Category Archives: Leisure Reading

Child’s Play with Club 790

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jack reacher by timothy valentine

The student book club, Club 790, will be meeting twice before the end of term to discuss the first in the Jack Reacher series, Killing Floor by Lee Child.

If you’d like to see first-hand what goes on at a book club, feel free to drop in to either of these meetings. The first is an afternoon session at 2pm on Wednesday 5th June in the soft seating area of the Village Dining room. If you’d prefer an evening session, we’ll be meeting in the Library at 5.30pm the following Wednesday 12th June (come to the Customer Services desk when you arrive).

For more information, please contact Sharon Reid at the Library: S.D.Reid@lboro.ac.uk, ext. 222352.

Image by Timothy Valentine, reproduced under CC License from Flickr.

Have a Laugh on Us with our Leisure Reading Collection

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Gary Shteyngart by KatieA3

Howard Jacobson has just been announced the winner of this year’s prestigious Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, the only annual literary award for humorous literature, for his novel Zoo Time, making him the first author to have ever won the award twice.

The competition celebrates books that are deemed to have captured the comic spirit of P.G. Wodehouse, author of the immortal Jeeves & Wooster and Blandings novels.

Jacobson won the first ever Wodehouse prize in 2000 for his novel The Mighty Walzer. His prize consisted of a Bollinger Champagne, a complete set of Wodehouse’s works, and - perhaps most fittingly for the spirit of Wodehouse – a Gloucestershire Old Spot pig will be named after after his book!

Although we don’t (yet) have a copy of Zoo Time in our collection, we do have other works by Howard Jacobson among our collection, as well as previous winners of the award among our Leisure Reading collection, including Vernon God Little by D.B.C. Pierre (2003), Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday (2007) and Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart (2011 – pictured above with his award). That’s in addition to a variety of contemporary and classic comic works by the likes of Terry Pratchett, Stephen Fry, Alan Bennett and, of course, P.G. Wodehouse. So if you’re stuck for something to lighten your exam mood, why not have a browse today?

Gary Shteyngart with his 2011 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Award, image by Katie A3, reproduced under CC License from Flickr.

Book Crossing Hits the Hub!

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Regular visitors to three of the University’s food outlets – the Village Bar, the Fuel Box at the EHB and the Martin Hall Bistro will probably have noticed one of our BookCrossing wicker boxes full of donated novels (and hopefully you will have helped yourself from one too!). We’re pleased to say that we’ve now expanded our reach to include the Student Hub in the Student Village – you can find the box at the reception desk (pictured above).

BookCrossing is the leisure reading phenomenon with the aim of encouraging us all to read more for pleasure. Designed as a ‘read me then release’ me scheme, the way it works is that you take any book you fancy, then, once you’ve finished reading it, pass it on for someone else to enjoy. To add to the fun, every book has been given its own ID number, so you can track its journey via the website.

However, to keep the scheme rolling we need more books to keep the baskets topped up! So, if you have any leisure reading books you’re happy to donate to the scheme, we’d really like to have them. Ideally we’d like good quality novels and biographies, autobiographies or memoirs. Please bring them to one of the Library desks, mentioning that they’re for the BookCrossing scheme, and we’ll do the rest!

On the Record with Scott Fitzgerald

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F_Scott_Fitzgerald_circa_1920The University of South Carolina have recently made available an archive that offers a unique insight into one of the leading American novelists of the 20th century, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Between 1919 and 1938 Scott Fitzgerald kept a concise journal in a 200-page handwritten ledger encompassing a year-by-year record of his life and achievements including publication details of all his works and the income of both himself and his wife Zelda, revealing for instance that he made merely $2000 on The Great Gatsby on its first publication in 1925, but earned a more princely $16,666 on selling the film rights to the novel the very next year!

The ledger has been thoroughly digitised, including full-text access and is keyword-searchable. It occupies pride of place in the University’s Matthew J. & Arlyn Bruccoli Collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the most comprehensive research collection of the author’s life and work.

We have a large collection of works by and about Scott Fitzgerald among our own literature collection, including The Great Gatsby and his other novels, plus you can access a vast store of online articles and essays about the man through English literature databases such as Literature Online through Library Catalogue Plus.

F. Scott Fitzgerald portrait, circa 1920, reproduced under CC License from the Minnesota Historical Society.

Little Face, Big Success!

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Our World Book Night event on Tuesday morning was another popular success as visitors partook of cake and the opportunity to enter a draw to win a copy of Sophie Hannah’s critically acclaimed thriller Little Face. 80 lucky winners will shortly be receiving emails requesting their presence at the Level 3 desk to claim their prize.

