The Library Book

by Anita Anand

  Now I’ve become the writer I dreamt of being, and today libraries are just as important to me as they’ve always been. No amount of internet research or fancy website design can replace the simple and effective value of a well-stocked reference library or archive. No e-reader will ever replace the beauty of a fully formed, 3-D book. Technology has its place, but it would not even exist without books and libraries. I love the feel and smell of libraries. That magic, that power with which they entranced me as a child, will never fade. To steal Barack Obama’s line again, the first time I stepped across that ‘magic threshold’, my life changed forever. For that I will always be truly grateful.

  LIBRARIES ROCK!

  ANN CLEEVES

  When I was growing up, the only books we owned were a fat and disintegrating copy of the complete works of Shakespeare and an equally ancient Palgrave’s Golden Treasury. We didn’t live near a town with a bookshop and it was way before Amazon. Besides, it would never have occurred to my parents to spend money on books. Still, we were a family of readers, a library family. We talked about books. The Saturday morning visit to the library was a ritual, as much a part of our lives as Sunday morning church. The librarian was Mrs Macgregor. All those years ago and I still remember her name, although those of my teachers are long forgotten. Mrs Macgregor turned me into a crime writer. She introduced me to Enid Blyton, and then to Malcolm Saville, mysteries with chases and pace and surprise endings. She remembered which titles I’d read and saved copies of those I hadn’t under the counter, producing them, like a magician’s rabbit from a hat as I walked through the door. So a visit to the library was a treat and an excitement, an almost theatrical experience. It provided colour and wonder in the drab post-war years of the ’50s and early ’60s.

  And that’s what we need from our libraries now: excitement and passion and the thrill of finding an author new to us. Those people who grew up with shelves of their own books missed out on the pleasure of communal reading, of discussing and sharing, of discovery in a public space. They see libraries as dull and rather worthy places. Worth keeping, of course, but not really for them, not for the people who get sent proof copies or who can afford to check the internet and buy the books they’ve seen reviewed in the broadsheets. (I’d love to know how many politicians, council members and professional writers, those who talk about libraries and make policies about them, actually belong to their local branch …)

  I have a vested interest of course. Without the support of libraries I wouldn’t be published today. There would be no Vera on the television, no Shetland Quartet. If libraries hadn’t bought my early novels I’d have been dumped by my publisher long ago – nobody else much was buying them! Libraries can take a chance on new authors and support mid-listers, they can buy in short fiction and books in translation. Rather than the grey and dreary institutions of public perception, these should be places of innovation and experiment, where readers can take a chance on a book, pick one because they like the look of the cover or the title or because they see it returned by the gorgeous young man who lives in their street. After all, they have absolutely nothing to lose. The book will be free.

  They should also be places of debate and disagreement. Most libraries now host reading groups. They are safe and democratic spaces for people to come together. A reader in a group in North Tyneside once said to me: ‘Eh, pet, I’m greedy for reading.’ She had no formal education, but she came alive in the sessions, taking a delight in disagreeing with the majority view, in championing a book which everyone else dismissed as trash. Supported by library authorities, I’ve set up reading groups in prisons, in rural pubs, in the Alaskan bush and at very literary literature festivals. In all these settings I’ve been recommended titles I would never choose for myself but which have, in a small way, changed my life.

  The libraries I love best are the ones that encourage readers to take this sort of chance. I worked for a while in Huddersfield Library and there staff regularly pulled books from their normal alphabetical order – the Dewey Decimal System still remains a complete mystery to me though I worked there for five years – and set up what they called the Serendipity Collection. This was a place to browse, to come upon a book to suit my mood, to fall for a new author. In the Serendipity Collection I chanced on my first example of contemporary translated crime fiction, The Depths of the Forest by Eugenio Fuentes. I loved it and I’ve been hooked on Euro-crime ever since.

  Some say that the internet has taken the place of the library. We can browse the web, read bookish blogs, tweet bookish tweets. But we can’t pick up the book. We can’t take it away and read it for free. And there’s something sadly solitary and second-hand about the electronic experience of choosing books. It needed Mrs Macgregor, with her grey hair and her magician’s smile and her vicarious enjoyment of my reading adventures, to capture my imagination and set me on my way.

