ASKING THE BOOK PICKER by Penny Dolan

February greetings! With a February fib to confess as well.

Reading a variety of texts is good for writers, isn't it?  And I certainly do have lots of books to choose from home here. 

However, when my local library emailed, inviting me to sign up to ‘choose books in a different way’ I could not resist. Despite all the To Be Read books home here, I slightly fibbed and signed up to ASKforaBook.

The introduction on the website promised ‘We’ll show you book covers instead of subjects. We’ll show you intriguing themes,’ so I was driven by a mix of writerly curiosity, suspicion of algorithms and pure personal nosiness. I was also informed that 'Real library people will use their expertise to email you recommendations that match your preferences’.

My next instruction was to click on the three book-covers from a panel of twelve that I’d be most likely to read, as a way of indicating my most-favoured genres. Then came the response: ‘Thank you for using Ask for a Book. We have received your request and your Book Picker will be in touch with the books they've chosen for you within 2 working days.’ Real books from county book stock and real people from the library! 

I was even more pleased when ‘my Book Picker’ turned out to be a librarian whose name I knew: within two days, my ASK titles were ready for collection.

While at the library, I asked how the titles were chosen. How did the 'suggestion' system work? Once a ‘genre’ page has been selected,  another dozen book-cover images op up on the screen, with information about each title. The 'library person', using those, and maybe other knowledge, chooses the best match, repeating the process for each genre. 

I was concerned about the extra work that a flourishing ASK system could put on library staff and book stock in the future, as well as the range of books needed for each genre in particular, which could shape future library purchasing patterns. All unknown, as yet, so the experiment might prove interesting.

ASK was partly inspired by how libraries operated during the Covid era. Then, borrowers would email or phone, asking for their next loans, leaving the librarians (and volunteers?) to choose their actual titles. After three days, the borrowers (masked) collected their labelled books from the loan tables, returning other titles to be quarantined before re-issue.  Working like that, in an almost empty building, must have been a very lonely task. ASK, now, with its personal contact, can only be a more satisfying experience.

There must be options and routes I have not met yet, and nor do I know how non-fiction fits within the scheme. Of course, any choice will depend on what is meant by that particular genre; for example, the ‘Adventure’ genre I  glimpsed seemed to offer what I'd call ‘contemporary personal travel journeys’ rather than wider geographical exploration I'd expected. No doubt, the library people will be able to refine or widen any search and customer feedback should certainly shape the system as it grows.

So what titles did the system choose for me? One read already, one pleasing and one completely unknown.

                

The ‘crime/mystery’ category came up with THE NAME OF THE ROSE by UMBERTO ECO. A good choice, although one I’d already read. A trail of mediaeval murders in an oppressively scary monastery solved by a charismatic ex-crusader brother.

 

The ‘family & relationships’ category brought JOANNA TROLLOPE’S ‘MUM & DAD’. Probably a good ‘insomniac’ read to enjoy, with family problems I can understand without actually knowing much about a large house, Spanish vineyard or wide artistic life myself. 

 

            

The ‘historical’ novel choice was definitely the most intriguing: ‘TO CALAIS IN ORDINARY TIME’ by JAMES MEEK, set in 1348, at the time of the Black Death. Three characters, from three classes of society, are travelling to the port of Calais. 

We are used to historical novels, such as Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy, creating an ‘everyday, everybody’ style where the characters feel almost like us. Meek, however, through voice and vocabulary, creates characters who live unfamiliar lives in an era very much not our own. The young gentlewoman escaping marriage echoes Norman-French speech; the proctor on his way to a monastery in Avignon thinks and speak with Ecclesiastical Latin phrasing and vocabulary, and the words of the rough ploughman trying to join a company of archers reflect the Anglo-Saxon of his position as barely above serfdom.'To Calais, In Ordinary Time’ deserved its ‘widening reading’ label and at the moment, I am enjoying the challenge. 

Will I love it? Will I finish it? I don’t know, but the novel certainly fits ASK’s promise of ‘intriguing.’

These ASK titles could widen my reading and, as a library project, would certainly tick the box labelled Reader Development. Looking at the website, now the scheme has begun, the customer responses so far sound genuinely positive, and a little surprised; rather how I feel. ASK for a Book could be a Good Thing!

