If a book lover is a bibliophile, what is a library lover? I don’t know the word (or if it exists) but I am one, and here I share images of libraries and other places which invite you to read and write, including book shops, cafés and easy chairs.
The perfect spot, finally
From the multiple versions described by his wife, it seems it took many years and experiments for John Steinbeck to settle on the perfect writing space. And in the end, he simply built it himself, with the help of a local carpenter.In homage to the name...
Writing on wheels
Another in a series of accounts by John Steinbeck's wife, Elaine, of his perpetual search for the perfect writing space. This bright idea came of his frustration at one point of a writing room which had no sound insulation and therefore no privacy. But his...
Of centuries and cows
These quirky comments by Steinbeck charmed me - first his reaction to the first room he chose to work in, and then his decision to move elsewhere on the old property they rented near Glastonbury. 'We lived in an ancient cottage that was listed in the...
Of boats and books
Another example of Steinbeck's search for a perfect writing spot, in different houses, places, times of his life, as described by his wife. She never entered these spaces without being invited, which on occasion led to some surprises.This is a writing...
Throughout the library, there is an energy and a joy that, in too many other rare books and manuscripts libraries, almost always remains suppressed.
Matthew Battles – Library: An Unquiet History
The Saturday of Libraries
When we moved to the town of Nyon, I joined the municipal library. The building itself is worth writing about - great thick walls,...
Visit to the Leeds Library
By luck, a short visit to Leeds coincided with a monthly guided tour of the Leeds Library, one of the oldest subscription libraries in Britain. ...
A beautiful reading room
When visiting Leeds, my original university town, I decided to drop in on a few libraries, including the hulking Victorian Central Library with its...
A visit to the Brontes
When I read the journals of Dorothy Wordsworth I had a yearning to visit the Wordsworth homes in the Lake District, and by extension, the Bronte...
Book as mirror II
One of the most reassuring and surprising insights I found in reading Harold Bloom's literary criticism, was the realization that he wrote for a...
The Cemetery of Forgotten Books
The whole intricate plot of Ruiz Zafón's Shadow of the Wind begins with his father taking him to this labyrinthine locked-up library of forgotten...
A place to get lost in
My idea of a bookshop or library to get lost in ... though not exclusively. I also love some of the magnificent, clean, modern, bright libraries...
A luminous spot in Chicago
What makes a city great? What makes a civilization? How about a bright, quiet, dazzling new building in the heart of a town, housing 30,000 volumes...
A bookshop in Chicago – Open Books
In preparing our trip to Chicago we looked up the 'ten best' bookshops in the city. Most proved too far, except for Open Books, a not-for-profit...
A chapel for study – the reading room of the Oriental Institute
After a visit to the Oriental Institute museum in Chicago, I did a pit stop at the Elizabeth Morse Genius reading room, hoping the name would top up...
A writer’s reading room
During Easter in Aosta, I started reading a favourite writer, Patrick Leigh Fermor, beginning a two-volume treat, Mani and Roumeli. By chapter 2 of...
water is…
One bitingly cold morning I was crossing a square in central Liverpool, and noticed some words on the ground. I followed them, and discovered a...
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