A love letter to the London Library

And, indeed, to libraries everywhere

Rapunzel, by Wen Wu

I have spent most of this week in the London Library. And, honestly? I couldn’t be happier about this. I was lucky enough to be part of the London Library Emerging Writers Programme - a truly brilliant scheme to support writers develop their work and learn together in community - in 2023. And I’ve remained part of the Library, reading for the next cohort of emerging writers in exchange for another year of membership.

The first time I set foot in this library, I’m pretty sure I gasped. If you’ve never seen it before, it’s an extraordinary, somewhat imposing, powerfully grand building - set on St James’s Square. Just south of it lies the club-lined strip of Pall Mall, and south west the even more exclusive Buckingham Palace (!). But inside, the Library is welcoming, a little scruffy - and full of books ready to open their hearts to any question you might have.

The London Library’s beautiful exterior

As long as I can remember, I’ve loved a library. When I was a kid, one of my favourite times of the week was Saturday mornings, when I’d go with my mum to the market to get the weekly shop, and then to Shrewsbury Library. Thinking about it now, it was also housed in an extraordinary building - somewhere that lives in my mind as a castle because of its crenelated top. It was the original site of Shrewsbury School (elite, until recently, all boys) and I remember being delighted by the 16th century schoolboy graffiti carved into the window seats on the library’s second floor.

Shrewsbury Library - grand but not imposing to me as a kid, welcomed as I always was by the friendly librarians

I loved the library, because - then as now - I loved reading. The escape off into another world. The curiosity, satisfied, then stoked, then satisfied again. The opportunities for learning and delight. Those Saturday mornings, my mum would encourage me to pick as many books as I thought I could read through the week - of course, I always overestimated - because we’d be back next Saturday. It was, truly, a paradise.