Books, Life and… Laughter!

Last Thursday evening I got together with a lovely crowd of women at our soon-to-be home in Landressy Street, Bridgeton for a ‘Books That Changed Our Lives’ event with Orkney-born author, Alison Miller, and GWL Librarian, Wendy Kirk. Alison, whose first novel, DEMO, was published by Penguin, was able to travel down to GWL especially for the event, thanks to the Scottish Book Trust. She’s currently working on a family saga set on her home turf in Orkney where she’s Reader in Residence.

 

GWL at Bridgeton – a sneak preview!

 

When the event was first mooted by Adele Patrick, GWL’s creative director, she suggested we do ‘The Book That Changed My Life’. Typical of me, I couldn’t narrow it down to just one book! (Well, maybe I could have when I was 25, but as the years roll on I think you deserve more than one change-my-life moment.)

To make the choosing easier, Alison and I thought we should be allowed three each: one poetry, one non-fiction and one fiction. And to make the evening even more interesting GWL librarian, Wendy Kirk came along with a wonderful selection of related book recommendations.

Wendy Kirk – Goddess Symbol – or Living Doll? One librarian, two great titles in the GWL collection.

 

 

Over the next few weeks I’m going to blog about the various choices we made, and in April Alison and I will be having a ‘return match’ when we do the event again as part of the Orkney Book Festival. So there’s your dilemma. Either make your way to Orkney to hear us talk about our selections, or drop by this blog again to read about them!

Just to whet your appetite, here’s the selection Alison made for the Glasgow Women’s Library leg of our tour. How many of you would have chosen one or all of these titles?

  • Ariel by Sylvia Plath
  • The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer
  • Woman on the Edge of Time by Madge Piercy.
My own reading has always been a bit odd, very much dependent on books that have fallen into my hands, either as presents, or from the ‘Reduced’ section of book shops, or as loans from friends. All three of my choices fall into at least one of those categories, and all three of them came to me at a point in my life where they really ‘spoke’ to me.
  • Fat Like the Sun by Anna Swir,
  • Women who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
  • The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman Perkins.
Alison’s granny was a ‘foundling’, abandoned at three years old in a close-mouth near Bridgeton Cross, where the Women’s Library will soon be based. Here she shows us the newspaper advert from 1912, with the photo of her ‘wee granny’.

 

 

 

OVER TO YOU! 

Let’s just imagine for a moment that you were chosen to do a Books That Changed Our Lives event at GWL. What would you choose – and why? We’d really love to know what books mean something special to our GWL readers. And it will be interesting too to see how often – or not – the same titles appear.

If you’d rather not leave your real name when you’re commenting, feel free to use a pseudonym. So what are you waiting for? Who knows, your suggestion might just change someone else’s life!

Happy reading – and hope to hear from you soon.

Magi

ps we might just ask a reader to do a Books That Changed Our Lives with us some time soon…  So we really do want to know your CLICK! books.

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4 replies on “Books, Life and… Laughter!”

Thanks Alison and Magi for a very enjoyable evening – I really liked hearing about your choices. I’ll need to give mine some thought… I very much like Pema Chodron’s Start Where You Are/When Things Fall Apart for a little bit of buddhist wisdom when I need it. They always make me stop and think about what I’m doing and thinking, and stop me getting so fraught about things that just don’t matter.

Interesting sounding choice, Aileen. I’ll need to check out Pema Chodron’s books. Sounds like I could do with reading her to calm me down a bit! Thanks too for the compliments about the evening. I’ll pass that on to Alison.

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