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Rare Books Rescued on Cliff Edge

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 13, 2026| 4 Comments »

Photo: Sicilian Unit of Firefighters.
Firefighters recovered 350 volumes from a library on the edge of a cliff after a January landslide in Sicily tore away an entire slope of town and carved a chasm.

I wonder if firefighters are taught “Don’t look down.” Being a little acrophobic myself, I can hardly imagine how the book rescuers in today’s story kept from getting dizzy. People I know get dizzy just looking at their feet.

Lorenzo Tondo wrote at the Guardian about the mission.

“Firefighters in Sicily have rescued about 400 rare books from a library in Niscemi that hangs on the edge of a mudflow,” Tondo said, “after a devastating landslide in January tore away an entire slope of the town and carved a [2-mile] chasm.

“The library stands on the lip of the precipice gouged out by the landslide, with part of the building in effect hanging in mid-air. The recovery operation … was preceded by a detailed study of floor plans and interior photographs to map the position of the books.

“Firefighters drilled through the wall of a building behind the structure and, entering for minutes at a time, strapped the bookcases together and hauled them backwards to reach the books.

“The library holds about 4,000 books of literature, history and general nonfiction, including a number of rare editions dating from before 1830 on Sicilian history. Among its most precious treasures is a 16th-century book.

“ ‘It was like pulling off a bank heist,’ said Salvatore Cantale, the provincial commander of the fire brigade in Caltanissetta. ‘We had to be quick and try to take away as much as we could.’

“A drone streamed live aerial images to a monitor on the ground, while laser sensors fixed to the section teetering over the drop were used to detect the slightest movement. A separate device monitored vibrations and subtle shifts in the building’s tilt.

“The landslide began on 25 January when the ground started to shift, cracking asphalt and tearing through buildings. Some later collapsed into the void, along with a stretch of road where cars and vans had been parked. More than 1,600 people have been evacuated from the town.

“Many of the volumes remain in the basement, which is considered the most at-risk area. Officials are weighing up the use of robots, though none suitable are available in Niscemi. … Cantale said, ‘The problem is that this building is effectively a single reinforced-concrete structure. If it collapses, it will go all at once.’

“Cantale said the geologists working next to the firefighters expected the landslide’s front to retreat by another 10 to 15 metres, dragging further buildings down the slope with it, including the library.

“He said: ‘According to the geologists, rather than crumbling, the library is more likely to slide downhill as a single block. If that happens, we have already assessed that it may actually be easier to recover the remaining books once it has fallen.’ “

More at the Guardian, here.

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A Kentucky School’s Phone Ban

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 9, 2026| 2 Comments »

Photo: Lydia Schweickart for NPR.
Madelyn Whitt (left) and Quani’e Lanier read in the school library at the Academy @ Shawnee, a magnet middle and high school in Louisville, Kentucky. Does that mean Kentucky’s phone ban is working?

I have my own gripe about cellphones in education — namely, that English language learners often let their phone’s translation app do all the work of writing — but in Kentucky, whole phones are considered enough of a problem to deserve a ban.

Sequoia Carrillo at National Public Radio (NPR) decided to investigate how well the ban was working.

“How do you get teenagers to put their phones away for hours at a time? That is the question many schools are trying to solve as bans on cellphones sweep the U.S. — more than 30 states so far now restrict their use during the school day.

“One of those states is Kentucky, where all public school classes must now be cellphone free. … To see how the policy is working, NPR visited the Academy @ Shawnee, a magnet middle and high school in Louisville.

“Before the restrictions, ‘we didn’t even know the majority of the kids were learning, because they weren’t responding [in class],’ says Hollie Smith, now in her second year as the school’s executive principal. ‘They were just doing things on their phones. … Kids know the expectations now.’

“For one thing, there’s more discourse, she says. Teachers and students feel like they are connecting. Even the cafeteria is a little bit louder — alive with conversations between students disconnected from their screens.

“Even though she finds the initial results positive and encouraging, Smith is under no illusion about what the students think: ‘I think they absolutely hate it. Their phone is their lives — it’s their world.’ …

“The big question, though, here and at thousands of schools around the country, is: Are these bans working? …

“Jefferson County’s ban echoes those in many schools, and it reflects what research points to as the best approach to restricting cellphones in schools. ‘At the end of the day,’ Smith says, ‘we have to do our kids a service. And … they have to be engaged to get the service that we’re providing.’ …

“When the ban went into effect in August, each student received a pouch with their name on it. Immediately, says [Jayden O’Neil, a senior at Shawnee], students began finding hacks to get around the system. ‘Most kids either brought a spare phone or they said they didn’t have a phone,’ she explained.’Or they broke the pouches — they cut them open.’

” ‘People had multiple extra phones,’ added Quani’e Lanier, a fellow senior. Some students brought old phones in to distribute to their friends — decoy phones, Lanier says, to put in the pouches.

“Both students are less than a semester away from graduation and looking forward to moving on. … Both say one of the big problems with the ban is that they feel like adults and should be in charge of their own possessions.

“The new policy has rules and lays out consequences for not following it, including surrendering your phone and a call to parents. But Lanier says those consequences are ‘not enough for people to care.’ …

“As we spoke with students in the library, the bell rang and students began to move between classes. Through the library windows, we could see kids walking and chatting, but a few had headphones on and one had a phone out, taking a selfie video.

“But [Joseph Jolly, a junior and a student aide in the library] said we probably would not see the same behavior in the classroom: ‘They’ve started to actually focus on work, and I think we’ve become more productive because of that.’ …

“The actual policy set forth by the school — that phones must be in their pouches — is widely disregarded, [Joseph Jolly, a junior and a student aide in the library] said. … But he adds that the new restrictions have led to an unspoken agreement: That by mutual consent, students are refraining from using their phones in class and educators are leaving well enough alone.

“Where was his phone? ‘Truth be told, it’s in my pocket right now,’ he said. ‘But … I’m not doing anything though. That’s the thing!’

“Anton Caldwell, Shawnee’s librarian for more than 20 years, says he knew right away the ban was working. The number of students visiting the library increased, and so did the number of books they’re reading. …

“While the ban may not be the sweeping, cold-turkey approach to technology that the district expected, he says it is pushing students to unplug. And there are some books he just cannot keep on the shelf.”

More at NPR, here.

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Afgan Women Read in Secret

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on April 15, 2026| 2 Comments »

Photo: Rukhshana Media.
Every Thursday, five friends come together – one over the phone – to discuss what they’ve been reading. They call their group “women with books and imagination.” Such determination offers hope for Afghanistan. After all, as one of the group says, “If a woman is aware, a family is aware.”

When we were young, it was not unusual to be so enthralled by a book that we would read it with a flashlight at night under the covers, knowing that we could get in trouble. But trouble was never going to be anything much worse than a scolding.

Not so for women in Afghanistan whose reading of forbidden texts is against the law and whose rebellion could ultimately lead to death.

Azada Raha, from Rukhshana Media, reports at the Guardian, “Four young women sit together, waiting for the phone to ring. When the call finally comes, their friend’s voice is crackly and hard to make out, but they wait patiently for the signal to improve so they can start discussing their chosen book.

“Every Thursday, the five friends come together away from the disapproving gaze of the Taliban for a reading circle. They read not for entertainment but, as they put it, to understand life and the world around them. They call their group ‘women with books and imagination.’

