Of Benylin and books...

Thanks for your comment, Jill - and for your contribution to the growing literature of the lib-ra-ree!

Sorry, dear readers, to have been off-screen for a while: I've been suffering from (am still suffering from) a bad attack of man-flu. I even had to sign off sick for a day last week which is very unlike me. Mind you, there's been one advantage - a bout of the 'flu slows me down to reading pace. Most of the time I'm reading for work and that's a very different approach to reading for pleasure. So, for several days and evenings now, I've been spending time sitting comfortably in my favourite armchair, reading a book just for the pleasure of it...

Mostly, it's been Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a pearl earring (Harper Collins paperback edition, 2000). I've seen the painting (as you'll know if you've been with me for a while on this blog-journey), and now I've read the book. Brilliant imagining of how the girl came to be in Vermeer's painting and came to be wearing a pearl earring (actually, in the book, two earrings but of course you can't see the other one...) set in the very authentic-feeling world of Delft in the 1660s and 1670s. Tracy Chevalier is getting involved in our library world - on the PLR Committee and now added to the Project Board for the DCMS Modernisation Review of Public Libraries - so I'm glad that she's written such an excellent book, both imaginative and authentic.

As well as when I'm ill, the other time I slow down to reading pace is when I'm on long journeys. Flying to Quebec for IFLA this summer gave me the opportunity to read Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square (Penguin Classics, 2001). Brilliant creation of George Harvey Bone - drunk, obsessed, weak, bipolar - drifting through the pubs of London and Brighton in 1939. I've spent a lot of time on licensed premises, and Hamilton captures the false cheer of saloon bar society better than any other writer I know. And a long train journey earlier in the year (recovering from a weekend camping in Wooler, Northumbria, the coldest place on earth, but that's another story) gave me time to read The Damned Utd by David Pearce (Faber and Faber paperback edition, 2007), brilliantly imagined recreation of Brian Clough's 44 days as Manager of Leeds United in 1974 - vivid and believable as a portrayal of Cloughie and of football back in the seedy Seventies.

On reflection, three things strike me (of course - three...) about these books. One thing is the way they all have the classic virtues of good fiction - believable characters, a compelling story, and a world which draws us in. Also true, incidentally, of my other train journey book this year, Bill Bryson's Shakespeare (Harper Perennial edition, 2008), a delightfully readable amble through the life and times of the Bard of Avon - whose plays we know so well but about whose life we know so little.

The second thing is how well researched each of these books is - although I suspect Patrick Hamilton drew more from his experience of life than any researches in the library. It's the research which gives the authenticity to the various worlds portrayed - just as it's the imagination which gives emotional authenticity to the characters portrayed. Writing a fiction is a creative process - but it can also require the hard slog of research in order to create an imagined world which is real enough for us to believe in.

And the third thing is that none of these are really new books and they came to me from a variety of sources: one from my mother, one from a friend, two from wandering around my local bookshop with a book token (marvellous gift to be given!) burning a hole in my pocket. Maybe it's because I'm a librarian - or maybe it's the way people read who've developed the habit of reading - but my reading isn't shaped by best-seller lists or TV recommendations: I'm as happy browsing in the back list as scanning the latest reviews.

Next up, as my man-flu lingers on and a train journey to Lancashire beckons at the weekend, will be Rose Tremain's The road home (Vintage, 2008), winner of this year's Orange Prize for Fiction. I'll let you know how it goes...