ALL BOOKED UP

YOU’VE HEARD THIS STORY BEFORE. It’s the one about how a  shy, bookish child finds a refuge, a palace of delight, a portal to other worlds and a doorway into her future – and all in one place: a library. But this story has a twist.

That child is me, of course, and if I hadn’t spent large swathes of my youth absorbing the comfort, escape and endless reading material libraries provide, I wouldn’t be a writer today. I can measure out my life in libraries, from blissful childhood hours spent sprawling on institutionally carpeted floors in medium-sized British towns, to working into the night as a student at Oxford University in the splendour of the 18th-century Radcliffe Camera library, to now, as a writer in my thirties, dropping into my local Manly branch every few days to borrow books and use the place as a home office that’s far superior to both my own home and my own office, with its fast wi-fi and excellent procrastination tools. (That article’s due tomorrow? Sure, but this fabulously ’80s Jilly Cooper bonkbuster just caught my eye…)

I’m not the only thirty-something in love with libraries. ELLE art editor