Hmm. I wonder if ASK reaches into junior or Young Adult fiction? Must investigate

Penny Dolan.

Is there such a thing as a library-spotter? by Tracy Darnton

I'm not sure how it happened, but I have become a person who likes to visit other country's libraries and take pictures. 

If there's such a thing as a library-spotter, I appear to be it. 

Last month I shared my library photos on the dark academia theme, but I have been popping into some amazing modern ones while on holiday. 

So here are a few of my summer shots:

Helsingor (Elsinore) in North Zealand in Denmark is a very lovely town, home to the castle of Hamlet fame. I wish towns of a similar size in the UK had our own equivalent of The Culture Yard and a striking public library. The kids' floor was brilliant; full of imaginative play and reading spaces. 

Sneaking in an old library here - attached to the stunning modern  The Black Diamond of the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen is the reading room from 1906 and a very lovely library garden. 

Here's the mini summer library in a modern shopping plaza in Tallinn, Estonia, to illustrate that some cities make the library come to you. 

I'm finishing with the ultra modern library I swooned over. This is the one I'd like to have rammed in my suitcase.

Helsinki's library: Oodi 

Maybe it was the chess tables full of players on the ground floor, or the creative spaces where you could record music or use 3D printers, or the shelves of board games, or the events programme, or the cafes, or the terraces, or the way it was flooded with light, or packed with children in the amazing kids library, or the very long opening hours, or a whole floor of books. Sigh. 

Maybe it was because it's the place where I'd have loved to hang out as a teenager. 

Or now. 

Tracy Darnton is the author of YA thrillers and picture books known for their twisty endings. If she ever achieves world domination, she will build libraries. 

You can follow Tracy on Twitter or Instagram @TracyDarnton

Tips for Writers by Lynne Benton

 

 If this month's blog looks vaguely familiar to some of you, that's because it is.  At the moment I'm not at all well, and the thought of coming up with a new, scintillating, clever idea for a blog was just too much!  So my husband suggested I could reprint one of my earlier blogs, and after a bit of hunting I found this one.  All the tips are just as relevant today as they were when I originally wrote it, so maybe they will help some other writers:

At a recent retreat with fellow-writers, one session involved us all coming up with tips to help with our writing lives that we had found useful.  The suggestions were many and varied, so I thought I would offer them here, in case they prove useful to others.  Even if you have heard some/most of them before, it never hurts to hear them again.

1 Writing helps you through difficult times, eg a bereavement.

2 Walking is great for sorting things in your head.

3 Avoid Social Media until after you have done your work for the day!

4 Keep fan letters to remind yourself how much people enjoy your work.

5 Collect inspiring things around you.

6 Eat plenty of chocolate!

7 Don’t beat yourself up about things you can’t change.

8 Keep a work diary to show how much you have actually achieved.  (Also include non-work that is also part of your job, such as meetings with agents or other authors, school visits, tax returns etc.)

9 Fake enthusiasm, even if you don’t feel it!

10 Keep going, no matter how slowly.

11 Ask for regular meetings with your agent – makes you think and feel positive.

12 Re-read an old book of yours to remind yourself how good you are!

13 Shut the door!  Protect your working space.

14 Try to recapture the joy.

15 Separate your yearning from your ambition.

16 Learn to listen.

17 If things are going badly, tell yourself “This too will pass.”

18 Keep to a writing routine, eg write in the library at 9.30 on the dot.

19 Accept any writing-based offers.

20 List three positive things that happen each day.

21 Make a “business morning” once a week to deal with all business matters.  Don’t feel you have to reply to everyone instantly.

22 Take experience when offered.

23 Learn to accept praise!  If someone praises you and/or your work, don’t say “Oh well, it’s only…”  Just smile and say, “Thank you.”

24 Anything that helps your writing, do more of it.  Anything that doesn’t help, do less.

25 Set achievable goals.

26 Praise other people’s work – everyone needs appreciation!  Tell them how much you enjoyed their book/write a review of it on Amazon.

27 Think positive.

website: lynnebenton.com

Latest book:  

Billy and the Queen,

available from Amazon.