“Most of the women in the group meet in person, but Parwana [their names have been changed here], 21, lives in a different district so has to join by phone. She was still a child when the Taliban pulled girls out of education, so didn’t get to finish school. Now, she says, her entire week revolves around books.

“ ‘When they banned us from attending school, I lost all hope. My mother encouraged me, but I knew things wouldn’t improve,’ she says. ‘I decided to do something myself.’ …

“This week, Parwana is leading a discussion on The Year of Turmoil, a novel by the Iranian writer Abbas Maroufi about a young woman named Noushafarin who finds herself trapped in an oppressive marriage. Set against the backdrop of turmoil in mid-20th-century Iran, its themes of repression, faith and patriarchal power resonate strongly with the women. …

“ ‘She represents women who have suffered, who have remained trapped, and who are oppressed by family and society in today’s Afghanistan,’ says Parwana of the character. ‘From the very beginning, I identified with her; it was painful, very painful.’

“Most of the books the five women have discussed since they started the reading circle last June are classics, and most deal with issues of power, suffering, and the place of women. … The works they’ve read include George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Zoya Pirzad’s I Will Turn Off the Lights and Symphony of the Dead, also by Abbas Maroufi.

“Most of the books can be found online and downloaded free, although occasionally they borrow books from libraries.

“They meet every week for an hour-and-a-half at the home of one of the members, varying the location to avoid scrutiny in a country where women’s freedoms have been severely curtailed.

“Parwana sometimes has to climb a hill to get a strong enough internet connection on her phone to download the book they are reading. But it’s worth it, she says, and she has the support of her elder brother, who has told her to keep at it. … ‘The excitement I feel for these sessions is indescribable,’ she says. …

“ ‘Reading has always been an integral part of my life,’ says the group’s coordinator Darya, 25, who was in her third year of a language and literature degree when the Taliban closed universities to women. ‘When I read, I feel as if I’m in another world – the characters, the places, nature. Sometimes I cry with the story, sometimes I laugh. But always, books have given color to my life.’

“Darya says The Year of Turmoil had a particularly strong impact on her. ‘This novel narrates years full of pressure and restriction. … Her situation mirrors the lives of people in today’s Afghanistan – people grappling with educational restrictions, social repression and political pressure. Like the characters in the novel, we keep hope alive through resistance and learning.’

“Roya, another member, explains the purpose of the circle this way: ‘Most women who accept oppression do so because they are unaware of their rights. The books we read are about suffering, choice and standing up to force – things we ourselves live with every day.’

“Morwarid, 22, says many women in Afghanistan resemble Noushafarin, who she sees as ‘trapped between tradition, religious power and social judgment.’

“ ‘She transforms from a silent woman into an aware human being. Her fate shows that, in such an environment, the very desire to choose is a form of resistance,’ says Morwarid, who won a place at Balkh University in northern Afghanistan to study law and political science, but wasn’t able to take it up before the ban was introduced.

“ ‘The very night I was supposed to leave for Balkh, universities were closed to women,’ she says. ‘I cried until morning. Life became dark for me. Through reading and this group, I gradually emerged from that nightmare. … The Taliban fear aware women. To confront the Taliban, one must become aware and grow – all together,’ she says.”

More at the Guardian, here.

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A Library in the Subway

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on November 18, 2025| 4 Comments »

Photo: Biblioteka Publiczna w Dzielnicy Targówek m.st. Warszawy.
A library has opened in a new metro station in Warsaw. 

Fans of libraries know that libraries have a way of popping up in all sorts of unlikely — even inimical — places. If you search on the word at this blog, you will find stories about libraries on horseback, in impoverished countries, in war zones, and wherever people find comfort from reading.

Jakub Krupa reported for the Guardian about a new library in a Polish subway station.

“An ‘express’ library has opened in a new metro station in Warsaw, aiming to provide an appealing cultural space to encourage residents and commuters to forgo smartphones in favor of books and, thanks to fresh herbs growing in a vertical garden, a dash of subterranean greenery too.

“The stylish Metroteka [in] the Kondratowicza M2 line metro station in the Polish capital’s Targówek district offers two reading areas for adults and children, as well as a space for public readings and events.

“About 16,000 books are on offer. … Readers can return them on site or through a street-level parcel locker for books, available 24/7.

“Visitors can study or work in a communal area, borrow a laptop to browse the internet, or simply sit down with a complimentary coffee or hot chocolate to unwind after rush hour travel on the metro. …

” ‘Our dream is for Metroteka to become an educational and cultural centre, and not just a place where you borrow your books from,’ says the deputy director of Targówek library, Grażyna Strzelczak-Batkowska. …

“She says the unique subterranean location brings the library closer to busy commuters, ‘both geographically and in terms of time you need to spend on getting the book.’ …

“More than 400 books were leased on the first day, mostly recommended school readings, as well as travel guides and ‘all sorts of how-to books.’

“The library’s innovative model aims to encourage Poles to read more. The annual survey by the National Library of Poland found that only 41% of respondents had read at least one book in 2024, down from the high 50s in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as people turn to TV, streaming services, and phones for entertainment instead.

“These numbers are higher than in southern Europe, but lower than in the Nordic countries, or even the neighboring Czech Republic, the National Library’s director, Tomasz Makowski, says.

“He says there are historical reasons for it – with Poland losing 70% of libraries in the second world war, ‘we had several generations that did not see their parents or grandparents in front of a wall of books’ – but also cultural as ‘reading is not something associated with adulthood,’ but with ‘schools, teachers, librarians, and usually mothers reading to children.’

“ ‘Opening a library in a metro station is like a dream for us,’ Makowski says, as it challenges that stereotype. ‘Libraries should be beautiful and open; inviting, not intimidating. It’s not a shrine, but a place where you can spend time freely, take part in discussions, public consultations, or meet people,’ he says.

“He says the National Library has also opened a ‘loud’ reading room, breaking with the tradition that such areas need to maintain silence, where ‘no one shushes you or tells you to keep quiet. To our surprise, it’s still pretty quiet, but they also talk, give tutoring, different kinds of lessons.’ ”

Good photos at the Guardian, a free paper, here.

What do you think of the library’s chances? I love the optimism behind this effort but can’t help picturing what the subways I know well are like. Has anyone else commuted to work this way?

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Finns Really Love Their Libraries

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 6, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Oodihelsinki.
Veera the robot on patrol at $116 million Oodi library in Helsinki, Finland. Last year, the average Finn visited libraries nine times and borrowed 15 books. Finns really love libraries.

Whenever I write about libraries, I think of blogger Laurie and the young adult fantasy series she wrote called the Great Library Series. Laurie is someone who appreciates the power of books, the magical power of reading.

Apparently the Finns do, too.

Oliver Moody reports at the Times [of London], “In the €100 million [~$115 million] Oodi library, which looms over central Helsinki like a cruise ship from the future, robots called Tatu, Patu and Veera trundle back and forth between the shelves and the reading rooms.

“Against this backdrop, foreign visitors might be surprised to see how many children and teenagers are engaged in an almost unsettlingly archaic activity: reading and borrowing books. …

“Last year the average Finn visited them nine times and borrowed 15 books, resulting in the highest lending figures for 20 years.

