The Borrower's Profile | TypePad

This is The Borrower's TypePad Profile.

Join TypePad and start following The Borrower's activity

Join Now!

Already a member? Sign In

The Borrower

London

I decided to stop buying books for a year, to explore the role that libraries play in our lives. This blog is part reading diary, part news-watch, and all in favour of holding on to the precious public space where reading and learning are encouraged. Sssh! No talking please.

Interests: Books. Just books. And not all books, only the really good ones.

Recent Activity

Hello. How are you? I am quite busy doing many little jobs, thanks for asking. So I am not thinking so much about books today. But I have put some dried fennel, is it for fennel or is it the other one, dill? I don't know. But I have put... Continue reading

Posted Sep 28, 2011 at The Borrower

0

Oh crikey - such a big spelling mistake right there in the heading of my last post. Ooof. Aaaaaanyway. Here is the link to the page for Life and Fate podcasts on the BBC. And also link to trailer on NYRB website. Just in case anyone needs them. Continue reading

Posted Sep 13, 2011 at The Borrower

0

I live in #Awestomestow

Confession time. There are occasional moments when I have doubts about living in London. About living in Walthamstow. About the mess and the noise and, you know, all that stuff. And then there are days like today. Days when I watch old friends and complete strangers chatting in my kitchen,... Continue reading

Posted Sep 11, 2011 at The Borrower

0

E17 Art Trail - we are open! Come and have tea right now!

How do you do? We are Venue 52 and we are open today from 11am - 2pm, showing some photos of books and serving tea and cake. It's a little quiet at the moment as you can see, but do stop in later if you are passing. Also open tomorrow... Continue reading

Posted Sep 9, 2011 at The Borrower

0

Getting ready for the E17 Art Trail: nearly there

While many of the E17 Art Trail shows have already started, The Borrower is only open this Friday-Sunday, which means that this evening it was time to hang up the pictures. Exciting. With a lot of help from the lovely Rhys, some plasterboard screws and some fishing wire, a few... Continue reading

Posted Sep 6, 2011 at The Borrower

0

Life and Fate - by Francis Spufford in The Guardian

Interesting article by Francis Spufford here about Life and Fate from today's Guardian. He says: To get plausibly inside the [Soviet] past, we need to allow it to have been, as well as tragic, also hopeful, funny, preoccupied and ordinary. Most uncomfortably, we need to let ourselves see what Stalinism... Continue reading

Posted Aug 31, 2011 at The Borrower

0

Getting ready for the E17 Art Trail: a long way to go

So this is my exhibition space as it looks today, getting ready for the E17 Art Trail. Hmm, yes you're right, it still needs some work. But don't be fooled - things are happening: I have rung up photo printers, discussed hanging options, requested leaflets, sent out invitations, made lists,... Continue reading

Posted Aug 27, 2011 at The Borrower

0

The Borrower at the E17 Art Trail!

Ok here's the big news: I will be showing a selection of photos from this blog at this year's E17 Art Trail - read more at the listing on the E17 Art Trail website. Yes there will be tea and cake as well. I am so thrilled about this, not... Continue reading

Posted Aug 8, 2011 at The Borrower

0

Happy birthday dear blog

One year old today, what a clever little blog you are. Yesterday I finished reading The Mitford sisters letters. I cannot quite tell you how much I loved that book. Today I started reading How To Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran. I love that in the little category bit... Continue reading

Posted Jul 26, 2011 at The Borrower

0

The Borrower begins to listen

So, as you may know, I have a lot of books to read at the moment. As a result it would just be madness to start getting more of them out of the library. But this brings me on to a subject that I have been thinking about for some... Continue reading

Posted Jul 15, 2011 at The Borrower

0

Field of action

Yesterday I went to an exhibition at Calvert 22 called Field of Action: The Moscow Conceptual School in Context - I mention it here because I HAD to buy the beautiful little catalogue that accompanied the show (which counts as a book, clearly). I knew a tiny bit about the... Continue reading

Posted Jul 3, 2011 at The Borrower

0

Lovely art books found in charity shop

In the months since I began my no-book-buying experiment, it seems that there is one particular charity shop where I always manage to forget my pledge not to buy a book. It's the same one where I bought Virginia Woolf's letters, oh darn it. This time there was a bundle... Continue reading

Posted Jun 20, 2011 at The Borrower

0

Birthday book bonanza!