While Coronations are still in the news, this is a story of the previous one in 1953.

Summer Reading by Claire Fayers

 How do you decide what to read next?

Moving house has had an unexpected benefit - my local library. There's a monthly book club, which has been a great way to meet people and try books I wouldn't normally read. The reservation system takes literally a few seconds to request a book. It's really nice to see the librarian taking my latest requests off the shelf when she sees me come in. My own books have a spot on top of the shelves, marked 'Local Author'. Now the librarian has started asking for recommendations of children's books to buy so there'll be a lot more Scattered Authors on the shelves soon.

Summer is a great time to read so here are some of the books I've borrowed recently.

Some of them are by people I know, some were recommended, by friends or on social media. The Lee Child book is our next book club read, and Beneath a Scarlet Sky was thrust into my hands by the librarian who wouldn't let me leave until I'd promised to read it. I'm halfway through it and it is pretty good.

This has made me realise how much I rely on personal recommendations for books. And I really, really love my library!

www.clairefayers.com  Recommend books to me on twitter @clairefayers

The reading past revisited, by Dawn Finch

 I must confess that it's been a bit of a stressful start to 2021. Covid completely destroyed my career and that meant a complete reinvention to keep the wolf from the door. As I have spent the last six months trying to start up a new social enterprise I have struggled to find time to write anything other than food blogs and recipes. In a desperate attempt to find some inspiration for this blog I decided I would revisit one of my first posts on Awfully Big Blog with a look at library posters of the past.

I hope you enjoy this revisit too...

As a writer and passionate librarian I collect all things library and book related, and I have a particular love of vintage library posters. This this is just a small collection of my favourites. Library information posters have been produced all over the world, but in my opinion the very best are from the US and most are now part of the American Library Association's archive. This is a remarkable online resource and holds some fascinating material. The site is well worth a visit and at the foot of this gallery you can find links to some of my favourite parts of the collection.

Hope you enjoy these posters.....

I think they mean for you to ask for the book you want....but maybe they also had a shelf marked "friends"? I've known librarians keep all sorts under their desks.

The campaign for more books in the home is not exactly new.

A large number of library posters were produced in the war years as it was considered that ignorance was one of the greatest enemies a society faced. The ALA have a collection of wartime posters and you can find a link to these at the bottom of this gallery.

This campaign poster from 1918 encouraged people to donate fiction to soldiers serving at the Front. The government was concerned that soldiers would forget what they were fighting for, and so "good American literature" was regarded as essential to the mental well-being of the men. This campaign was so successful that by the end of the war over seven million books had been sent overseas with American soldiers.
The campaign had a rebirth in 1943, and has never officially ended.

At a time when fuel for vehicles was at a premium, people were being actively discouraged from driving by the Office of Defence Transportation, however this meant that library borrowing fell. It was considered that this was a serious enough issue to address and so there was an increase the number of mobile libraries and the librarians took the library to the people instead.

I do love a good book of fancies.

Swoon.....

(yes, quite frankly this one is disturbing....)

Do visit the ALA archive of posters as it's a remarkable resource and you could easily lose a whole day just clicking and exploring.

Dawn Finch is a poet, food writer and former library worker who now owns and runs a social enterprise focusing on food, cooking, growing for the table, and other community food projects in Scotland.

You can find out more at www.neepokra.co.uk

NB - Not all of these posters are part of the ALA archive, however it is my understanding that these are all public domain and all were part of public information campaigns. If you know otherwise, please do let me know and I will correct. Thank you.

PERSISTING: The Story of A Book Group by Penny Dolan

During lockdown - surely the most overused opening right now? -  some bookish things changed in my life. Today I want to write about one of these ordinary, everywhere but special groups that many of you may belong or have belonged to - or not belonged to because of your own reading preferences.  Here's my story:

The Chocolate Biscuit Book Group* started years ago as a staff-led, after-hours monthly meeting at the local Waterstones bookshop. The choice slanted towards the next highly promoted title which could be interesting but, even with discount, an expensive obligation if you didn't like the book quite that much. Sometimes, if the choice was a film-tie-in paperback - the kind where actors appear on the front cover - you might have a plainer copy already on the shelf at home. Lucky you! 

