When you think of Valentine’s Day, you automatically think of bubbles, bouquets, boxes of chocolates, and….books!
You don’t? Maybe we have been going wrong somewhere then.
This Valentine’s Day was the second installment of our ‘Blind Date with a Book’ at the Education Centre Library at SWFT. It’s our fun way of helping people to discover new authors, or sometimes books you might not have thought you’d be interested in. It’s amazing how often a book’s cover influences whether or not you decide to try it. The phrase ‘never judge a book by its cover’ is really quite accurate.
Several books were chosen by staff and gift wrapped, with a few lines on the package to give an brief overview of the story. The books varied in subject matter, genre, and period, with stories set in Blackpool, Ireland, Germany, and the Lake District (among other places). In the picture (right) Karen was just making her choice – we hope she enjoyed it!
One of our other Valentine’s Day offerings was a ‘Guess the Number of Hearts in the jar’ competition. One library staff member spent a few evenings cutting hearts from damaged books rescued from going to landfill. The hearts were all put into a jar and visitors to the library made their guesses on how many hearts were inside.
You won’t be surprised to hear that nobody got the exact number, but Tife (pictured left) was the lucky winner with her guess being nearest.
Tife won a copy of Love After Love, the prize winning debut novel by Ingrid Persaud. Described as ‘modern meditation on the different kinds of love’ (The Guardian), this heartfelt complex story travels from Trinidad to New York, following a family and the choices they make.