“The appetite for children’s and young adults’ literature has risen to a record for the third year in a row, with a total of 38 million loans in 2024. That works out at about 40 books or other pieces of material, such as audiobooks, for each person under the age of 18. …

“Even by the standards of a country that is often ranked as the most literate on the planet, the numbers are remarkable. In Britain, the total number of loans has fallen to less than half of what it was at the turn of the millennium, despite a tentative recovery in the wake of the pandemic, and about 40 libraries a year are closing.

“Visits to German public libraries are still about a fifth lower than they were before the advent of Covid-19 and about one in five of them has shut down over the past decade.

“The most obvious explanation for the phenomenon is that Finland values its libraries and invests accordingly. The state spends about €60 [~$70] per capita on the public library system each year, approximately four times as much as the UK and six times as much as Germany.

“Where other countries rely on corporate skyscrapers or shopping centers for their visions of architectural modernity, Finland often looks to its libraries, such as Oodi and Vallila in Helsinki, the main Metso library in Tampere, or the revered 20th-century designer Alvar Aalto’s projects in Rovaniemi and Seinajoki.

“They have traditionally served as engines of social mobility and integration. Erkki Sevanen, professor of literature at the University of Eastern Finland, grew up in a working-class family in Eura, a thinly populated district of villages 110 miles to the northwest of Helsinki.

“ ‘My parents and relatives did not used to read books, but there was a fine and well-equipped public library in our home village,’ he said. ‘It opened a whole world of classical literature and philosophy for me in the 1960s and 1970s.’

“Sevanen said the public libraries were a significant part of the reason he had ultimately pursued a university career, and that today they perform a similar function for immigrants to Finland. …

“The roots of this culture predate Finland’s independence in 1918. Like large parts of Scandinavia and continental northern Europe, it was profoundly influenced by Lutheran Protestantism and its insistence that each individual should engage with the texts of scripture for themselves.

“ ‘The ability to read was a requirement for everyone who wanted to get married. To demonstrate their reading skills, people were tested at church gatherings,’ said Ulla Richardson, professor of technology-enhanced language learning at the University of Jyvaskyla.

“The movement gathered steam in the 19th century, when Finland was a semi-autonomous duchy in the Russian empire and the new public libraries were focal points for an emerging sense of national identity.

“They remain important hubs for Finnish society, providing a space in which people can be alone and together at the same time. ‘Many Finns tend to consider libraries almost as sanctuaries,’ Richardson said.

“Alongside computers and internet access, they offer board games, video games, musical instruments, sewing machines, seasonal theatre passes and even sports equipment in some cases. These services are particularly valued by families with straitened financial means, who might not otherwise be able to afford school textbooks or other media.

“ ‘The libraries are spaces that children and teens can access freely, especially if they don’t have other places to go,’ said Richardson. ‘These days we also have self-service libraries open when there are no personnel working.’ ” More at the Times, here.

The point about libraries helping immigrants acclimate reminds me that when I was still volunteering onsite instead of online (before Covid), we would take classes of immigrants to the nearest public library in Providence and explain how to get a library card.

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Poison Books

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 28, 2025| 6 Comments »

Photo: University of St Andrews.
Books bound with potentially toxic green covers. 

With all the benighted book banning going on these days, you would think that the vigilantes had learned the written word would land people in the hospital. But reading is not lethal, and thinking about new ideas won’t kill anyone.

Having said that, I admit there is some reading material that may be dangerous to touch. Ella Creamer reports at the Guardian that “arsenic was historically mixed with copper to create a vivid green for book covers.”

“A new tool to quickly identify books that are poisonous to humans has been developed by the University of St Andrews,” Creamer writes. Historically, publishers used arsenic mixed with copper to achieve a vivid emerald green color for book covers. While the risk to the public is ‘low,’ handling arsenic-containing books regularly can lead to health issues including irritation of the eyes, nose and throat along with more serious side-effects. The toxic pigment in the book bindings can flake off, meaning small pieces can easily be inhaled.

“In recent years, many libraries have prevented access to all suspect green books as a precaution, as testing has until now been costly and time-consuming. … The new device can quickly and cheaply detect the presence of toxic pigment.

“ ‘A device used in the School of Earth Sciences to detect minerals in rocks was the starting point,’ said Pilar Gil, who led the research. ‘The Eureka moment was discovering the unique reflectance pattern from emerald green pigment in the visible spectrum. The idea was then to apply this discovery to an instrument which we could use and share with the sector.’

“Two scientists from the university’s astronomy and physics school, Graham Bruce and Morgan Facchin, developed a portable tool. ‘Our device shines different colors of light on to the book,’ said Facchin. ‘The amount of light reflected at each color is like a fingerprint of the pigment in the book.’ …

“The handheld device can screen books to test for the pigment in a fraction of a second. ‘Our team has been asked to look at thousands of books, of which more than 100 have been identified as containing emerald green pigment,’ said Bruce.

“At St Andrews, emerald green books are stored in Ziploc polythene bags. ‘When the books are used, we check first if there are any other copies available which are not bound in emerald green,’ reads the university’s website. ‘If not, the book is handled with special precautions such as the use of nitrile gloves.’ …

“ ‘The retention of green books from public view is not only a matter of safety, but it also restricts access to the information contained,’ said conservator Erica Kotze, who instigated the project. ‘This means that the books which have been tested and found not to contain the pigment can remain available to users.’

“A free exhibition exploring the project, Poisonous books – Dangers from the past, is running at the Wardlaw Museum in St Andrews until the end of July.”

More at the Guardian, here. No paywall, but please consider donating to support factual news.

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Bookshop Plus Cats

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on June 10, 2025| 5 Comments »

Photos: The Literary Cat Co.
Since Literary Cat Co. opened in Kansas about a year and a half ago, 32 of the store’s foster cats have been adopted by bookstore customers.

Today’s story is about a business in Kansas that meets two very different goals at the same time — and makes a lot of people in the community happy.

Sydney Page reports at the Washington Post, “At a bookstore in this Kansas town, three cats are on the full-time staff. Hank, a domestic longhaired cat, is the ‘regional manager.’ His job duties involve keeping track of the computer cursor and ‘sleeping in adorable positions 22 hours a day,’ according to the bookstore website.

“ ‘He’s the boss of this place,’ said Jennifer Mowdy, owner of the Literary Cat Co. in Pittsburg, Kansas — a bookstore that doubles as a cat lounge and feline foster home.

“Scarlett Toe’Hara, a black short-haired cat, who is polydactyl — meaning she has extra toes — is the ‘assistant (to the) regional manager.’ She is the front door guard, plant inspector and treat tester.

“Mike Meowski — a domestic longhaired cat with one eye, named after Mike Wazowski in Monster’s Inc. — is ‘assistant (to the assistant to the) regional manager.’ His role involves cuddling guests and quality control for boxes. …

“Mowdy opened the store in 2023 after 17 years as an educator. While teaching, Mowdy volunteered with animal rescues and fostered cats. She also loved bookstores. …

” ‘I decided I could do it; I could create something,’ Mowdy said.

“There are typically about seven cats — in addition to Hank, Scarlett and Mike — who live in the bookstore as foster cats. They’re ‘temporary staff,’ and Mowdy’s goal is for her customers to adopt them.