However, within a year,  both the two staff "minders" had moved to bigger, better branches and nobody wanted the unpaid responsibility of after-hours opening.  Yet people persisted. 

The bookgroup met around eight, in one of the various large bars of local hotels and pubs in town. The "readers" increased, spreading convivially out across the bar but that meant the discussion broke up into small cliques. The long hot summer took away several members and then the dark winter months shrank the group even further.  

What could be done? We, a few remaining members, persisted. In an economical mode.

We rented a small, cheap church community-room opposite the local library, whose only free slot was from quarter-past-six to quarter-past-seven, between church meetings and music rehearsals.

Happily, this odd time worked well for the now all-female group: it fitted easily between work and home, was brief enough for people with caring responsibilities and late night transport was no longer a difficulty. 

The timing might suggest a cocktail hour but we opted for minimum refreshments: tea or coffee and simple chocolate biscuits. We used our sixty minutes for small fragments of news and lots of book talk. Over the years, people came and went - house moves, work moves, family changes - but still the book group was there, persisting.


We also got round the book title problem. We subscribed - like twenty more local book groups - to our library's book group loan scheme. Through this excellent scheme, we could collect multiple copies of one title from central stock just before one meeting and delivered the pile back again in a months time. This quantity of borrowed books also explains publishing's great passion for creating popular Book Group titles and adding those annoying Talking Points pages at the end of novels.  

We could choose our own titles too: each year, during an enjoyable June meeting, we created a reading list that spread across a wide range of genres and interests and all was satisfactory. Each month, the Chocolate Biscuit Book Group* continued meeting.

Then came the cuts. Our town library - one of the original Carnegie libraries - survived the county wide cuts but with a thinned-out staff, service and stock and eventually with an adult education service moving into the building as well. Our supply of monthly Book Group copies grew erratic,  but we persisted. 

We devised a cunning book list, suggesting a choice of three titles per month for the librarian and for a while,  it worked. The librarian ordered in whichever one of the three titles was in greatest stock.


We usually received a mix of hardback, paperback, large print and audio-cd versions so there were often polite discussions about people's preferred formats:
hardback for best design and book feel but heavy to read in bed;
paperback was useful unless the font was tiny; 
large print was enjoyed for easy reading but never (to my mind) beautiful 
while audio was great for listening  but not as speedy as the written word if you were in a rush. 
We were going well, with titles happily lined up to see us through late spring and early summer.

And then came Covid. 

That was it.  After more than a decade, our small but sociable hour had gone. Some people did not want to commit to reading anything, let alone thinking about it.  Some were involved with shielding or isolating or coping with changes to family arrangements. Some did not want to think beyond the "now" moment, either,  even though they knew it was there.  Some were dealing with all of these and all reactions were sensible and understandable.

Clearly, what many people had liked about the book group was the sociability, the chance to be together with the books as a focus. Maybe even more than they liked the books themselves? An interesting thought.


Anyway,with the library closed its doors, our monthly title no longer mattered a jot, nor among the general awfulness. did the missing meeting matter. What clearly did matter was that not everyone in the group liked using modern technology to the same degree. There would be no Zoom meetings for the Chocolate Biscuit Book Group.*. 

Instead, gradually, we've been sending the group our own email (short or long) each month, keeping in touch with oddments of news or thoughts about any screen stuff seen, or gardens or anything. Just saying hello, really. And, occasionally, some of us mention book titles we've read.  Truly, it's about the people, not the pages.

However, now there's been news of libraries re-opening, but not as we knew them.

Our library, like others, will open in a limited, phased way sometime in July, mainly for the  return of books and the collection of orders; later in the summer, people will be allowed in to use the computer screens . . . 

But the essential library pleasure of idle browsing is a long long way away, and what will the state of the book stock be by then? Remembering that in the past, library books were thought to spread disease, will anyone in the book want to borrow books as before? Or will it all be e-book loans?

Should the Chocolate Biscuit Book Group* even try to make a new reading list?

Or plan to meet again sometime in the future?

And, after all these years, is persisting even possible for Chocolate Biscuit Book Group* ?