Didn't she do well? Here's how they line up then: :: The Mitford's letters and Kidnapped from my dear Dad. I've read Jessica's letters and her memoirs but this is an extra treat, very funny from what I have read so far, and very dippable. Kidnapped is one of my... Continue reading

Posted Jun 9, 2011 at The Borrower

0

A very moving story

Ok ok ok, I know. BUT! There is a very good reason for all this echoing silence. First I was giving you a bit of time to digest my Simone epic. And second, I've been busy beginning to create a library of my own, as you can see. Above you... Continue reading

Posted May 26, 2011 at The Borrower

1

Once again our library did me proud on the guide book front for first family trip to Umbria. And although they were really useful, no guide book could possibly ever describe how beautiful this piece of the earth is. Something to enchant the mind, the eye, the soul and the... Continue reading

Posted Apr 22, 2011 at The Borrower

0

Thoughts on Letters to Sartre by Simone de Beauvoir

Somehow, over a few weeks, this has turned into an essay. I can only apologise. So if you don't have time to read an essay now, come back later with a cup of tea and a ginger crunch cream and get stuck in then. I read Simone de Beauvoir’s four-volume... Continue reading

Posted Apr 12, 2011 at The Borrower

0

Humdrum and yum-yum

So what on earth has been going on? Well, in truth, I haven't done a lot of borrowing and hence not much reading lately. Lots of other little things keep getting in the way: ill people, well people, other people, estate agents, housework, thinking, stuff. But I have been cooking,... Continue reading

Posted Apr 5, 2011 at The Borrower

0

Save our libraries!

This is us marching to protest against cuts to public services on Saturday. I guess for many parents of our age it was probably the first time they had taken their children on a march. For us, I was proud that our two young marchers took to it all in... Continue reading

Posted Mar 28, 2011 at The Borrower

1

Happy International Women's Day - and some suggested reading

Perhaps you are enjoying this 100th International Women's Day by having a lovely quiet read in the garden with a cup of tea? Perhaps you are doing something totally different. Whatever it is, I do wish you a glorious day. And a happy pancake day. And good luck to the... Continue reading

Posted Mar 8, 2011 at The Borrower

1

Happy world book day

I would like to join the many voices online - and in the real world too - wishing you Happy Book Day, and suggest one way to celebrate - by baking and eating a tasty morsel. The picture above is a perfect illustration of the wonder and magic of books... Continue reading

Posted Mar 3, 2011 at The Borrower

0

On biting Picasso and being stuck in Taganrog

One way to avoid buying your own books is to simply have them sent to you for free, as I did when I reviewed The Boy Who Bit Picasso for Kids in Museums (a lovely and excellent charity who I am proud to do some voluntary work for). It's a... Continue reading

Posted Feb 16, 2011 at The Borrower

0

The Borrower speaks to the world - on today's You and Yours

Today Radio 4's You and Yours programme ran a special phone-in about libraries and I WAS ON IT talking about libraries and what right good things they are. You can hear the whole programme here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y8v0r - click on the button that says 'Listen now'. My bit comes 4.41 minutes... Continue reading

Posted Feb 8, 2011 at The Borrower

1

Save Our Libraries Day - find out what you can do

Tomorrow is Save Our Libraries Day, as you will know if you watched The 10 O'Clock show, where Lauren Laverne did a piece about it, or if you caught this piece on Newsround on CBBC. Even if your library isn't running a 'read-in', there are plenty of things you can... Continue reading

Posted Feb 4, 2011 at The Borrower

0

A library in the corridors of power

Last week, I think I fell down a rabbit hole. At least, I didn't actually see a rabbit and there wasn't really a hole (unless you count the Jubilee line), and when I got inside there was no bottle marked 'Drink Me'. But everything felt a bit different in this... Continue reading

Posted Feb 1, 2011 at The Borrower

0

Libraries I love: Mark Feinmann's library

We 'borrowed' this beautiful edition of The Story of Doctor Dolittle from my Mum's house last weekend, after my husband and elder daughter started reading it together, but it wasn't until we got it home that I realised its provenance. As you can see, it started its life in Mark... Continue reading

Posted Jan 28, 2011 at The Borrower

0

More...

Subscribe to The Borrower’s Recent Activity