My Life in Libraries by Peter Leyland
My Life in Libraries Moving from the junior to the senior library at the age of 13 was for me a rite of passage. I can remember the first book I borrowed from there, Nancy Wake by Russell Braddon, pictured. It didn’t have that vivid book jacket illustration, just a black and dusty cover with the title and author at the top of the spine. I had already read Russell Braddon’s The Naked Island , a memoir about the author's trials in a Japanese POW camp, so I was keen to read more. Nancy Wake, however, was somewhat different to my usual fare, causing my mother to raise a quizzical eyebrow when she asked to see what I had borrowed - a rite of passage indeed. Garston Library in Liverpool, near my then...