Walking around the city of London on a weekday evening, it’s not all that surprising that I start feeling peckish. Even after a long day, I can’t entirely blame this on my propensity to think of my stomach, as in addition to the obvious cafés and fast food places on every corner, there are plenty of other foodie outlets that harkens back to the time when farmers and merchants and not office commuters had their business in these streets. For example, walking back from a Friday night meal in Brick Lane, after sashaying down Fashion Street, it wouldn’t be unheard of for me to start planning the next day’s breakfast after passing through Frying Pan Alley. There are of course many more, but before you wonder just what this post has to do with the man of the year, Mr Dickens, or my plan to blog about corners of Dickensian London, follow me down the narrow confines of Wine Office Court, just off Fleet Street, and into the subterranean labyrinth that is Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese Pub.

Mind your head (I always whack mine on the precarious journey into the vaults) and take a seat. Why have I brought you here? Well, apart from being a welcome cosy escape from the bitter wind whistling through the streets, this was one of Dickens’ haunts, close to his publishing offices and a background in a few of his novels. So, to ease us into our further perambulations around London, please raise your glass, perhaps order a tasty morsel or two, and toast Mr Dickens today, his birthday.  Cheers!

Lesley-Anne Crooks, Sales & Digital Manager

With the snow falling over London this weekend, I began to think about snow and, of course, its links with the written word. Doing a degree in English Literature taught me that you can take almost any theme, apply it to a few books, and find a wealth of interesting stuff. In literature snow can evoke a festive, cheery feel, or even a magical and enchanted atmosphere. A snowy landscape can be presented as one of nature’s most beautiful aspects, or as a harsh and unforgiving world where one must fight for survival. Snow is a beautiful blanket, but it is also an icy, stifling thing.

Let’s take C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as one example. One of the first things Lucy becomes aware of when she wanders through the wardrobe and into Narnia is the snow. Lewis’s vision of a land eternally blanketed in white at first seems a gleeful, magical thing. But we soon discover that this constant winter is due to the influence of the White Witch, and so snow becomes something sinister, almost evil. Hope only comes when the snow begins to melt, signalling the wane of the Witch’s power.

Snow in poetry seems to have the same double meaning. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow associates snow with grief; in his poem Snow-Flakes, snow is ‘the secret of despair’ - in snowfall ‘The troubled sky reveals / The grief it feels’. Emily Dickinson, in contrast, evokes a festive, merry picture of snow. Her snowflakes are ‘rebels’, they are ‘jolly’ and urge her to dance (‘And ten of my once stately toes / Are marshalled for a jig!’).

So there we go - a simple scattering of snow in London has me pondering its strange meaning in books. Perhaps the bitter cold can be worthwhile after all.

Do you have any favourite snow-themed books or poems?

Sara Magness, Editorial Administrator

As we near the end of a week celebrating libraries around the country, culminating tomorrow with special events to mark National Libraries Day (see yesterday’s blog), it seems fitting to highlight the new pop-up library at Selfridges in London (found in the UltraLounge on the Lower Ground floor of the department store). Recently opened as part of their Words Words Words campaign which will run till 1 March, the temporary library offers over 15,000 specially selected books, a comfortable reading space, audiobook and ipad reading posts, and also host talks, classes and lectures.

Some may argue that with the demise of libraries across the country, this pop-up initiative does little to help the situation, acting as further competition (especially if it inspires more pop-ups after it) and offering a more jazzed-up and novel approach to the standard community library setting. The truth is that the pop-up factor fits today’s appetitite for the impulse buy and impulse activity (I’ll take that perfume, and that Mulberry bag, and oh, there’s some storytelling now? Why don’t I just sit in for a bit) and the need to feel we’re not missing out (as a one-off attraction, we’re more likely to check the pop-up library out).

One would hope however that, by engaging non-library goers and in its temporary nature, it may have the knock-on effect of encouraging new people to visit their local library in order to keep enjoying what the Selfridges pop-up had to offer (and indeed more…since you can’t borrow books from the Selfridges library shelves, only buy them).