  But perhaps today’s young people are too sophisticated to be captivated in the same way by books? Perhaps reading is too passive for them and there are other, more exciting interests to capture their imaginations? I don’t think that’s true at all. Back in Huddersfield we ran a thriving family reading group, where parents and carers and their children carved time out of their busy lives to share their enthusiasms. And reading isn’t in competition with the other arts; it’s essential to their understanding. Stories and ideas spark all forms of creativity and still books hold most of our stories and ideas.

  One Sunday, Huddersfield Central Library opened its doors just for teenagers. We called the project ‘Teenage Kicks’. We weren’t sure how many young people would turn up but the response was astonishing. We attracted boys and girls of all kinds: moody, angst-ridden adolescents, the shy, the exhibitionist and the rebellious. That day they met writers, explored books through music and drama and painting. At the end of the day we invited comments. One girl wrote: Libraries rock!

  Of course they do, but they will only rock if there’s money to buy new books, to provide training so staff will have the confidence to interact with readers, to employ passionate, newly qualified librarians. Without money, libraries become sad and tired. Without an adequate book fund, the new authors get left out, so does the quirky, the innovative, the difficult. And if libraries don’t support these writers, publishers won’t commission them. Without money, libraries are tempted to buy what is certain to issue – and that’s the material that you can find in every supermarket, the bestsellers, the easily promoted. Libraries aren’t supermarkets; they’re places of cultural importance, where magic happens and where dreams begin. Or at least they should be.

  THE FIVE-MINUTE RULE

  JULIE MYERSON

  I wrote my first novel when I was thirteen. It was about some lions who escaped from Africa to settle in Kensington (a place I had never been to but liked the sound of). It filled two slim exercise books and was (I thought) rather brilliant. I sent it off to Jonathan Cape, asking if they could publish it in time for Christmas, so my friends could buy it. They said they couldn’t publish it at all, but that they hoped to hear from me later in my career. My career! I was in heaven.

  I began a new novel Samantha (well, hadn’t Daphne du Maurier done okay with Rebecca?) and sent the first few extremely derivative chapters off to the woman herself. She was generous (or foolish) enough to write back – igniting a brief and touching correspondence that only fed my crazed self-belief. Meanwhile after school, I’d rush over to the County Library on Angel Row where, tucked away in an upstairs cubicle – I still remember the smell of unwashed men’s trousers because it was also where the tramps came in to get warm – I’d spend hours pouring over The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook. That book, with its lists of agents and publishers, a practical, informed link to a world I could only dream of belonging to, was a source of intense and reliable inspiration to me.

  I continued to dream, but real life (university, first job, love, babies) intervened, and at twenty-nine there I suddenly was with a home, a partner, one child born an
d another on the way. Panic set in. I had all of this and I still hadn’t written a novel.

  I was on maternity leave when, encouraged by my partner – who knew me well enough to know I would never be happy until I had at least completed one book – I sat down at an old Amstrad in our spare room. I had nothing in my head except a vague, disturbing image of a pregnant woman who had seen a ghost. I also had an aching back, a baby who cried to be fed, and a friend’s advice ringing in my ears: tell yourself you’re going to set aside five minutes a day. If you can’t do more, don’t worry. But never let a day go by without doing your five minutes.

  It was good advice. Eighteen months – and another baby – later, I had written Sleepwalking. I had no idea whether it was publishable or not, but I knew I’d taken the first step towards being a writer: I’d actually written something. I went straight back to The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook and sent it out to four agents. One was on holiday, one never replied, two immediately wanted to take me on. A month later, I had publishers in several countries and a substantial two-book contract which meant I could give up the day job. I still look back on that time and feel dizzy.

