Love, love, love, love, love

[azalaisdep]

Hopeless about posting at the moment (RL, RL, RL) but I absolutely had to dive in and share this.

There are many reasons why Neil Gaiman is one of my cultural heroes.  Here, in an edited version (of a lecture he gave in London on Monday night for The Reading Agency) is yet another...

Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming

Comments

[sensiblecat]

OMFG.

I want that read at my funeral. What a speech.

I worry terribly about the school library where I work. I've built it up from nothing over ten years and now i feel it's time to retire - I get ill all the time in winter because it's in a freezing reception area and there's so much exposure to infection, but I just feel I can't give up doing something so important. I probably feel I'm irreplaceable and of course I'm not.

Feeling a bit vulnerable anyway right now - daughter is ill at uni, probably glandular fever (she's waiting for the test result) and I'm fighting the desire just to scoop her up, bring her home and fuss over her...

[curiouswombat]

I'm fighting the desire just to scoop her up, bring her home and fuss over her...

Just expressing sympathy - I felt the same when my daughter was a second year and developed shingles - for a variety of reasons, including the need for a sea-crossing or flight, I simply couldn't scoop her up. But she did survive. However a little 'babying' from afar didn't go amiss.

[azalaisdep]

I saw it and thought of you, oddly enough! And shared it all over FB and our Library FB page (I initially picked it up from another Education library's FB feed!) Just gave me such a lift in the middle of a very draining work week - talk about endorsement of our profession.

ETA: And v sorry to hear about daughter - rotten if it is GF. So easy at university to work and play too hard, not look after yourself and get run down...

[curiouswombat]

His message is clear - and universal - I saw the link 2 posts down my FL before I saw it on yours - in the journal of my friend petzipellepingo who lives in Michigan!

[azalaisdep]

The more viral it goes, the better :-) Love the man, love the message...

[jay_of_lasgalen]

YES. And YES again. This is the most perfect explanation of why books, and libraries, and reading are so vital.

[azalaisdep]

There are so many fantastic nuggets in it - the stuff about China and SF, the (really sad) statistic about American prison-builders being able to predict pretty accurately how many prison places they will need based on literacy rates among ten-year-olds - but perhaps most of all, the mental image I now have of the little eight-year-old boy spending all day in the school holidays buried in the children's section of his local public library, with librarians who welcomed and helped and respected him as a reader like any other. That is still bringing a big lump to my throat - and making me very proud of my profession :-)

[lindahoyland]

A great article, thanks for sharing.

[azalaisdep]

I'm glad you enjoyed it - I knew my flist would!