It does highlight however the difference between the glamourised pop-up and the under-funded and often under-supported community library. At Selfridges they’ve garnered the likes of celebrities such as Miranda Hart, Thandie Newton and Sophie Dahl who have given visitors an insight into their favourite books. It would be lovely to see the same celebrity support and, following on from that, press coverage given to a local library. Perhaps these pop-up initiatives could make their way round the country - and here’s a totally outlandish thought - rather than transform the basement of a department store, glam up and transform (and publicise) an already exisiting library…

Chiara Priorelli, Publicity & Online Marketing Manager

Library goers up and down the UK are preparing to mark National Libraries Day on 4 February 2012. It will be the finale to a week of events that will celebrate libraries and librarians, and highlight the importance of reading. For example, in London at Canning Town Library, library users will be able to hear stories and songs from the Children’s Laureate, Julia Donaldson. Whilst in Filey, North Yorkshire, Chinese New Year dragon-themed activities will be taking place with a treasure hunt and a library quiz. Find out more about activities taking place in your area here.

So, what is a library?

‘What a ridiculous question!’ I’m sure you’re thinking. Don’t worry I do know what a library is – indeed I spent the majority of my childhood weekends at the local library! But if one was to sum up a library in one sentence, shorn of all the ‘extras’ which can range from homework clubs, finding out about local history, to advice on starting a business and how to get online, what would it be?

For me it would be something like this: a building full of free books which can be taken home, returned once read and then swapped for more, a cycle that can go on forever.

Sounds pretty fantastic, right? Without diminishing the importance of the ‘extras’ - in fact it’s services like these which make libraries so invaluable to the community - stripping it all away to expose a library’s basic function can make one really appreciate what a fabulous concept libraries are. Certainly, an institution worth celebrating and, indeed, protecting.

So, perhaps make a special effort on National Library Day to visit your local library and ‘Use it. Love it. Join it’ (to echo the event strapline). How will you get involved? Why not tell us your plans via the comment box below or tweet us @Allisonandbusby using the #NLD12 hashtag.

Rebecca Kellaway, currently doing working experience at A&B

You can see all 12 covers here. Which one do you like best?

Chiara Priorelli, Publicity & Online Marketing Manager

Another book I haven’t read but have always meant to, is Anna Karenina. I think the new film adaptation, out on the 7th September, will give me some incentive to finally get round to reading Tolstoy’s classic. It’s not a film I’d want to see before reading the book (Keira Knightley and Jude Law - unsure about this casting!), so hopefully I’ll manage to pick up a copy before September.

But the three literary films I’m most looking forward to are all due for release in December, which seems an age away. The Hobbit will finally appear on screens - I loved The Lord of the Rings as a teenager, and am a big fan of Martin Freeman, so despite suspecting that it’s not an easy book to adapt, I’ll be eager to see this. On 21st December Life of Pi comes to the screen - another tricky one to convert to film, but it will certainly be an interesting watch, and I loved the book. And finally there’s The Great Gatsby, which I read years ago and must reread to refresh my memory. I’m convinced I’ll enjoy the film though - Carey Mulligan, Leonardo DiCaprio, Twenties costumes and directed by Baz Luhrmann? This one sounds perfect.

Sara Magness, Editorial Administrator

Anyway, if you were to profile my reading habits I’m pretty sure a pattern would start to emerge. Perhaps the most overwhelming one is that I must feel that I’m learning something, even from my leisure reading. So, historical fiction, with a weighting towards the First and Second World Wars, forms a big part of my literary diet. Throw in an exotic setting, or unusual or little-known aspect of social history and I’ll lap it up. In a nutshell (yum), that’s why I jumped on the likes of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford, and today, whilst browsing online I came across The Buddha in the Attic which, encapsulating as it does the experiences of Japanese-American women before and during internment, sounds very reminiscent of Jamie Ford’s debut, plus it’s had some equally cracking reviews.

But I’m going to resist for the sake of my literary stomach, in case the premise ‘repeats’ on me, and mix things up a little. Perhaps I’ll finally pick up the copy of A Visit from the Goon Squad that’s been on my bedside table for weeks.