“ ‘We partner with a rescue, and when they get a cat that they think has a personality that would fit, or they haven’t been successful in adopting a cat through other means,’ she said. ‘If we have the room, we take them in.’ … The cats come from SEK Animal Advocates, a local rescue network. …

“Lori Seiwert and her husband adopted a brother-sister duo from the Literary Cat Co. shortly after it opened. The cats are named Frog and Toad after the picture book. …

“Frog, who is male, and Toad, who is female, turned 2 in February. Seiwert said she and her husband often stop by the store to visit Mowdy and play with the other cats.

“ ‘It’s a nice thing for such a small community,’ she said. ‘It’s very homey.’

“Most cats are adopted within six months of arriving at the bookstore, though some find homes much faster; others have stayed for up to a year. …

“Mowdy looks after the cats with Caitlin Fanning, a bookseller. They also have a volunteer who visits the store on Sundays and Mondays when it is closed to feed the cats and care for them.

“The bookstore is near Pittsburg State University, so college students often bring their own books to study there and snuggle some cats.

“ ‘We’ve got lots of cozy chairs and reading nooks,’ Mowdy said. ‘Lots of people don’t buy anything, they just come and play with the cats. That’s perfectly okay. We need to get the cats socialized, too.’ …

“The bookstore has become an environment for shy or unsocialized cats to get comfortable around people. …

“Before leaving work for the day, ‘we just make sure everybody is fed and watered, and anybody that needs meds gets them,’ Mowdy said. ‘We tell them goodnight and don’t cause any trouble, and we see them in the morning.’ …

“As far as books go, the Literary Cat Co. carries a wide range of authors and genres.”

This bookstore sounds like a place that “shy or unsocialized” humans could make friends, too, but I can’t help wondering how long a bookshop can last if it doesn’t matter that “lots of people don’t buy anything”!

More at the Post, here. Lots of pictures.

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Stealthy Cold War Lit

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on April 9, 2025| 2 Comments »

 Illustration: Eleanor Shakespeare/Bridgeman Images/The Guardian.

Of course, it couldn’t happen here, right? As we children always said during the time of the Cold War when someone opposed us, “It’s a free country!” And if we had applied that to reading material, we would have known we could read whatever we wanted. No need to smuggle anything in.

Well, what would that be like? In an edited extract from Charlie English’s book about Poland, The Best Kept Secret of the Cold War, the Guardian gives us an idea.

“The volume’s glossy dust jacket shows a 1970s computer room, where high priests of the information age, dressed in kipper ties and flares, tap instructions into the terminals of some ancient mainframe. The only words on the front read ‘Master Operating Station,’ ‘Subsidiary Operating Station’ and ‘Free Standing Display.’ Is any publication less appetizing than an out-of-date technical manual?

“Turn inside, however, and the book reveals a secret. It isn’t a computer manual at all, but a Polish language edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell’s famous anti-totalitarian novel, which was banned for decades by communist censors in the eastern bloc.

“This copy lives now in the library of Warsaw University, but for much of the cold war it belonged to the Polish writer and dissident Teresa Bogucka. It was Teresa’s father, the art critic Janusz Bogucki, who first brought it to Poland. In 1957, during a window of liberalization that opened after Stalin’s death, Janusz picked up the Orwell translation from a Polish bookshop in Paris, smuggled it back through the border and gave it to his daughter. Teresa was only 10 or 11 years old then, but she was a precocious reader, and recognized the ways in which communist Poland mirrored Orwell’s fictional dystopian state. …

“Years later, in 1976, when Bogucka joined the emerging Polish opposition movement, she decided to create a library of books that had bypassed the state censor, and donated her own small collection, including this Nineteen Eighty-Four. The SB security service, Poland’s KGB, kept continual watch on her, eavesdropping on her conversations, arresting her and searching her apartment, so she asked neighbors to store the forbidden books. Much of the time, though, they would be circulating among readers, since this would be a ‘Flying Library,’ which rarely touched the  ground.

“Bogucka’s system of covert lending ran through a network of coordinators, each of whom was responsible for their own tight group of readers. She sorted the books into categories – politics, economics, history, literature – and divided them into packages of 10, before allocating each coordinator a particular day to pick up their parcel, which they carried away in a rucksack. The coordinator would drop the books back the following month at a different address, before picking up a new set.

“The demand for Bogucka’s books was such that soon she needed more, and these could only come from the west. Activist friends passed word to London, where émigré publishers arranged shipments of 30 or 40 volumes at a time, smuggling them through the iron curtain aboard the sleeper trains that shuttled back and forth between Paris and Moscow, stopping in Poland along the way. By 1978, Teresa Bogucka’s Flying Library had a stock of 500 prohibited titles.

“How many people read her copy of Orwell’s book in those crucial cold war years? Hundreds, probably thousands. And this was just one of millions of titles that arrived illegally in Poland at that time. As well as via trains, books arrived by every possible conveyance: aboard yachts; in secret compartments built into vans and trucks; by balloon; in the post. Mini-editions were slipped into the sheet music of touring musicians, or packed into food tins or Tampax boxes. In one instance, a copy of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago was carried on a flight to Warsaw hidden in a baby’s nappy.

“What some in the east suspected, but very few knew for sure, was that the uncensored literature flooding the country wasn’t reaching Poles by chance. It was sent as part of a decades-long US intelligence operation, known in Washington as the ‘CIA book program,’ designed, in the words of the program’s leader, George Minden, to assault the eastern bloc with an ‘offensive of free, honest thinking.’ Minden believed that ‘truth is contagious,’ and if they could only deliver it to the oppressed peoples of the Soviet zone, it was certain to have an effect.

“From today’s vantage point, when disinformation threatens western liberal democracy as never before, and censorship and book bans are once again turning schools and libraries into ideological battlegrounds, the CIA literary programs appear almost quaint.

Although they had political goals, they must rank among the most highbrow of psychological warfare operations.

“Along with copies of the Manchester Guardian Weekly and the New York Review of Books, the CIA sent works by blacklisted authors such as Boris Pasternak, Czesław Miłosz and Joseph Brodsky, anti-totalitarian writings by Hannah Arendt and Albert Camus, literary fiction from Philip Roth and Kurt Vonnegut, writing advice from Virginia Woolf, the plays of Václav Havel and Bertolt Brecht, and the spy thrillers of John le Carré.

“Later, as well as smuggling books, the CIA would fund and ship presses and printing equipment into Poland, so that the banned titles could be reproduced in huge quantities by underground printers in situ. Few individuals were more central to these latter operations than the dissident publisher Mirosław Chojecki, known to the CIA by the cryptonym QRGUIDE.

“On a Tuesday evening in March 1980, the police came to arrest Chojecki for the 43rd time.”

Exciting stuff! Read more at the Guardian, here. No firewall.

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A Town Builds Its Future on Books

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 29, 2025| 3 Comments »

Photo: Gerry Hadden/The World.
The town of Libros, in northeastern Spain, has a population of 60.

What are you reading?

Sometimes that question is my way of greeting someone: “Hi. What are your reading?”

Books are so important to me, I make the mistake of assuming they’re important to everyone. Right now I’m reading Fresh Water for Flowers, recommended by Suzanne, who liked the French bestseller (translated) about a woman who was a cemetery caretaker.

