Personal Libraries

I love the books in this house.

I love the spontaneous creation of libraries at Occupy events and at Gezi Park in Istanbul.

I loved the library at the end of our block beside Pimlico Tube Station in London where I grew up.

So...what I'd love to do would be to invite friends over to explore our library one Sunday afternoon. Imagine people sitting in various chairs, all seriously trying out different books and writing down lists of authors to try. After that I'd like to visit other people's book collections to learn from them.

Normally it is considered bad manners to look at the bookshelves rather than chat on a visit, so I'd love to deliberately change that. At my grandparents' homes and my parents' house I have always been able to spend time looking at their stuff, but as an adult it is not welcomed.

The other thing I want to do is rearrange our books now that T has done his last AS exam and is apart from the library at his school. I need to ask him what he will miss about his school and how we can find replacements.

Nothing can truly replace the beautiful library or entire building of St Paul's Girls' School or the college and university libraries at Durham, but everywhere I have lived has had libraries of one sort or another.