  But when unpublished writers come now and ask me for advice, I find it hard to know what to say. Because in their quiet, heartfelt determination all I really see is myself. Every published writer has their own story, their own superstitions, rituals and systems, their individual, moments of serendipity. Every published writer remembers, with a little snag of worry, exactly how it felt not to be published, not even to know if you ever would be. So all I can tell you is what worked for me:

  The five-minute rule is a good one. Of course you almost always end up writing for longer, but – especially for those with family and work commitments – it is gloriously undaunting. It somehow helps you scale that initial terrifying cliffface of ‘where will I ever find the time?’

  When you’re writing your first novel, don’t torment yourself by reading Updike, Murdoch, Rushdie. Read only first novels. When they’re brilliant, then it’s liberating, exciting, inspiring. And when they aren’t, well, believe me, it’s also pretty inspiring. If this is publishable, then so is mine …

  Hold on to your self-belief. Convincing yourself is half the battle. I decided to be a writer when, aged nine, I noticed that Shakespeare’s work was really a little bit like mine. When, at thirteen, I wrote off to Daphne du Maurier, it was less for advice, more to trumpet myself as a fellow author. And if someone had told me all those years ago as I sat among the unwashed men and fantasised, that one day I’d be a proper enough author to be asked to write introductions to other people’s books? Yes, I would have gasped in astonishment. But another secret part of me would have thought: But of course!

  Lastly, and maybe most importantly, no excuses, don’t put it off. There is no right moment, no perfect computer, no point whatsoever in waiting for a sabbatical, or for your kids to grow up, or even (big myth) for inspiration to strike. Ideas don’t come from somewhere mysterious and magical. They come from a blank page or screen, a willingness to sit alone for hours and spend time in your own head, a desire to make something where there was once nothing. In other words, it’s amazing how often people seem to forget the final, most obvious rule: the only way to be a writer is to write. Start now. Good luck!

  P.S. And Cape did hear from me later in my career. I’m pleased to say they now publish my fiction.

  IF YOU TOLERATE THIS …

  NICKY WIRE

  It’s hard not to feel utterly despondent at the current plight of public libraries. Along with the NHS and the BBC, our libraries are some of the few truly remarkable British institutions left. So often absolutely ordinary in appearance, a good library should offer escape routes down the most extraordinary avenues, pathways into different worlds from the one you’ve left outside. Ridding our villages, towns and cities of libraries, which are essential in shaping a nation’s consciousness, seems like a direct attack on the soul of the country.

  Libraries have always reassuringly been there when I’ve needed them. Blackwood Library in Wales helped me through my O- and A-levels. They have given my parents decades of pleasure, satiating their desire to read and learn. This country’s greatest ever poet and one of the biggest influences on my life and work, Philip Larkin, was – of course – a librarian. My wife Rachel worked as a librarian across all the branches in Newport. My brother Patrick worked in Blackwood Library. I remember clearly my mother bringing home a biography of Under the Volcano author Malcolm Lowry during my teenage years. Here was a life that was truly beyond eccentricity, incredibly sad and fucked up. I was wholly drawn to the nihilistic, hyper-intelligent nature of Lowry’s story. That was the turning point that made books so precious to me, part of the transformative process that would eventually make me almost fetishise books themselves. For these and countless other reasons, the public library was a key factor in shaping who I am today.

  There’s a tendency to resort to romantic cliche when talking about libraries; clearly in a digital age they aren’t a ‘sexy’ alternative. Maybe I’m old-fashioned but I still believe that the core of libraries will always be printed words rather than screens or keyboards. In any town or city, you can walk in and pick up the works of T.S. Eliot or Bret Easton Ellis, extremes of taste that you can dip into and thumb through without having anyone nudging you to make a purchase. There really aren’t many things in life that can enrich you for free yet ask for nothing in return.

  As an utterly self-made band, in our formative stages we vociferously consumed high and low culture – magazines, literature and TV. Without money, libraries became something of a lifeline, offering a clear window on to a wider world. In the summer of 2009, the band were honoured to be asked to open the new Cardiff Central Library. For us, it seemed like a chance to give something back to Wales. Seeing one of our lyrics – ‘Libraries gave us power’, from ‘A Design for Life’ – inscribed on the opening plaque was in its own way as affecting as playing the Millennium Stadium.