Books are important to a town in Spain, too. How could they not be, with a name like Libros? And now the town is now planning to rebuild its economy on the back of books.

Gerry Hadden has the story at Public Radio International’s The World.

“On a typical winter’s day in the village of Libros, in northeastern Spain, about the most exciting thing that happens is the hourly ringing of the church bell, which startles flocks of pigeons living in the belfry. …

“Libros has a population of 60. But once upon a time, some 2,500 people lived here. The majority of residents worked on farms, or in the nearby sulphur mines, which closed in the 1950s. But like lots of villages in the Teruel region, most of the older population has died off over the years, while the young emigrated, said Arana, who is an electrician by trade. …

“To attract newcomers, Arana thinks the key to the town’s salvation is in its name: Libros translates to ‘books,’ and he wants to open the town’s first ever library. 

“The library’s location has yet to be determined, but Arana has already started building its collection. A year ago in June, Arana made a plea for book donations on social media with the hashtag, Libros para Libros, or ‘Books for Books,’ which went viral.

“Since then, over 70,000 volumes — including novels, kids’ books, nonfiction and encyclopedias — have poured in from all over the world — from Argentina to Germany. Twelve boxes alone came in from Mexico.

“At one point, Arana said, the postman was coming by so many times a day that they gave him a key to town hall. Books were piled up all over the building, to the point where Arana could barely reach his office. So, late last year, he worked with volunteers to move a bunch of the books to a warehouse. …

“Adrian Soriano, 37, the town’s handyman, pointed to a big, red shipping container on the edge of town. It was filled to the ceiling with books.

“Arana said that he paid $3,000 for the container, money the tiny town can’t spare. And this is where the success and euphoria of the online book drive meets the economic realities of a small village.

“ ‘Now, we just need the library itself,’ Arana said. ‘The regional government likes the idea. But they say it will cost some $4 million to build it. We don’t have the money, but I am sure we’ll find it.’

“Arana said that they’ll apply for funds from the European Union if need be. His idea is to combine the library with a hotel to pay the salary of a librarian.  

“ ‘The library hotel will generate jobs. People need work, which is why they leave to begin with. If we can bring back just seven or eight families, well, they’d count as villagers.’

“Someone, he said, needs to organize the collection. Arana said that he’s confident because there’s proof that literary tourism can work here.

“For example, bestselling Spanish author Maribel Medina talked to Teruel TV about a project she runs called My Town Reads. It stages literary events in tiny villages, including Libros, inviting famous authors to visit, sign books and spend the night.

“Libros has hosted four events with Medina’s help. Arana said that hundreds of people showed up each time.

“ ‘It seems that because of our little literary boom, folks are starting to fix up the houses here,’ he said. ‘On weekends, more people are returning.’ …

“Libros native Santiago Perez, 81, who lives past a bunch of crumbling homes, pointed to a house with scaffolding around it. ‘One of my boys has set out to fix up that one. He’s making a really nice home for himself.’ “

Is this dream unrealistic? Well, that’s another thing about books — they encourage big dreams. And big dreams are a necessary step for big accomplishments.

More at PRI’s The World, here.

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Why Reading Is Big in Ukraine

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 26, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Howard LaFranchi/The Christian Science Monitor.
Ihor Pohorielov, commercial director of Ranok Publishing, at the company’s bomb-damaged offices, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Nov. 4, 2024.

If ants can keep working and rebuilding after we’ve knocked over their anthill, how much more humans in war zones?

Among the many buildings damaged or destroyed by the Russian invasion in Ukraine are publishers of books. But books remain strong and Ukrainians keep reading.

Here’s a story by Howard LaFranchi at the Christian Science Monitor.

“Across Ukraine, but especially in Kharkiv, the country’s publishing capital, Russia’s war has been something of a boon to the nation’s publishing industry. More Ukrainians are seeking solace and distraction in books, and interest in Ukrainian literature and Ukrainian-language books is spiking.

“Many of the country’s publishing houses – from textbook-publishing giants to boutique operations specializing in culture – are keeping busy. And this despite the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made publishing houses a key target of his war on Ukrainian culture.

“Publishers say a combination of their resolve to keep operating and a reawakened enthusiasm for books among a variety of readers is keeping the presses running.

“ ‘The war is reminding Ukrainians that books are an outlet for joy, for culture, for travel, when other outlets are closed to us,’ says Yuliia Orlova, general director of Vivat Publishing.

“ ‘We hear all the time about people rediscovering the joys of books as they spend less time on their computers and phones,’ she says. ‘People want to distract themselves from all the sad and depressing things going on around them, so they turn to fiction and fantasy. It’s their way to escape.’

“One night in November, Ihor Pohorielov was awakened by a Russian bomb blast that nearly shook him out of bed. His thoughts went to the modern offices and cavernous storage facilities where he works as the commercial director for Kharkiv’s Ranok Publishing, and which had already been the target of Russian air strikes. …

” ‘I thought of the orders we need to get out and the clients we need to serve – so I came into work’ the next day. …

“Across Ukraine, but especially in Kharkiv, the country’s publishing capital, Russia’s war has been something of a boon to the book publishing business.

“As more Ukrainians seek solace and distraction in books, and as interest in Ukrainian literature and Ukrainian-language books spikes, many of the country’s publishing houses – from textbook-publishing giants to boutique operations specializing in culture – are keeping busy.

“And this despite the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made publishing and printing houses a key target of his war on Ukrainian culture.

“Kharkiv’s publishing industry was shaken to its core last May when a Russian S-300 missile struck the giant Faktor-Druk, one of Europe’s largest printing houses. The blast destroyed presses, incinerated some 100,000 books, and knocked out the three publishing companies housed there. …

“But the sense of devastation was short-lived. In a show of solidarity, several European publishers offered to print Ukrainian books for distribution to millions of Ukrainian refugees around Europe.

“An American philanthropic organization, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, quickly agreed to pick up the tab for Faktor-Druk’s reconstruction. …

“ ‘Printing in Kharkiv is hanging on despite the almost daily attacks on the city,’ … says Yuliia Orlova, general director of Vivat Publishing, a division of the Faktor Group. …

“Ms. Orlova does not hide the fact that the war has been devastating for Ukrainian publishing in many ways, especially for the people who work in the sector. ‘The attacks and the destruction in the city have a big impact on the mental health of our workers. People don’t sleep and they are constantly worried for their families,’ she says. …

“Since 2022, the number of registered publishers in Ukraine has plummeted from about 1,600 to 150, Ms. Orlova says. …

“But Ms. Orlova cites another statistic that underscores the bright side of Ukrainian book publishing: Over the same period, the total number of books printed grew by 70%.

“The reasons for that jump are largely related to the war. Russia’s systematic destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure has meant widespread power outages and spotty access to the internet, Ms. Orlova says. ‘We hear all the time about people rediscovering the joys of books as they spend less time on their computers and phones,’ she says. …

“Mr. Putin’s war on Ukrainian culture – targeting museums, churches, universities, and publishing houses – is feeding a renewed interest in history, language, art, and literature that confirm Ukrainian nationhood, publishers say.

” ‘Interest among Ukrainians in who we are was already starting to grow, but it was the full-scale invasion that really encouraged this desire to know more about our history and culture,’ says Oleksandr Savchuk, whose specialty Kharkiv publishing house carries his name.