As for your own Book Groups? How are they going?  How are they working?

Penny Dolan
@pennydolan1 

ps The Chocolate Biscuit Book Group* is a fictitious name. But somehow I'm feeling rather peckish right now.

SPACE FOR READING: The Summer Reading Challenge. By Penny Dolan

The first of September, already! The shelves of my local children’s library will be filling up again as the six books borrowed for the Summer Reading Challenge are returned by the parents and children.

This year’s theme was SPACE RACE: a not-totally serious celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the first moon landing, and this August I was involved too.

This wasn’t because one of my titles was on an Important List or fitted in with the theme or even doing Summer Events as An Author or some other Activity Provider.

I was there because I was a volunteer SRC helper. I sat behind the table, with boxes of cards close by my elbow and drawers full of stickers at my side, ready for those who’d signed up for this year’s SRC.

Before the holidays even began, I had been trained.

I knew about directing those with lost cards to the library staff desk to renew or even register with the Library Service for the first time.

I knew all about filling in the tiny SRC registration cards, including the need for parents to fill in their own email addresses.

The cards - with their mix of family surnames - also show one of the most important things about the library system. Libraries can be used by anyone in our society and are particularly valued by those who value their children's literacy.

I knew that the SRC asks children to read six books over the holidays, although of course, some read a lot more. 

 

To me, who was once a keen child reader – this half-dozen seemed an undemanding quantity. Why the limit? I wondered. 

 

However, there’s a wider perspective. As all six books can be taken out at once, this puts a greater demand on stock. If the SRC was a Ten Title challenge, just ten eager children might borrow a hundred books, and the library would be bare, especially in these straightened times. About six hundred children sign up for the SRC, so even six-titles, if taken out over one or two library visits, can use a lot of books.

I knew about this year’s folding Space Race Wallet – “We only have one per child so please don’t lose it!” - and the three-step system of stickers. Two books, two books more and then a last two. There are different stickers and different places to position the stickers and small “prizes” for every two books read. 

 

I was soon adept at giving out which sticker when, with encouraging words, but I never quite got the hang of the three-way fold . I handed the wallet back in as tidy a fold as I could.

I also knew that, when completed, each child would be awarded a Summer Reading Challenge medal. This was when I looked at the open SRC “wallet” and the spread where a child will have written, in sets of two, their six titles. Ta da!

I loved looking at their choices and asking them (in as quietly and friendly a way as I could) which titles they’d like best or which they’d enjoyed because I was interested in their books and liked children’s books myself. 

 

I had already seen a media-muttering about one library where this process seemed rather heavy-handed. Oh dear! What I was after was a mood of “isn’t talking about books you’ve read an interesting thing to do?” With plenty of smiles.

The title section also gave me a chance to see the variety of books that children read, to spot the usual favourites and to note that (as in bookshops) parents can dominate choices.

The Summer Reading Challenge is an initiative that can help to widen that knowledge by encouraging children to use the library, and by keeping a focusing on reading, keeping reading out there in the culture as an activity that lots of people do even when they are not within school. 

 

Besides, the books on good and well-funded library shelves can offer a wider variety of books (and therefore a wider variety of writing and literacy) than the current titles on offer in many bookshops.

There were sweet relationship patterns hidden in the pages, such as when a pair of siblings both had the title down because the older read it to the younger in bed at night, or else when a parent had read the book to both of them while they were all away on a caravan holiday.

Then, finally, came the Award when the young reader was presented with a special medal to wear. If they were going on to secondary school, they also got their SRC Certificate. 

This could be a delightfully cheery moment and one I tried to make as grand and “official” as  the child’s personality suggested. Sometimes photographs were posed and taken too! Later, when school holidays are over, the Certificates will go to the school and presented there, perhaps in an assembly.

As a new SRC volunteer, I really enjoyed the times I was able to help this year. I liked meeting the children and families informally, and seeing how the Summer Reading Challenge worked from the not-an-author side.

There's not always a gap to fill: the SRC sessions are popular with young teens who seem very competent and friendly and who can use their volunteering as part of The Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme. 

