Born in Britain: a rebellion of readers

by Cathy Macleod at www.booktaste.com, week ending 4 Feb 2011.
BOOK BURNING is something no democratic government would ever contemplate, yet Britain’s situation is equally severe: closure of public libraries. This weekend (Feb 5) readers throughout the nation are fighting to save them. Shelf stripping and read-in rallies will demonstrate a new force in the land, Reader Power.
It all began with the global financial crisis. Enmeshed in economic horror, the British government has announced massive spending cuts. Because of this a multitude of Local Government Councils (who decide community budgets) intend to close up to 1000 libraries.
The protests against local councils and central government are angry and widespread but Britain is broke and the politicians claim there is no choice. With the world in a mess and Britain’s recent ruinous snowstorms, the outlook is grim for a time-honoured British tradition.
Is it possible for Local Government to save their public libraries? In theory yes, by reducing what they spend elsewhere and by increasing local fees and taxes. Several have said this will be done, others insist they can’t afford to pay for a leisure pursuit, and blame central government. The revolt by readers thus becomes a political force in the next election, both local and national. It is probably the first time that book readers have become such a force anywhere.
Starting February 5, protesters will be active in Birmingham, Liverpool, Hounslow, Brixton, Barnet, Lewisham, Unsworth, Somerset, Suffolk, Wiltshire, West Sussex, Gloucestershire, Doncaster, Oxfordshire, Yorkshire and other places now joining the crusade to save access to books.
The Isle of Wight witnessed a prelude last week when people indulged in a borrowing orgy. Nine of their 11 public libraries are under threat of closure. Readers entered Newport library armed with trolleys and bags to carry away their full allowance of borrowed items. In Stony Stratford, an ancient Buckinghamshire market town, every library user was urged to pick their full entitlement of books, take them away and keep them for a week. In both instances the idea was to empty the shelves to show what a dead library would look like. Later this week, “mass read-ins” will be held at libraries throughout Britain to demonstrate opposition to the threatened closures.
Britain has additional book woes, however. The winter snowstorms and rising prices kept shoppers away and resulted in the worst December retail sales on record. All this on top of bookshop closures, insolvent publishers and that new menace, digital invaders. The Booksellers Association released a major blog about it, reviewing the whole ebooks scenario. There’s a handy link at www.booktaste.com.
Undaunted, the National Book Critics Circle announced these finalists for its 2010 print awards:
Fiction: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Knopf),
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (FSG), To the End of the Land by David Grossman (Knopf), Comedy in a Minor Key by Hans Keilson (FSG), Skippy Dies by Paul Murray (Faber Faber).
Nonfiction: Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick (Random House), Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne (Scribner), Apollo’s Angels by Jennifer Homans (Random House), The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukharjee (Scribner), The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson (Random House).
Happy reading from Cathy at Booktaste, week ending 4 Feb, 2011.