“ ‘For many Ukrainians, the picture of who we are was like a puzzle with lost pieces,’ he says. ‘But now people are finding those pieces so we can complete the full picture.’

“To help nurture that process, in 2023 the philosophy professor and publisher opened a facility he calls a ‘Book Strongroom,’ a combination bookstore, event space, and neighborhood bomb shelter adjacent to his publishing operations. …

“Oleksandr Savchuk is a small player who has published about 50 titles over the last decade. … ‘For the 12 years before the invasion I was suffering to try to show people their great history and culture. It was a hard-going process,’ he says. … ‘I see now that I’m being heard.’ “

More at the Monitor, here. No firewall, reasonable subscriptions rates for a paper unusually strong in international news.

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Bookbinders on TikTok

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 8, 2024| 4 Comments »

Photo: The Guardian.
Innocent Monsters is an example of a book bound by Geena of ‘beaudelaireslibrary.’ Bookbinding is attracting interest on TikTok.

TikTok comes in for a lot of criticism these days, not least because people think its Chinese ownership enables the Chinese government to spy on the US. For all I know, that could be a legitimate concern, but some activities on TikTok sure seem innocent. I can’t imagine any government secrets hidden in bookbinding lessons, for example.

David Barrett reports at the Guardian about the curious hobby that has taken hold there.

“The videos often begin with every bibliophile’s nightmare: a person ripping the covers off a book. They are not vandals, however; they are bookbinders, taking part in a growing trend for replacing the covers of favorite works to make unique hardback editions, and posting about their creations on TikTok and Instagram.

“Mylyn McColl, a member of the UK-based Society of Bookbinders, runs their international bookbinding competition. She said: ‘It is great to see people taking on our craft and turning their favourite novels into treasured bindings.’ …

“Emma, 28, posts on social media as The Binary Bookbinder, after discovering the hobby a year ago. ‘I was scrolling through social media and I came across a video of someone doing it and was intrigued,’ she said. …

“After a practice attempt with a few sheets of printer paper and some card-stock, Emma, who lives on the East Coast in the US, graduated to re-binding books from her favorite genre, fantasy. ‘It is deeply satisfying re-binding a book to look like it would belong in the world I’m reading about,’ she said. …

” ‘Overall it is a relaxing hobby, but it still comes with its challenges. I like to use my tech background to integrate 3D printed, laser cut, or electronic parts in the books I rebind and that can be difficult.’ …

“A search for ‘bookbinding’ on TikTok produces more than 60 million results, with high-speed time lapse videos showing a brand new product emerging from a mass-produced paperback. Bookbinding tools and equipment include specialist glues, and vinyl cutters for making silhouettes or cameos on covers, which can cost more than £300 [~$384].

“Emma said interest in bookbinding was being driven in part by BookTok, the TikTok genre that has boosted sales for the publishing industry, and the general increase in reading post-pandemic. … ‘Different parts of the same story will resonate with people, so owning a copy of a book that has your favourite quote, image or symbol from the book on the cover is something special.’

“McColl, of the Society of Bookbinders, said: ‘Historically the society was made up predominantly by older people, often retirees enjoy new free time. But that is changing … on the London committee there are now people in 20s, 30s, 40s.’

“Some bookbinders do it for their own enjoyment, while others sell their creations through platforms like Etsy. Geena, who posts on Instagram as baudelaireslibrary, saw it as an opportunity to give physical form to a genre generally only available online – fan fiction.

“The 33-year-old from Wiltshire said: ‘I started bookbinding nearly a year ago. I had been reading Harry Potter fan fiction for about two years. … I had absolutely previous knowledge on how to create a book – I didn’t know it was possible to do at home without commercial equipment.’

“Geena says bookbinding encompasses ‘four or five hobbies,’ allowing her to use skills from her other pastimes, such as embroidery and crochet. She says, ‘With the rise of screens dominating people’s time, I think that creative hobbies where you use your hands and make something from scratch bring a simple joy that [people] haven’t experienced before. It taps into a part of the brain that can improve mental health, and is a real mood booster.’

“Geena says she has made new friends through the hobby, and is hoping to attend a meet-up of British amateur bookbinders later this year. Emma has attended meet-ups in the US. She said: ‘The community aspect is wonderful, and I’ve really been able to bond with people across the world.’

“Jennifer Büchi of the American Academy of Bookbinding, based in Colorado, said there had been a shift in how people discovered the hobby. …

” ‘We saw a big increase in students who’d started learning to bind books online and through social media after the pandemic. It’s been great for us because there’s a lot more interest in our classes – our introductory courses fill up within hours of being posted. Anything that drives interest in the book ultimately helps more students find us, and more students means more folks carrying the craft forward.’ ”

More at the Guardian, here.

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Publisher Aims to Save Trees

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 30, 2024| 4 Comments »

Photo: Claudia Wolff/Unsplash.
Do books use too much paper?

Those of us who still prefer a solid book to a pale, digital imitation may sometimes wonder whether we are encouraging the use of too much paper, especially since overstocks can end up in landfills.

Curiously, at least one publisher is thinking along the same lines.

Elizabeth Segran writes at Fast Company, “Over the past three years, HarperCollins’s designers have put their skills toward a new mission: saving paper. In an effort to reduce the carbon footprint of each book, they’re tweaking fonts, layout, and even the ink used. The goal is to pack more into each page, while ensuring that the pages are as readable as ever. And so far, these subtle, imperceptible tweaks have saved 245.6 million pages, equivalent to 5,618 trees.

“HarperCollins’s Christian publishing division, Zondervan Bibles, first came up with the idea of using design to save paper. Bibles have historically used upwards of 2,500 pages. In 2015, Zondervan’s designers determined that if they used different fonts and adjusted the page layout, they could reduce the number of sheets used. It would also cut HarperCollins’s printing costs. They developed a new compact typeface called the NIV Comfort Print. Ultimately, it saved more than 350 pages per bible, resulting in a total savings of 100 million pages in 2017. Stacked up, that would be the equivalent to four times the height of the Empire State Building.

“Tracey Menzies, the VP of creative operations and production at HarperCollins, wanted to see if the company could apply these learnings to other kinds of books. … The team got to work. They tested their theories with a large book in their catalog — more than 600 pages — by creating 50 versions of it using different fonts. HarperCollins uses a wide range of off-the-shelf fonts in its books, rather than custom ones. As the team ran the experiments, they observed that some fonts were more compact, resulting in fewer total pages, while remaining easy to read. So they curated a list of 15 fonts they determined are the most eco-friendly, which will be the preferred fonts from now on.

“In the end, the designers found that clever font selection, coupled with a thoughtful layout design that reduced white space, resulted in more words per page. For instance, in one example, the same text set to Garamond Pro resulted in many more words on the page compared to Bembo. Both fonts are fairly similar, with a classic serif look. And when you place them side by side, the differences are imperceptible. ‘The goal is to make these changes without the reader even seeing the difference,’ says Menzies.

“But there were also many complexities in the process. For instance, they had to consider the heaviness of the font. One font they used frequently is Bodoni, which was first created in 1798, and appears frequently in HarperCollins books. As a very heavy font, they realized they could fit more words on a page, while keeping it readable. But they also found that with very large letters, like subheadings, the ink would bleed through the paper, making it hard to read the words on the next page.

