Day 12: Charing Cross Library - It's never too late to learn #30days30libraries
Their website told me that Charing Cross Library is 'a busy library serving residents, commuters and the local Chinese community' but I wasn't expecting to find it quite so buzzing on a rainy Sunday afternoon.Nor was I prepared for how well the library catered for the Chinese community.I saw it in the signs ...the books, of course ...as well as through the decorations.One man I tried to talk to gestured to me sadly that he did not speak English and then went back to reading his chinese newspaper.I spoke to Greg who told me that has been using this library for 24 years. Today he was here with his two daughters, who were half-chinese and half-french."I always come here. I've moved around London but I come back to this library when I go to Chinatown, for eating or shopping. This library has the best stock of chinese books in London.It's a centre for us. We can go to Chinatown and come here in just one visit.My daughters are half-chinese and they like eating chinese food. I tempt them to come here by promising them a tasty lunch afterwards."I explained to Greg that I was also half-chinese but that, when he asked, I could not speak or read chinese myself."Well, it's never too late to learn," said Greg and pointed me towards the library shelves where I could find a book to get me started.
Day 11: Richmond Library - I like that it's isolated #30days30libraries
Having raced across London, ducking past festival-going crowds, Saturday shoppers and lots of people laid down with plastic bags of picnics, my journey to Richmond Library had been a little fraught.I rushed through the open doors of the library, feeling waves of relief that I'd made it there before it'd closed.I was in.I knew what I had to do.I had to get started and begin talking to people. I needed to listen.I wanted to take some photos, and get a feel for the place.I'd left my husband waiting outside for me, sitting on a patch of grass, and had promised him that I wouldn't be 'too long.'But I just couldn't do it.As though in a trance, I took a book from the shelf - Malorie Blackman's 'Boys Don't Cry' - I can't believe that I haven't read it before now - and sank down into one of the sofas.I began to read.The library had cast a spell over me.I could almost hear its voice ...You will take a book.You will find a seat.You will read. There was a young man sitting opposite me - also sunk, into book, and sofa. Lost in another world.His name was Aaron."I *should* be coming here to work," he said with a wry smile. "I'm on an Access course at Richmond College doing Literature, Law and History and I come here often to work. But also to take breaks too."He smiled again and proffered his book.A Terry Pratchett title."I love Terry Pratchett. I read him all the time.I didn't used to come here but now I can't stop.It's quiet.And I like that it's isolated from everything else."Like me, Aaron hadn't been able to stop himself from entering into the world of a book, shuttering down the noise of the outside.And like me, he was in exactly the right place to do it.