Book Ins reading aloud event November 2011

On Saturday 5^th November, I took part in the Book Ins reading aloud event here in the Museum. This is the second reading aloud event to be held here, the first was back in March to co-incide with International Women's Day and on the website, Leona Jones [the organiser] describes the experience intriguingly as creating a visual and aural impact in unexpected places. Basically, anyone is free to turn up and bring along a favourite book to read aloud; the choice of book is yours as long it covers that particular events "subject" and this one was travel]. Leona even had a table of spare books and print-outs for anyone deciding to take part on the spur of the moment [and a good few did].

Myself, and two colleagues [including Kristine from Taken for binding] along with a group of willing readers met up in the Main Hall with Leona and were told that we could either stay in the Main Hall or go up to the beautiful Welsh Landscape Gallery to read. Being ‘first timers’, we opted for the quieter gallery and from 12 o’clock until 12.30 we all sat or stood and read aloud from our chosen books [my choice was a vintage guide to Cornwall]. Well there you have it; the half hour went by pretty quickly and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was concerned that all of us talking at the same time would be off putting but it wasn’t; I could hear the others speaking but their voices weren't quite loud enough for me to listen to them. I can tell you that it was a little odd [to say the least] glancing up every now and again to see people sitting reading cross legged on the floor with their backs against the wall just inches from some of our greatest historic works of art! It's been tricky trying to put into words why I enjoyed the experience so much and the best I can do is to put it this way; I think that our group created a subtle hum of energy with the quiet cacophony of our readings floating about the gallery space and I felt like I was taking part in something quite unique [certainly for me anyway]. On a more practical level, it was really nice meeting up with my colleagues for something other than work which we don’t do very often and [if I’m honest] I was proud of myself for trying something new as I don’t do that anywhere nearly as often as I should.

The event was also a good promotion for our Library as Leona had made contact previously and asked for print-outs from some of our earliest travel books including Sarah-Ann Wilmot’s Manuscript journal of tours in England and Wales 1793-1802 and Gerald Cambrensis’ The Journey through Wales/The Description of Wales. We also supplied images from these books along with more contemporary pictures by Shirley Jones [we hold a collection of her special bindings which contain hauntingly beautiful illustrations of the Welsh landscape]; and these were displayed on a plasma screen in the Main Hall for the duration of the event.

 STOP PRESS! The next event [taking place here in the Museum again] has already been announced – find details here on the website J