I’ve been showing a lot of love for my local library on Instagram recently, which caused me to pause and consider the reasons for this adoration of these homes of books. In no particular order: Continue reading
books
The Opposite of Loneliness
So much has been written, more eloquently than I ever could, about Marina Keegan’s ‘The Opposite of Loneliness’. Keegan’s collection of essays and short stories was published posthumously, as this brilliant writer, actor, journalist died in an accident when she was just 22 years old. She had graduated from Yale just a few days earlier and was tipped for greatness. Much is rightly said of the tragedy of it all. Continue reading
A little book of craftivism
Craftivism: “a way of looking at life where voicing your opinions through creativity makes your voice stronger, your compassion deeper” – Betsy Greer.
I became aware of the Craftivist Collective over a year ago, but it wasn’t until last summer when I watched Sarah Corbett share her story that I began to understand the power of this kind of slow activism. Sarah talks about how as a worn out activist, she discovered the power of pairing her enjoyment of craft with her passion to see the world changed for the better. This change in her personal approach has grown into the Craftivist Collective, with people across the world taking part in craftivist projects, sometimes on their own, sometimes in groups, but always in solidarity with the movement. Continue reading
Spoken allowed
It was TED’s fault. A couple of years ago I was trawling online for some generic ‘inspiration’, when I stumbled across Sarah Kay’s TED talk, ‘If I should have a daughter’. It was a revelation to me. I had always loved reading and writing poetry, but I had never before experienced spoken word poetry. I was instantly taken with the idea of poetry that, as Sarah Kay puts it, “doesn’t just want to sit on paper; something about it demands it be heard out loud or witnessed in person”. Continue reading
25 years after the ‘Last chance to see’
As a longtime devotee of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy I would’ve picked up Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine’s ‘Last Chance to See’ regardless of the subject matter. The fact that the book details their attempts to see some of the most endangered species of the 1980s just meant that I gained an extra level of enjoyment, beyond their hilarious retelling of jetlag, excessive aftershave purchases and empathy with chickens (I’m not sure fellow passengers on public transport were as blessed by my stifled laughter and shaking shoulders). Continue reading
A lifetime of words
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I have always made time for words. Reading them, arranging them, pondering them…
At the age of four I was proud that I knew my letters. Even on the day that we moved into our new home, the most important thing to me was practicing them and showing them off. This was for some reason not appreciated by my parents when I chose to show off my writing skills on the side of a new chest of drawers (the perils of stray biros and four-year olds!). For the next 15 years the letters stood as a blue-inked monument to my early priorities. Continue reading
Julia Kendal 