  That opening line was adapted from an engraving above the entrance to Pill Library in Newport that read ‘Knowledge is power’. The weight of those almost Orwellian words became intertwined with an idea about what the miners had given back to society when they built municipal halls and centres across the country – beautiful-looking institutes that they proudly left for future generations. The lyric was me railing against what I saw as a flippancy pervading the country with the rise of Britpop, a wholesale adoption – and bastardisation – of working-class culture.

  The double life of that song’s opening line is one of the most amazingly serendipitous things that’s happened during the life of the band. I still feel intensely proud when I hear it cited out of the context of the song, like recently when Lauren Laverne dropped it into a brilliant piece of polemic on 10 O’Clock Live.

  At the moment, it really does appear that the establishment is back in control of Britain. After thirty years of semi-pluralistic governance, the establishment is pushing hard its own agenda. When you look at the cabinet, the millionaire’s row in the front benches of Parliament looks like a very public-school coup. One of the most amazing things about public libraries remains their utter classlessness. You don’t have to have gone to Eton to make the most out of a library. They aren’t inhabited by the kind of people currently damning them. The closure of libraries in conjunction with tuition fees and the radical reorganisation of the NHS are symbolic of the blatant power grab of this fiasco of a government. There is a way of solving these problems – it’s called higher taxation of the wealthiest 10 per cent of the country. In the ’90s, I’d have gladly included myself in that bracket.

  We need to cherish these things while they still exist. Seek solace, seek knowledge. Seek power.

  (Nicky Wire was interviewed by Robin Turner.)

  LIBRARY LIFE

  ZADIE SMITH

  Sometimes people ask me if I am from a bookish family. I find it a difficult question to answer. One answer would be n
o, not in the traditional sense. My father left school at thirteen and my mother at sixteen. But another answer is: Christ, yes, they really were. Like a lot of working-class English people, in the ’50s and ’60s my father found his cultural life transformed by Allen Lane’s Penguin paperback revolution. Now anyone could read Camus or D.H. Lawrence or Maupassant, for no more than the price of a pack of fags. So he bought these books and read them, and then spent the rest of his life boasting about all those books he’d read back in the ’50s and ’60s. I think he read to prove that his class had not succeeded in wholly defining him, and when he’d proved that, he stopped reading. My mother is a different story. When my father met my mother, his mildly aspirational reading met with the force of her determined autodidacticism. Pretty much the only place my parents’ marriage could be considered a match made in heaven was on their bookshelves.

  I grew up in a council estate off Willesden Lane, a small flat decorated with books. Hundreds of them on my father’s makeshift shelves, procured almost entirely by my mother. I never stopped to wonder where she got them from, given the tightness of money generally – I just read them. A decade later we moved to a maisonette on Brondesbury Park and my mother filled the extra space with yet more books. Books everywhere, arranged in a certain pattern. Second-hand Penguin paperbacks together: green for crime, orange for posh, blue for difficult. Women’s Press books together, Virago books together. Then several shelves of Open University books on social work, psychotherapy, feminist theory. Busy with my own studies, and oblivious in the way children are, I didn’t notice that the three younger Smiths were not the only students in that flat. By the time I did, my mother had a degree. We were reading because our parents and teachers told us to. My mother was reading for her life. About two-thirds of those books had a printed stamp on the inside cover, explaining their provenance: PROPERTY OF WILLESDEN LIBRARY. I hope I am not incriminating my family by saying that during the mid-’80s it seemed as if the Smiths were trying to covertly move the entire contents of Willesden Green Library into their living room. We were chronic library users. I can remember playing a dull game with my brother called ‘Libraries’, in which we forced a crowd of soft toys to take out books from the ‘library’ that was our bedroom. Ben pretended to stamp them (they were of course already stamped) while I lectured some poor panda about late fees. In real life, when it came to fees, I was the worst offender. It was a happy day in our household when my mother spotted a sign pinned to a tree in the high road: WILLESDEN GREEN BOOK AMNESTY. The next day we filled two black bin-bags with books and dragged them down the road. Just in time: I was about to start my GCSEs.