Showtime!

The last week of the Circus Stars Summer Reading Challenge is finally here and it’s a good one.

In the recently refurbished children’s section of Queen’s Park Library, we have been flooded by children and swamped with events in the last five weeks!

From jungle adventures with Nellie the elephant and parades around the library to making the fantastic puppets pictured here, the under 6s have been polishing their circus moves and getting into character.

The older children have also had loads of fun learning tricks such as juggling, t-shirt painting skills and attending workshops for up & coming clowns.

To finish it all off we will be completing a giant circus collage this afternoon and hosting two “end of summer reading” parties this week. The mystic 8 ball in our ‘Read your fortune’ tent predicts that everyone will enjoy themselves and more children will complete the challenge over the next few weeks…

So if you’ve been taking part in Circus Stars at your library, check out the last flurry of events and make sure you come along soon to tell us about what you’ve been reading in order to get your medal!

[Maria]

Scandi-crime

How did it all happen? One day we came to work and suddenly all people wanted to read was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. As soon as we got to grips with the spelling of the author’s name and the sequence of the trilogy the phenomenon was already in full swing.

The stock team was busy with new orders to satisfy the demand and we were discovering the vastness and diversity of Scandinavian creativity. Some of us took eagerly to reading and finding out directly what the fuss was all about.

There are the Icelandic authors – Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Arnaldur Indridason, the Swedish – Camilla Ceder, Camilla Lackberg, Hakan Nesser, Mari Jungstedt and the ever so depressive Karin Alvtegen (Stieg Larsson too, of course), the Norwegian – Karin Fossum, Jo Nesbo and Anne Holt, and Dane Leif Davidsen.

The story lines are interesting and the suspense keeps you pretty breathless. You’re drawn to the large frozen expanses of the far North and the characters, most of the time, reflect the gloominess of the environment. You’re drawn into their world, their weaknesses and strengths and their bright approach to solving the crime – or to eluding justice. A beautiful portrait of humanity in dazzling scenery and a writing technique honed to high standards.

The tradition stems back to the times of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, and more recently Peter Hoeg (do you remember Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow?) but the turning point in the popularity of the genre – if we can call it that – came about, sadly, with the death of Stieg Larsson and the publication of his trilogy.

Please post a comment if you’ve found a particular author that you want to tell people about – who have we missed?

[Paola]

FT Historical Archive, 1888-2006 [e-resource of the week]

When the London Financial Guide was first published in 1888, it could have equally have been called the World Financial Guide. For many commodities and services, the London market was the World market.
This “stockbrokers’ bible” eventually became the Financial Times, later merging with its arch-rival, the Financial News. Very early on, it turned salmon pink, so the city gents could easily find it on the newsstand.

Meanwhile, other financial centres grew up in Europe, America and around the World, and the FT kept ahead of the curve. Not only was the coverage extended well beyond the shores of this country, the paper was also published and printed around the globe. For the first time in the late 1990s, more copies were sold abroad than in the UK.

Easy to dismiss as just for finance nerds, the FT, its coverage and its own history provide a fascinating timeline of globalisation. Of course, the FT is still at it, in print, online, on handhelds and smart phones. But the broad picture is probably best appreciated by digging into the FT Archive, now available online (in full facsimile) from the first issue in 1888 until 2006. All you need is your library membership card to access it from anywhere.

The FT would probably suffer a corporate heart attack if I suggested that it was a scandal-rag, but it’s often been the first to uncover the juicy scams. In the 1880s it was Her Majesty’s Dockyards knocking out snuff boxes for the private market; much later we can read about Robert Maxwell and his unsavoury activities, It’s all there for the dedicated scumbag-collector. There are nearly 21,000 hits for “scandal” – lovely!

[David]

Community action

Kate from Queen’s Park Library has been out and about again! this time she visited the launch of the brand new ‘TELL IT – parents action group’ for the Queen’s Park area. Their slogan is ‘It takes a whole community to raise a child’.

The lady pictured with Kate is Pepe, one of the organizers of the new group – very active in the Queen’s Park Community and a staunch supporter of the libraries. There was drumming, face painting, poetry and refreshments, and the library was pleased to lend its support as many of the parents and children are familiar faces at Queens Park Library events.

