Anything But Silent

‘It’s interesting when something which isn’t of your realm of experience causes you to look at your own domain differently.’ Writer Damian Le Bas tells us about The Son by Philipp Meyer (2013).

Libraries are good company. This month we borrow some people from the Human Library, join the Little Free Library book-sharing movement and visit a sports academy working with young people which received support from our Business & IP Centre.

Punk painter and writer Billy Childish discusses the writing that made him: Lust for Life by Irving Stone (1934).

Playwright Joe Orton’s ‘malicious damage’, salvaged cardboard and roller derby. This month we hear stories of libraries as sites of creative rebellion. Contains some explicit language and imagery.

‘I defy you not to get lost in it.’ Writer, Creative Ambassador and editor, Simon Doonan, tells us about his love of The Flight from the Enchanter by Iris Murdoch (1956).

Libraries can be places of creative and intellectual sanctuary, refuge, hope and companionship. We step into the British Library’s Reading Rooms, visit a hidden library in Syria and meet people in Swansea forming connections through reading.

‘It just opened up this whole new world to me.’ Adventurer and survival expert Megan Hine tells us about a book that influenced her, Land of the Long White Cloud: Maori Myths, Tales and Legends by Kiri Te Kanawa (1989).

Don’t be a numpty: have a skeg at our latest episode and get your lugholes around some UK accents and dialects, join bookmobile Booky McBookface on the Scottish islands of Orkney, and discover the library boldly going where no library has gone before.

‘The first time you see something you’ve experienced captured in a way that feels accurate, it’s really memorable and changing.’ The novelist and poet Joe Dunthorne discusses Politics by Adam Thirlwell (2003) and writing about sex. Contains some profanity and sexual content.

We open up ‘the world’s best collection of forbidden books’ and consider current restrictions on free expression, plus two librarians talk weeding and Awful Library Books.