A World Without Libraries?

I love libraries.

And yes I know what you're thinking.  I'm a librarian so of course I would love libraries.

But - and it's a very, very, big but.

My love of libraries would still be there even if I wasn't a librarian.  It's a love affair that I've had since I was a kid and it is, hopefully, a love affair that will continue for a great many more years.

So it always strikes me as rather sad when people talk about how unnecessary libraries are in today's world. 

Libraries have of course been around be for a long time.  Like a very long time.

Almost 4000 years in fact (give or take a century or two).  And in those 4000 years libraries have changed and evolved just like they are changing and evolving now.  They have seen governments and countries rise and fall, the invention of the printing press and computers and the planet ravaged by war, disasters and countless other momentous and significant events.

In the scheme of things libraries are doing pretty good.

And that's how it should be. Because libraries are not only important but necessary.

Forget all the things that you think libraries are about.

Forget about the books, the newspapers, the magazines, the music, the movies, the e-books, and so on and so forth.  Though they have all of that.

And don't even think of them as being depositories and custodians for works of cultural, historical and heritage significance.  Though they are that as well.

No, what libraries really are, at their most basic level, are places of knowledge and ideas and imagination.

And a world without any and all of these things would be a pretty sad place.

Knowledge gives us power.  The power to make choices.  To choose to go right or left or back or forward.

Ideas gives us solutions.  Solutions that see us reach for the stars, to grow beyond what we are, to expand our views and opinions.

And imagination?

Imagination encourages and inspires and ignites us.  It pushes us to reach for the impossible, to dare to dream, to hope, to wonder.

And that is probably the greatest gift that we can pass onto another.

That libraries can do all of these things is pretty damn wonderful. 

Ex-squeeze me? Baking powder? Storytime in the library with a famous NZ boxer?

Ex-squeeze me? Baking powder? Storytime in the library with a famous NZ boxer?

SO! I heard a secret. That a certain famous NZ boxer would be making an appearance at a local library storytime. How awesome is that? Which made me ponder a couple of things:

1. WHO IS IT? (yes, caps necessary)
2. What do I know about boxing?

The answers are:

1. I DON'T KNOW (yes, caps are *still* necessary)
2. Absolutely nothing

So I did what most sane library people do when they know nothing. That's right, I stalked our library shelves, and found THIS gem: The New Zealand boxing scrapbook. It contains the most amazing things - vintage posters, men in tights (I'm pretty darn sure they're tights), fighter profiles, leotards (those ARE leotards, right?) and some serious hair parting. You think I'm kidding but I'm not. It's well worth the read/flip through. I'm still no closer to knowing who our guest is, though! Bummer.

Fresh ink - new authors for jaded readers

They're the reason people keep trying to write. (Aside from that nagging little parasite in your ear, continually popping out to ask "So, have you done any writing lately?" and winkling itself back in again before you can get him with the tweezers.)

Debut authors who make it big - J. K. Rowling, E. L. James, S. J. Watson, and all those other initials. Who doesn't dream of being one? For most, it's a slow burn, gradually building an audience until one day you're on top of the pile. That's how it worked for Ian Rankin and Hilary Mantel, and even Dan Brown had three books behind him before his sudden leap to the peak. Who can predict the next big thing?

As they say in showbiz - no one knows anything.

So here's your chance to take a look at the crop of new authors for this year, before requests go sky-high. Which do you think will make it big?

Up A Tree in the Park at Night With a Hedgehog

Like many people who have read this book I only picked it up because of it's title. Turns out that 'Up A Tree in the Park at Night With a Hedgehog' is actually the perfect title for this hilarious book.

Up A Tree in the Park at Night With a Hedgehog by P. Robert Smith is the story of a guy named Benton who for no apparent reason starts to have an affair with 'a beautiful, sexually adventurous Korean virgin'. It doesn't getting any less weird from that point onward.

"Benton Kirby is in a spot of bother... His life hasn't exactly gone to plan. This is hardly surprising, however, as he never really had one in the first place. Armed with a philosophy degree, a dead fiancée, a brother who drives Death around London in his black cab, and a girlfriend with a history of suicidal pets, Benton - ambition-less and emotionally disengaged - embarks, for no apparent reason, on an affair with a beautiful, sexually adventurous Korean virgin."

