy reading print books – http://www.thebookseller.com/news/children-still-prefer-reading-physical-books-finds-scholastic.html. The report by Scholastic found that although e-books are on the rise amongst 6-17 year-olds in the USA, the attachment to hard copy remains.

As a school librarian I carried out my own survey a few years ago and there was a distinct lack of interest in e-books amongst my students, much to my surprise at the time. What, you don’t want gadgets?! Well, no, the students didn’t. They wanted more books. I think the report is right in identifying sharing as an important factor, but with young adults there is also that ever-so-important factor of demonstrating who you are to your peers by showing what you’re reading. Lugging about War and Peace or a dog-eared copy of Fifty Shades of Grey makes a certain social statement! And this is an important part of asserting your belonging to a group – or your rejection of one. (I see a similar behaviour amongst my fellow passengers on the commuter train every day.) An e-reader is also a statement, but a rather bland one, really.

What you read is who you are.

Interestingly the comments on this Bookseller post have raised the argument that reading is a predominantly female activity. The young adult novelist David Almond has risen to the bait to refute this and I totally agree with him; there were always far more boys in my library than girls, and more boys asked me to buy particular books for them; they also talked more about what they read.

One of my favourite moments as a librarian was when I was visiting another college to “booktalk” to fourteen-year-olds. I read extracts from some of my favourite books, and the sessions had gone very well. But as I was leaving, crossing the playground I saw two big boys beating up a smaller one. They saw me and stopped.

“Hey, miss, you’re that library lady. What was that book you were on about? The one with all the swearing and fighting?”

Me: “Oh, er, it was (un)arranged marriage by Bali Rai.”

“Cool, let’s get to the library and get a copy before they’re all gone!” And off they ran, to the relief of their victim (and me, as they were much bigger than me too!).

See, reading is good for you.

Just before I left that job, I asked my students to write me a list of the books they thought everyone should read. We had a long debate about what to call this list and came up with:

50 BOOKS THAT THE “DIFFERENTLY INSANE” SHOULD READ BEFORE THEY DIE

And here it is.

  1. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  2. Fullmetal Alchemist (series) by Hiromu Arakawa
  3. Foundation (series) by Isaac Asimov
  4. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
  5. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
  6. Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
  7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  8. Thomas the Tank Engine by W. Awdry
  9. The Culture (series) by Iain M. Banks
  10. The Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop
  11. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  12. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
  13. The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks
  14. Digital Fortress by Dan Brown
  15. Inception by Dan Brown
  16. The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter
  17. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
  18. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
  19. Nevermore by Kelly Creagh
  20. Anything by Jasper Fforde
  21. QI: The Book of General Ignorance by Stephen Fry, John Lloyd and John Mitchinson
  22. Sandman (series) by Neil Gaiman
  23. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
  24. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
  25. Dune by Frank Herbert
  26. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
  27. Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
  28. Anything by Stephen King
  29. Kick-Ass by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr
  30. Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
  31. How Not to Write a Novel by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman
  32. Scott Pilgrim (series) by Brian Lee O’Malley
  33. Eragon by Christopher Paolini
  34. Discworld (series) by Terry Pratchett
  35. His Dark Materials (series) by Philip Pullman
  36. (un)arranged Marriage by Bali Rai
  37. Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve
  38. Harry Potter (series) by J.K. Rowling
  39. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
  40. Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
  41. Edge Chronicles (series) by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
  42. Dracula by Bram Stoker
  43. A Note of Madness by Tabitha Suzuma
  44. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
  45. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
  46. Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
  47. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
  48. Lemming the Lemming and the Tube of Doom (unpublished) by Max
  49. The Bible
  50. A Dictionary in every language
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