“ ‘The designer is always balancing out not just a single page, but also what’s on the page before and the page after,’ says [Leah Carlson-Stanisic, associate director of design at HarperCollins]. ‘Ultimately, this ended up with finding fonts that used less ink, in addition to less paper, which is also better for the planet.’

“Still, there is complex math involved with cutting pages from books. Printers produce very large sheets, which are then cut and folded into what ultimately becomes segments of 16 pages. When trying to cut pages from the book, designers need to be able to remove multiples of 16 pages. For the book So Fetch, for instance, using a more eco-friendly font saved nearly a million pages in total over the entirety of its print run. ‘We want to make sure our big titles, by prominent authors, are using these eco-fonts,’ says Carlson-Stanisic. ‘It adds up a little bit at a time, saving more and more trees.’ …

” ‘When we experimented with these fonts, we realized they weren’t a limitation at all,’ Menzies says. ‘It was simply a different approach that didn’t sacrifice aesthetics. Now, our designers are constantly questioning how we do things and thinking about ways to make things more sustainable.’

More at Fast Company, here.

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Ten Books a Year, Each One a Lion

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 25, 2023| 3 Comments »

Photo: Joel Goodman/The Guardian.
Kevin Duffy has built a publishing business in his home that focuses on ten books a year, many of them prize contenders.

Do you know the Aesop fable in which animal mothers brag about the number of their children? According to MIT Classics, “A controversy prevailed among the beasts of the field as to which of the animals deserved the most credit for producing the greatest number of whelps at a birth. They rushed clamorously into the presence of the Lioness and demanded of her the settlement of the dispute. ‘And you,’ they said, ‘how many sons have you at a birth?’ ”

And the Lioness said, “I have only one. But that one is a lion.”

That is my introduction to a story about a publisher who publishes only ten books a year.

Helen Pidd, North of England editor of the Guardian, writes, “The two-up, two-down terraced house on a cobbled Hebden Bridge street does not look like the headquarters of a multi award-winning publishing house.

“There is no gleaming edifice, no sign and certainly no reception desk. The green front door leads straight into Kevin Duffy’s living room, the nerve centre of Bluemoose books, his independent literary hit factory.

“It is at a cluttered table in the corner that Duffy has built a business with a success rate that billion-pound publishers regard with envy. Each year, Bluemoose puts out no more than 10 titles, but a remarkable number end up in contention for major literary prizes.

“Each author is handpicked by Duffy, 62, a self-confessed ‘control freak’ from Stockport, Greater Manchester, who spent years as a salesperson for big publishers before remortgaging his house to start Bluemoose in 2006. …

“It was Duffy who published Benjamin Myers’ The Gallows Pole, which has been made into a BBC series that was given five stars by the Guardian. …

“In March, Bluemoose won best northern publisher at the Small Press of the Year awards. In April, a Bluemoose title – I Am Not Your Eve, the debut novel by Devika Ponnambalam, which tells the story of Paul Gauguin’s child bride and muse, Teha’amana – was shortlisted for the £25,000 Walter Scott prize for historical fiction. …

“Bluemoose’s current bestselling author is Rónán Hession, a former musician who balances his writing career with being the assistant general secretary of the department of social protection in the Irish government.

“Hession’s 2019 debut Leonard and Hungry Paul, a funny and tender story about kindness, has sold more than 125,000 copies worldwide. A bestseller in Germany, it has also attracted fans in Hollywood – Duffy recalls receiving an email from someone claiming to be Julia Roberts’s agent. …

“ ‘Then her PR person got in touch saying she wanted to get in touch with Rónán because she loved the book. … How wonderful is that? She just wanted to say thank you,’ he said. …

“Another Bluemoose success story with a day job is Stuart Hennigan, a librarian from Leeds. Ghost Signs, an eyewitness account of the impact of the early days of the pandemic on those living in poverty, made the shortlist of the Parliamentary Book awards.

“Duffy shares an anarchic streak with Hennigan, finding it hilarious when he turned up to the Tory-packed ceremony in a T-shirt that said: ‘Still hate Thatcher.’ …

“Duffy remains Bluemoose’s only employee, drawing a ‘tiny’ salary, working with five freelance editors, including his lawyer wife, Hetha.

“He is happy that way. ‘I don’t want to be the next Penguin. I don’t want to be a huge business. I just want to publish eight to 10 books a year, make a bit of a profit and invest it all back into the business to find new writers,’ Duffy said.

“Running Bluemoose is a seven-day-a-week vocation. On an average day, Duffy receives 10-20 unsolicited pitches, usually the first three chapters of a new book, all of which, he insists, he reads. Perhaps four in a month will grab his attention enough for him to ask for the full manuscript.

“Duffy insists that there remains a ‘class ceiling‘ in the publishing of literary fiction. LGBTQ+ writers are being given deals, as well as people of color, he says, but working-class writers are not being heard. …

“ ‘The people making those publishing decisions, because of their educational background and their life background, are not reading books about people in the rest of the country. You know, 93% of the people in this country don’t go to private school. There’s a reading public out there that wants books about themselves and the areas they live in.’

“Myers, he notes, originally signed with Picador, which would not publish Pig Iron, his third novel about a Traveling community in the north-east. ‘Because, they said, “who would be interested in a working-class character from a small northern town?” That small northern town was Durham, theological capital of Europe for 2,500 years.

“ ‘Pig Iron went on to win the inaugural Gordon Burn prize. Ben’s next book, Beastings, won the £10,000 Portico prize. Then The Gallows Pole won the world’s leading prize for historical fiction. Then all the agents were interested,’ he said.”

As a reader who turns to Dickens whenever in doubt, I am surprised to find that I actually have read (and liked) one of these: Leonard and Hungry Paul. That’s because Wendy Greenberg, a prolific UK reader on Goodreads, wrote about it.

More at the Guardian, here.

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Nairobi’s Amazing Libraries

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 14, 2023| 5 Comments »

Photo: Nick Migwi/ CNN.
“I think that libraries are great equalizers,” says Book Bunk co-founder Angela Wachuka in Nairobi, Kenya.

Like many of you, I’m a big fan of reading books. In my family, I’ve always been known for gifts of books — books that I nearly always have read first so that I know they are right for the recipient. My aunt said she looked forward to the gifts no one else gave her on her birthday.

When I was a train commuter, I bought lightweight paperbacks to read while traveling, but after retirement, I became a devotee of the library, a place of magic, as blogger Laurie Graves knows more than most.

In recent years, Kenyan fans of libraries have been working to make them as accessible and lovely as possible.

Abdi Latif Dahir writes at the New York Times, “In 1931, the first library in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, opened its doors — to white patrons only. Nearly a century later, Kenyans dressed in the slinky gowns, flapper headpieces and tweed suits of that era streamed into the now-dilapidated space in a celebration that was part fund-raiser for the remodel of the iconic building, part reclamation of the city’s public libraries as ‘palaces for the people.’

“ ‘Our public libraries can be glamorous spaces of storytelling,’ said Angela Wachuka, a Kenyan publisher. But, she added, ‘we are here to also reclaim history, to occupy its architecture and to subvert its intended use.’

