Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming
It's important for people to tell you what side they are on and why, and
whether they might be biased. A declaration of members' interests, of a
sort. So, I am going to be talking to you about reading. I'm going to
tell you that libraries are important. I'm going to suggest that reading fiction,
that reading for pleasure, is one of the most important things one can
do. I'm going to make an impassioned plea for people to understand what
libraries and librarians are, and to preserve both of these things.
Lecture for the Reading Agency,
delivered on Monday October 14 at the Barbican in London. The Reading
Agency's annual lecture series was initiated in 2012 as a platform for
leading writers and thinkers to share original, challenging ideas about
reading and libraries.