Does anyone else find themselves ‘stuck’, for lack of a better word, on certain courses of reading?

Lesley-Anne Crooks, Sale & Digital Manager

I was interested to see some of the different responses online, whether praise or furore, to the news that McDonald’s were giving away Michael Morpurgo’s Mudpuddle Farm books with Happy Meals this month. Read the news here and here. and  Perhaps it’s the visualization of a book in the place where you more often find a cheap plastic toy that brought on so many sniffy comments, or was it the taint of our nation’s obesity problem that overshadowed the news?

Personally I think that this was a great coup on the part of HarperCollins because publishing cannot afford to be a rarefied beast not for the likes of those who grab a meal in a fast food joint. After all, those of us who have chosen to work in this (fantastic) industry too often take for granted that reading is not a first-choice activity for young people or, indeed, many adults. Books have to work hard to compete with hundreds of television channels, the internet and gaming for those who can afford ‘entertainment’.

So, let’s get some books into the, I’ll grant you, greasy fingers of nine million kids! How can it not pay off? I say, here’s to more side orders of books at McDonald’s in future. But how do you A&B followers feel about it?

Lesley-Anne Crooks, Sales & Digital Manager

Last week the blog Letters of Note, posted a letter written by author John Steinbeck to his then teenage and love-struck son, Thomas, back in 1958. Although it has been in the public domain since the 1980s, this recent spotlight has shot the letter to sudden fame. It has since been reproduced in last weekend’s Sunday Times and The Huffington Post and been featured or mentioned on countless other websites (including now this blog).  Read the full letter here…

As the Sunday Times points out ‘it is beautiful, wise and humanistic – rare qualities in a world of dashed-off emails and text messages’. And indeed, I loved reading it, and immediately felt a wave of nostalgia, simultaneously grieving the loss of ‘the letter’. Email, Skype and Facebook have certainly made it easier to keep in touch with friends and family across the globe and we can now enjoy the gratification of instant communication, dialogue and group discussion.  Yet, we have lost the substance that letters used to offer.

Letters took more time and effort to write and you would sift through the minutiae of your recent life to impart things that were truly of note and thoughts that obviously weighed enough on your mind to be put down on paper.  Now we seem to think it is natural to tell everyone that we have run out of cereal or are getting wet standing in the rain waiting for our train (Current Status: Grumpy). I still remember the thrill of getting home to a coloured envelope, deciphering the handwriting on the front to guess who it was from, and the anticipation of reading the pages within – giving the letter the respect it deserved, like any treat, often waiting hours before opening it up until the right moment when I could give it my full and uninterrupted attention. Now, aside from the odd birthday or Christmas card, the only thing to come through my letter box are bills, takeaway menus and leaflets from local businesses.

And when was the last time you printed off an email to keep? Letters are like tangible moments in time, and so reflective of the person who wrote it – in a letter, you can truly hear someone’s unique ‘voice’ which doesn’t often come across in the fleeting messages across email or Facebook. I still have boxes of letters from my childhood, including a few I wrote to my grandmother which she had kept, and after she passed away, were returned to me. And every time I reread them I am reminded of my 8-year-old self who adopted a particular style when writing only to her, where I would pretend she was in the room with me and interrupt my letter with questions like “Would you like a biscuit, Nanny? Here you go”,  or “More tea? You sure?” It is priceless.

Whilst Thomas Steinbeck (now an acclaimed writer himself and author of the short story collection Down to A Soundless Sea which we published some time ago) mentions that at the time he ignored his father’s letter, he can look back at it now with different eyes. Had email existed back then, it would probably have been deleted and forgotten. I know his father’s words about ‘several kinds of love’ will stay with me and I hope that one day I might write as worthy a letter to my own child. It has, in fact, given me a certain incentive to start writing letters again.

Think about the letters you hold dear, ones that you cherish or made you laugh and if you want, share any snippets here, and perhaps we can give letters a comeback. Here’s to picking up a pen and paper!

Chiara Priorelli, Publicity & Online Marketing Manager