[Kate]

Secrets and lies

Books about spies and spying were on the menu at the August meeting of the Paddington Library Reading Group. The group discussed the recently published The Secret Life of Bletchley Park by Sinclair McKay, which gives a thorough account of what life and work was like for people invited to work at the top secret war time code breaking and communications facility in Bedfordshire.

The group also looked at a biography of Ian Fleming, by Andrew Lycett. Fleming was the author of the James Bond series of books, and this biography explores how his wartime experience, career in naval intelligence, and meetings with the CIA and other intelligence agency groups may have inspired some of his writing.

Other books we discussed included a novel published in 1903, The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers, an apparently fictional account of a couple of sailors who discover Germany’s secret naval preparations for the invasion of Britain before World War One. The book had a big impact on the attitude of the Foreign Office and the Intelligence services towards Imperial Germany.

Finally we looked at Nine lives: true spy stories from Mata Hari to Kim Philby by another former Intelligence Officer, Fitzroy Maclean.

The next meeting of the Reading Group will be on 9 September, on the theme of Banned Books.

[Laurence]

Sporting London

With less than a year to go until London plays host to the Olympics, here at Westminster City Archives we’re focusing on local sporting history with August’s book of the month, Sporting London: a race through time. Published in the year that the capital was awarded the 2012 Olympic Games, author Richard Tames celebrates the history and development of sports in London.

Cricket at Lord’s in 1822. Image property of Westminster City Archives.

Tames provides a fascinating insight into the capital’s sporting pastimes through the centuries, including those which the city helped to popularise and are still commonly played today. Westminster’s strong role in this history is clear: our City has hosted many recreational and competitive sports events over the centuries, from horse-riding on Rotten Row in Hyde Park to cricket games at Lord’s.

Boys from Burdett Coutts School enjoy a swimming lesson in 1916. Image property of Westminster City Archives.

The Archives Centre is an ideal place to explore both major events and lesser-known stories in Westminster’s sporting past. From rare images of a riding school at the heart of Piccadilly to photographs of long-lost swimming baths, historic lists of boxing rules and cycle race programmes, our collections help tell the story of how London became a capital for sports and leisure.

[Georgina]

So long, and thanks for all the reads

St James’s Library, Westminster’s most recently established library in Victoria Street, has now closed its doors for good.

We would like to extend our best wishes to the many warm and enthusiastic St James’s customers and hope that they will continue to use the library service through the other nearby libraries: both Pimlico and Victoria libraries are within a mile of the St James’s site. As before, items currently on loan from St James’s can be returned to any of Westminster’s other libraries.

A message from the staff of St James’s Library (soon to be staff at a range of other Westminster libraries):

“Many thanks to St James’s Library’s many loyal customers who came in yesterday with freshly baked cakes, snacks, bottles, chocolates and cards, bearing heart-warming thoughts about the pleasure they’ve found in using the library these past 14 years. To our lovely customers: See you soon at our new branches…”

Some of the words which cropped up more than once in their messages include: ‘outstanding’, ‘friendly’, ‘helpful’, ‘excellent’, ‘valuable’, ‘supportive’, ‘kind’ and ‘fantastic’. 🙂

You can read more about the decision to close the library on the St James’s Library page on the Westminster Libraries & Archives site.

Roll up, roll up – the circus is in town!

Ladies and gentlemen, Westminster Music Library– our very own “Big top” -brings you the very best in circus entertainment!

Nearly 30 children and adults had a very musical morning here at Westminster Music Library as part of the Circus Stars Summer Reading Challenge.

The show began with our resident pianist providing some rip roaring tunes for marching and clowning around, and then it was time for some audience participation…

Songs featuring Nellie the famous elephant, followed by a song about an equally famous bear. Had he escaped from The Jungle Book to join the circus?  Could that be Baloo?

So what did our audience make of all this big top of fun:

“My daughter had a great time – we’ll definitely be coming along for more.”

“Thanks for such an enjoyable morning, my kids love anything with music.”

And from our younger fans:

“Please can we sing some more?!!”

If you (or your children) haven’t joined Circus Stars yet, there’s still time to get involved, get reading and have loads of fun. Just pop in to your local library, sign up and pick up a circus stage to get you started.

[Ruth]