It’s September now, so SRC is almost over - but I certainly hope to sign up again next year. All in all, having seen the scheme in action, I am very much in favour. Some children do not need it at all as encouragement, some may speed through it lightly and carelessly, but many of the young readers I saw across the other side of the table were certainly involved with reading at a time when there are so many other things available.

Now a quick confession: I did squee a little, though silently, when I spotted one of my own early readers titles being taken out.

And an aside: One of the reasons I already knew about the medals was because, as Chair of the local Friends Group, we’d funded the blue or gold ribbons they hang on. Moreover, I’d also seen another Library volunteer, someone who prefers doing behind- the-scenes tasks. spending her time stringing up – or should it be ribboning up? - every one of those many hundred Summer Reading Challenge medals. What a hero!

Lastly, even a possible personal plan: I might start taking my laptop into the Children’s Library and working there. It was good to spend a couple of hours in such friendly, bookish company and so many familiar names.

Penny Dolan

The Magic of the Library by Sheena Wilkinson

I loved Emma Pass's recent post about falling in love with books, and it made me think about the origins of my own lifelong love affair with stories. It started with the library. 

Libraries made me. It’s as simple as that. They made me a reader, and being a reader made me a writer.

the estate where I grew up 

I grew up in the middle of the Northern Irish Troubles in an estate in east Belfast. I was a feisty, mouthy little thing with a tendency to get myself into bother in the street. I remember one neighbour biting me when I broke his Lego gun. In an effort to keep me from such charmers my parents encouraged the local library, where only nice children went, as an alternative playground.

But I didn’t need encouragement. In Cregagh Library, in the mid-seventies, I fell in love. The world of stories was wider and richer than the world of the street. I wandered the prairies with Laura Ingalls Wilder and shivered with her through the Long Winter; I longed to go to the Austrian Chalet School and be best friends with Jo Bettany, or to Malory Towers with Darrell; I fell into adventure with the Famous Five and solved clues with the Five Find Outers. I was a Borrower.

the local library -- where it all began  

Library books were fat hardbacks with shiny covers. You could borrow three at once and that made a good armful. They bore their borrowing histories on the page of return dates. I thrilled to be part of that history every time the librarian took my card and stamped my book. The most popular books – and I was not a child of especially esoteric tastes – often had a second or even third page glued on top. Occasionally I would borrow a book with few other stamps and wonder which other girl (I scorned boys) in the greater Cregagh area also liked Daddy-Long-Legs or Peter’s Room. If only I could find her, I was sure she would be a kindred spirit and not the sort to bite in the street. 

     

I used to stay in the library until closing time and walk home in the dusk, often snatching a read on the way home, leaping from lamppost to lamppost. I couldn’t wait to get safely indoors to find out if Harriet the Spy would be unmasked, or if Pa would make it home through the blizzard. (He always did.) 

Harriet was the first fictional character I met who wanted to be a writer, closely followed by Jo March, though Jo wasn’t a library friend, Mummy having bought me a copy of Little Womenas soon as I could read. (What are daughters for, after all?) Home friends were solid and dependable, library friends sometimes elusive. Oh, the pain of needing Harriet or Laura or the Fossil sisters on a particular day and not finding them on the shelves! In vain did I hide my favourites (I was not a public-spirited child); the librarians always dug them out and returned them to the right places on the right shelves.

Or perhaps they found their way home by magic. The library, after all, was that sort of place. 

A Journey In Seven Books by Steve Gladwin

Reading this I can hear you thinking, 'Ah, it's another of those posts where people list their favourite books and talk about why they like them.' But there, gentle reader, you would be wrong, for this is something completely different - an opportunity for you, the reader, to take yourself back into your own favourite books in the form of a hopefully both therapeutic and relaxing journey. So gather round, draw closer and join me on the magic carpet in the middle of the old library and let's see what we can remember. Let's see what we can find. Let's see if we remember who you truly - ARE!

So if you're sitting in the requisite comfortable attitude, we're going to begin in this library itself and the first of our books.

To begin with take about three quiet gentle breaths in and out to settle yourself and calm your mind.

A single bell sounds. Once. Twice. Three times!

