Bookish backdrops
WHAT BETTER PLACE to set a book than in a bookstore or library? It makes sense that many authors, including myself, pay homage to these vital literary locations in our novels and non-fiction; most of us ‘grew up’ in libraries and bookstores – and chances are, many of our readers did too. I not only...
After the deluge: Knowledge in the magical age of (mis-/dis-) information
A new book by Simon Winchester has just come out. The mere fact in itself is thrilling and exciting. For over 50 years, Winchester has been critically informing his readers as a journalist for the Guardian, the Daily Mail or The Times, and as an author of political histories of troubled places and troubling times,...
It is us they burn
In the course of the 2005 youth riots that broke out across France, thirty-two libraries were burnt down or so badly ravaged that their contents had to be thrown away. If one looks at the period covering 1996 to 2013 the tally rises to more than seventy. Libraries come under attack in the banlieues again...