Thanks to everyone who took the time on what was not only a busy but gloriously warm & sunny day to participate, and if you weren’t among the lucky winners, I’m sure you can find something else to tempt your literary appetite among our ever-expanding Leisure Reading collection on Level 3!

Help Us Celebrate World Book Night

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Tuesday April 23rd is World Book Night and after the roaring success of last year’s event (pictured above) we’re cordially inviting everyone to help us celebrate it again this year!

We’ll be running a stand between 11AM-1PM in the foyer inside the entrance to Open 3 where you will be able to partake of free homemade cakes & snacks and take part in a prize draw to win a copy of a thriller novel by a award-winning writer (in the true tradition of thriller fiction we’ll keep you in suspense as to what it is!). Our ever friendly and obliging staff will be hand to discuss all things literary and hopefully incline your attention towards our ever expanding Leisure Reading range!

See you there!

Club 790 Rides Again!

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Reluctant_FundamentalistTerm starts this week and with it comes the first meeting of the summer term of our student reading group, Club 790, with a new book up for discussion – Mohsin Hamid’s 2007 Booker Award nominated best-seller The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

The club is actually meeting twice over the next two weeks - an afternoon session at 2PM on Wednesday 17th April, in the soft seating area of the Village Bar, and then an evening session in the Library from 5.30PM on Wednesday 24th April (just ask at the Customer Services desk for directions as to where we’re meeting).

We’re still getting plenty of enquiries from people wishing to join the club, so if you’d like to take part, or just want more information, contact Sharon Reid at the Library (S.D.Reid@lboro.ac.uk, ext. 222352).

Jane Austen – Teacher’s Pride!

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pride and prejudice cover by thalita carvalho

Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice celebrated its 200th birthday back in January and was honoured with its own Royal Mail stamp. Now a Times Educational Supplement survey has revealed that the novel is a classroom favorite too!

500 teachers were asked in an online survey to name their favorite books to help form a top 100, and Pride and Prejudice was pride of place at the summit among a list crammed with literary heavyweights including Dickens, Orwell, Tolstoy – and The Very Hungry Caterpillar!

The top 10 was as follows:

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

3. The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling

4. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

5. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

6. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

7. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

8. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

9. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

10. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

Needless to say we have copies of all these works in our collection (oh, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar too!) so if you want to take a leaf out of teacher’s book, why not have a browse among our literature and Leisure Reading collections today?

To view the full Top 100, visit the TES website here:

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6327545

Pride & Prejudice cover image by Thalita Carvalho, reproduced under CC License from Flickr.

Put the Spring Spring Back in Your Step with a Book!

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daffodils by eat crow

As today is UN World Poetry Day, and yesterday was the beginning of the Spring equinox (hence the blizzard!!), what better time to take a leaf out of Wordsworth’s book and ’wander lonely as a cloud’ down to our literature section on Level 2 and help yourself to something seasonal from our expansive poetry section?

We’ve got everything from Shakespeare’s sonnets to Wilfred Owen’s war poems, Roman romantic Ovid to Yorkshire yarner Simon Armitage. Oh, and plenty of Wordsworth, of course!

If poetry isn’t quite your thing, but you’re looking for something a little less academic to read over the Easter vacation, have a browse through our Leisure Reading collection on Level 3. There you can find nearly 400 books including crime thrillers, fantasy, historical drama, autobiographies and graphic novels – something to suit every literary palate!

Daffodil image by Eat_Crow, reproduced under CC License from Flickr.

Club 790 Up & Running!

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book club meeting

Our new student book club, Club 790, got off to a lively start yesterday afternoon with a free-wheeling discussion of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time over coffee & snacks at the Village restaurant. The group ultimately gave the novel a rousing thumbs-up, considering the story to be thought-provoking and very unique in style.

Thanks indeed to everyone who turned up and took part. We’re still getting enquiries from people wishing to join in with future discussions, so if you’d like to take part, or just want more information, contact Sharon Reid at the Library (S.D.Reid@lboro.ac.uk, ext. 222352).

Remember that if you’re short of a little light reading for Easter, our Leisure Reading section contains books & novels to meet every possible taste. And don’t forget that you can pick up a free book from one of our BookCrossing stations around campus. You can find wicker boxes of donated novels in three food-outlets: the Village Bar, Fuel Box (EHB) and Martin Hall Bistro. The only (minor!) obligation is that once you’ve finished reading one of these, pass it on for someone else to enjoy. To add to the fun, every book has been given its own ID number, so you can track its journey via the website.