The Book of your Childhood

It's entirely up to you if you choose to shut your eyes and give your imagination full reign, or get up and try and flesh out the bones of the place you're in by filling the library with books and members of staff and old maps and prints - anything to conjure up the atmosphere that suits you best.

So let's find the first of our books. Of all books it should be the easiest to find, but you never know, because doing so involves the furthest search of memory. But it is on one of the shelves in the library and - as you'l find - is actually the gateway to the next place and the next location. When you've found the book however, you'll know and recognise it straight away because it will have the smell and feel of your childhood about it, the ability to take you back to that time, that place, that space and that sacred book memory. Maybe the book has remained a favourite, which you've read many times since, still precious and dog-eared on your shelf or even ever handy on your desk, or maybe you keep several copies so that every so often you can give one to friends.

Now you've found your book, smelt its smell of dust and polish, sea and stair, earth and forest, castle keep and kitchen, enjoy for a brief while what it is and why you loved it so.

And when you're good and ready, find your favourite part - the very page you remember best and

enter into the time of your ancestors.

The Book of your Ancestors


Not everyone can recall the time of their ancestors, or even the time of their grandparents. It's usually either history books, or films, family diaries and journals, maps, stories or guesswork, or more often than not all at once.

But there are people who made us who we are and they of course go back a long, long way. So in order to find your ancestors I'd like you to pick an ancestor you'd like to meet, a time and place you'd like to see them. Right now you're standing on the brow of a hill and down there in the mist is the place where you will find your ancestor(s), experience what they experience, smell and hear what they smelt and heard, feel the cloth and sacking, the worsted and linen, the armour and chain mail they wore and felt. So go down to them now, to the place that you have chosen and into the world that is theirs.

When you've spent this precious time with your ancestor, you'll know instinctively and you'll want to remember it all as much as you can. So imagine that everything you can remember, all that is so precious, you have written, scrawled and scribbled, or painstakingly quilled in the form of an old book, stuffed with pages, with illustrations and maps, bound or loose in a bundle, or even carried in a satchel, rough and full of notes and crossings out, but loved and cherished above all else.

So loved and cherished is it that you are hardly ever aware that you are carrying it with you.
However, when you have seen enough of your ancestor and their life and recorded it all, you will find something waiting for you - an object to give you entrance through the next gateway. It may be a simple key with a door to go with it, but it might be anything; a ball of yarn, a banana, a magic carpet. As ever, you decide. But taking your object and finding your entrance you use one to fit the other, until you are ready to find the next book, which is --

The Book of your Heart

This book may be the smallest, perhaps not even visible, but the more you think about it and try to conjure it the more apparent and obvious it will become. It begins with you settling in your favourite chair, relaxed and warm in the sun, or snuggled up before a winter fire. Or maybe curl up by the fire, sit on a mat, lie down - anywhere you're most comfortable.

The book of your heart is the book that for you represents the most important thing or things in your life. It's quite literally your singing and beating heart, the place from where sheer joy springs and laughter echoes, the thing you want to embrace anew every time you see and feel it.

Of course, you may find it difficult to find it in the form of a book, so the best way is to find the book which most represents it and that particular feeling. You may have to dig deep in your memory, or it might just land on your chest with the light, soundless spring of a cat. Whether it happens that way or not, a cat or suitable furry animal is a good example, for when the book of your heart comes you will know it and snuggle it to you until it becomes part of you, filling all of the space you have left empty.

All good things have to come to an end however, and after a while the memory of the book leaves you and with its departure you decide it is time for you to rise. In the chair or mat or place you have just left, you see another book. This is -

The Book of your Wisdom

OK, you might never have even read a bible story, thumbed a myth or tried to internalise a koan, But sure as I cant say Upanishads when I've taken drink, there will have been something in your life which might have qualified as a 'wisdom' book. Quite possibly you'll have to dredge the memory a bit, or overcome a few prejudices, but trust me, there will be one there. It might not be the obvious thing either, no glowing lights or halos or visual speaking in tongues. It might take the form of a childhood autograph book, or an instruction man for Meccano or Scalextric or a copy of Smash Hits, but you will have that corner of religion somewhere, trust me!