Quite odd but very funny this book is great for a rainy day when you're stuck inside and you feel like a laugh!

You all deserve to die

Not YOU, my faithful reader(s). I'm talking about the people in the publishing world who really, really annoy me. The ones whom, if I were ever so slightly more psychopathological than I am, I would wish to die in creatively horrible ways. Like being sandwiched in a very large slush pile that's due for the shredder...

Here's my list. What really gets your goat?

#1 - Books starring Jane Austen, remakes of Jane Austen, retellings of Jane Austen

Jane Austen has been a vampire. She has been turned into an erotic kinkfest. Her life and works have been pawed over, warped, twisted, worn threadbare, turned into every flavour of pulp. Zombies and sea monsters have been added to them. They've been placed in a modern setting minus all the best descriptions and language of their creator. The wonderful characters who leapt off the page have been flattened into stupid, cardboard, lifeless versions of themselves in absolutely pointless "modernisations". (Oo, what if we did Persuasion, but in a school? And an office! And in space...)

Keira Knightley has overbitten her way through Elizabeth Bennet. Miniseries have been written in which someone else gets Mr Darcy. For Mansfield Park's sake, they have BROKEN up the MOST ROMANTIC COUPLE in ENGLISH LITERATURE! I am saddened to report that even "decent" authors are getting on the bandwagon. Now that P.D. James and Colleen McCullough have had their turn, they're putting out six new retellings of the novels by the likes of Joanna Trollope and Val McDermid.
Can't you see the woman's exhausted?

No more.


#2 - Twilight readalikes

If I have to give a list of books similar to this series, you'll be reading all day. Ingredients include: paranormal love triangle (involves anything from werewolves to vampires to sexy giant squid - I actually came across a gryphon the other day. Still don't get the humanoid dragon thing, and falling in love with something that's half bird, half lion is just agin' nature.)

Second ingredient: boy who seems to hate the girl, but really burns for her despite her possessing no apparent personality at all.

Third ingredient: a girl who's new to town, who doesn't have any real friends except the one totally hot guy who's keeping a secret...

Sounds familiar? Oh, it's only about 300 recent books...(The Gathering Dark is one.)

Please don't make me buy any more. I'm begging you.


#3 - Titles that are a play on the character's name

Things like Grace Under Fire or Honour Among Thieves or Saving Faith or Hope Rises or April Showers...Maybe not April Showers, it sounds like a certain kind of movie. (Actually I just checked, there is one. But it's not what you think.)

You know what I mean, anyway - books where the main character is actually called Grace, or Faith, or Hope, or Victory, or whatever. Vomitorious.




#4 - Celebrity children's books

Some celebrities can write, apparently. I'm told the Hank Zipzer books by the Fonz aren't too bad, and nor are Jamie-Lee Curtis's. On the other hand - there are Madonna and Jordan, aka Katie Price. At least Jordan doesn't actually write hers. Hilary Duff did write Elixir, starring a young woman struggling with fame, and I mean this nicely, Hilary, but please go back to reading other people's lines. Even Whoopi Goldberg, Steve Martin and Weird Al Yankovic are guilty of some crimes against literature. Funny people, but not good writers. Fifty Cent has written a book. And has anyone read Modelland by Tyra Banks?

Here's the blurb: "Awkward fifteen-year-old Tookie De La Creme is invited to join the most exclusive modeling school in the world, where she must survive the beastly Catwalk Corridor and the terrifying Thigh-High Boot Camp in order to uncover Modelland's sinister secrets."

I'm putting on my fierce face.

Look out - coming up next, Monica Seles' new series about - yep, a tennis academy. Foul.

#5 - Titles that riff on other titles (that riff on OTHER titles)

We've had Fifty Sheds of Grey, Fifty Bales of Hay, Fifty Shades of Play, Fifty Shades of Dorian Gray, Fifty Shades of Feminism, and my personal favourite, Fifty Shades of Chicken.  

Give it a bone, will you? This turkey is well and truly cooked.