“The restoration of the McMillan Memorial Library and others in the city was the brainchild of Wachuka and the novelist Wanjiru Koinange, who founded Book Bunk, a Kenyan nonprofit, in 2017 to restore and reclaim the city’s public libraries. The aim was to leave behind their excluding past and remake them into inclusive spaces. … Among their goals is to bring more books in African languages to the libraries, and incorporate services catering to those with visual, physical or reading disabilities. …

“As the guests streamed into the gala, in December, organizers urged them to think of themselves as ‘rebellious gate-crashers’ who, while dressed as those in the past, were about to embark on a radically different future in which libraries are an essential public good.

“Nairobi, a fast-growing city of over four million people, has very few bookstores or well-funded libraries. Book Bunk’s work comes amid heated conversations about urban design and about how corruption and colonial systems continue to shape the way public infrastructure and spaces are designed and who gets access to them.

“ ‘In the case of Nairobi, there’s almost an acceptance that certain social divisions should exist across social classes and different societal groups,’ said Constant Cap, an urban planner who has collaborated with Book Bunk in the past.

“Restoring public libraries, he said, could be an opportunity to break those barriers and bring together people from different socio-economic, ethnic, racial and religious backgrounds.

“For Wachuka and Koinange, the journey began a decade ago as they searched for a venue to host an event for the Kwani? [a literary magazine] literary festival. The two thought the McMillan library — built by Lady Lucy McMillan as a memorial to her American husband, Sir Northrup McMillan, and later bequeathed to the Nairobi City Council — would be an ideal venue given its centrality and connection to the city.

“But when they walked in, Wachuka said, they were surprised to see its crumbling state: Its interior neoclassical architecture was fading, its floors and walls were in ruinous condition and its collections were gathering dust.

“While they found another location for the event, the two immediately began researching the history and management structure of the McMillan library, and soon after, left their jobs to focus full time on its restoration.

“One of their earlier discoveries was that the McMillan library was the first of a series of other libraries built in the city. Only two were still open: the Makadara and Kaloleni libraries, in the city’s low-income eastern suburbs.

“After forming a partnership with the Nairobi city administration in 2018, Book Bunk first focused on restoring the two smaller libraries, prioritizing the needs of the communities there.

“The two branches have since reopened, with the Makadara library hosting storytelling sessions, film screenings, music performances and a literary festival. The Kaloleni branch is in a neighborhood built in the 1940s by Italian prisoners of war, and has become a hub for youngsters to do their homework and participate in workshops that help them, for example, learn how to make money using their creative talent.

“Joyce Nyairo, a Kenyan academic and cultural analyst, said that the restored libraries have the chance to be ‘great equalizers,’ particularly for people from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

More at the Times, here. I love the idea of asking Kenyans to envision themselves as “gate crashers” into spaces that should always have been theirs. Makes me think of One-Eyed Connelly, a famous gate crasher whose name my father borrowed for a pigeon that was always walking through our open doors.

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Supporters Save Bookshop

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 17, 2022| 2 Comments »

Book lovers saved an indy shop in Detroit.

When a community really loves a threatened business, people will pull together to help it survive. Where I live, we had a flash mob event that kept one business going several more years. But it’s up to the owners after that.

Sydney Page reports at the Washington Post, “A small bookstore opened in Detroit just over a year ago, and as a locally owned business, 27th Letter Books had to keep a close eye on its finances. The owners were pleased when they started getting large online orders for textbooks from a new customer.

“ ‘The name they provided matched with a professor,’ said Erin Pineda, 31, who co-owns the bookstore with her husband, Drew, and another couple, Jazmine Cooper and Jake Spease. ‘As a new business, we were trying to build a relationship with someone we thought was a customer.’

“The individual placed several different orders, amounting to $35,000 worth of medical and engineering textbooks, each costing between $100 and $200. Then, in late May, staff received a notification from the store’s merchant service provider, flagging a credit card the person used as fraudulent.

“The bookstore co-owners went through the individual’s purchases — all of which were shipped to the same address outside Michigan — and quickly realized that the person had placed every past order using a stolen credit card, as well.

“ ‘That’s when we started to consider closing,’ said Cooper, 28.

“They contacted law enforcement, their insurance provider and different banks, hoping for a reprieve from the serious financial toll they knew the scam would take on their small company. The cost, they were told, would probably fall entirely on them — which would put them out of business.

“ ‘We heard we were unlikely to get any funds back,’ Erin Pineda said, adding that she and the co-owners spent several weeks trying to remedy the situation, but only hit dead ends. …

“The textbooks were shipped outside the state, which further complicated the matter from a legal standpoint.

“When merchants are victims of credit card fraud, liability usually falls on the merchant or the credit card company, depending on the circumstance. Often, the merchant is accountable for covering fraudulent online transactions.

“As a relatively new and fragile business, 27th Letter Books was left with only two options: shut down or seek support.

“ ‘We realized we needed to ask for help,’ Erin Pineda said.

The store co-owners started a GoFundMe campaign, and within 10 days, they surpassed their goal of $35,000. They were stunned by the generosity

“ ‘We’re just blown away by how the community responded and lifted us up in a really difficult situation,’ Erin Pineda said. ‘It was incredible.’

“ ‘The response was not only overwhelming because of the amount, but also because it was so quick,’ Cooper said. ‘I felt that the community really wanted us as part of their community. It was just affirming to me that what we’re doing is worth it.’

“The bookstore emphasizes inclusivity and offers a diverse selection of literature. It also hosts events that aim to bring the community together. … The store runs story-time sessions for children on Saturdays, as well as book club meetings and open mic nights. Additionally, local authors and artists showcase their work.

“Nicole Miazgowicz is one such artist. She had a solo show at the bookstore in April.

“ ‘They just bring so much to the community, and I’ve been really impressed by their kindness and openness,’ said Miazgowicz, 38. ‘It’s kind of like a little family that I’ve found in the community here.’ …

“Miazgowicz held an auction of some of her artwork and donated the proceeds — which totaled $425 — to 27th Letter Books….

“Hank Moon, a Detroit resident, is also a fan of the bookstore. When he found out that it could be closing, he contributed to the campaign and spread the word on social media, encouraging others to do the same. …

“ ‘Yes, they are a bookstore, but they’re a lot more than that,’ he said. ‘It is an incredible community space, and they work really hard to bring in books for a diverse audience of people.’

“More than 400 people contributed to the cause, most of whom live locally, the store owners said. Along with the much-needed funds, messages of support poured in, too.

“Our community needs more businesses like yours. Thank you for all that you do,” commented someone who contributed $200.

The store owners said they are touched by their community’s support and more motivated than ever to keep their doors open.

“ ‘It’s wonderful that people are willing to pay it forward because of what they’ve seen us provide to the community,’ Erin Pineda said. ‘It creates a beautiful reciprocity of gratitude between the people there in our neighborhood and us as a business, and a team of four people who care deeply about southwest Detroit.’

“With the help of their community, 27th Letter Books was able to recoup its losses and remain open. The owners are implementing new procedures to prevent future fraudulent activity.

“Beyond further securing their business and staving off scammers, the owners said they learned another valuable lesson.

“ ‘I would tell other small businesses not to be afraid to reach out to their community,’ Cooper said. ‘They will fight for what they want.’ “

More at the Post, here.

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