So when you've found it in your memory, you can allow the wisdom of your particular take on life to fill the empty pages, just as it will refill your own consciousness, reminding yourself- just in case you've forgotten - of the something you may have lost or forgotten. Maybe the background fills in with song or music or a certain kind of silence.

When you have gazed on your forgotten wisdom for long enough, it is time to close the- now full - book, but you have a surprise in store.

The Book of your Life

And what a surprise, for you hardly have time to shut the book before you are lifted from the ground . As it falls from your fingers, you reach out and a single piece is ripped from the book with you hanging on to it in a terrifying plummet.

But the road of your life often becomes rockier the older you become and more often than not you need to steady it in order not to suffer from constant motion sickness. So much to your surprise, you discover that the moment you grab for the sheet, it slows and quickly steadies your descent, enabling you to come down gently until you are on an unlit path in a darkness which has suddenly descended. But just before the lights go out, you have chance to see the single thing that is written on the piece of paper - the words 'The Book of your Life.' 

As you worry about the darkness around you, you hold up the piece of paper. To your surprise it bursts into flame and you can see the path ahead of you. And as you do so you realise that there is one book which has always helped you to see ahead of you and put your life in perspective, something that reflects the uniqueness of you. 

As you walk the path now illuminated by the book, you see that book in front of you and you walk towards it until its pages seem to embrace the whole landscape. You stand facing it for a while and then watch as it reduces gradually to the size and familiar shape of the original book. You pick this up, thumb through its familiar pages, smile and - let it go. Perhaps you don't need it any more, but it's nice to be reminded of it.

Perhaps you're expecting another book to make itself known - but you're probably going to be surprised by the way it appears. You see, this book is on the ground, for this one is --

The Book of your Journey

The path of our life and journey is forever laid out in front of us. Of course it all may have already happened, or all be happening consecutively, as many religions preach. But one thing is certain and that's that marring fire, flood, illness or accident, it will go on. All lives however have at least one thing in common and that's how they start at the beginning.

So in front of you now, the book of your life is facing you, and you have the choice of how much of it to walk. You can do this now, or simply find a book you've read which reflects your life. But if you do this, rather than take the longer, more reflective road, then you must make a promise to go back to that book and read it again. It might be anything from 'Winnie the Pooh' or the Ladybird book of 'What to look for in Winter', 'The Lord of the Rings' or' Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' Just go back and read it again and you can guarantee you'll find something.

NB The books of Wisdom and the Journey may seem a bit similar, so here's the difference; the book of wisdom is about one or a few things you've learnt, whereas the book of the journey is about the entire path you've taken, not anything specific. But as in all the best things, everything is as you need it to be.

Which brings us to the final book, which brings us back full circle to the old library and  --

The Book of the Mind

This time we're in the library but sitting in one of the many comfortable chairs. We're sitting with our heads back. We can't remember how we made it back from the path of the journey, but it doesn't seem to matter. Because, having undertaken a journey both creative and spiritual, we've come back to the place we started, to the land of books.

Because there's just one book at the moment that we want to grab and read, one that always stimulates our minds, gets us asking and questioning, takes us deep into its narrative or wisdom. You might call it a favourite book, or just one you turn to regularly. But it's usually not just for entertainment. This book means something to you and when you read it there is some kind of meeting of minds.

And as you think about the book, the power of your mind forms its shape and gives it to you. You pick it up, intending to either begin again or resume. Much to your surprise there is a bookmark in there which you don't remember placing there.

But at that place in the book, on that page, paragraph and line you will find the sum total of all this journey's wisdom. You look at the place and the line. You only need to read it once.

You allow the book to dematerialise. You sit back in the comfortable chair, take some gentle deep breaths in and out.

A bell sounds. Once. Twice. Three times!

You're back!

But the journey will always continues.

Hope you enjoyed this. Would love to hear more about your book choices.

Mine were as follows:

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, The Gladwin family photo album, The Summer Tree, The Storyteller,my book 'The Seven', The Lord of the Rings, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I've also thrown in Mr Norrell's library for good measure!

​Steve Gladwin

'Tales From The Realm' - Story and Screen Dream

Connecting Myth, Faerie and Magic

Author of 'The Seven' - Shortlisted for Welsh Books Prize, 2014