Readers Haven . Review on Joining Local Book Clubs / Libraries

This topic interested me for various reasons- Reminiscing my school library, Hunting for a good local city library, to the Expatrites library during my stay in China now. And one most interesting reason is ….wanna know? For that you need to stick with me until the end of this review(don’t you dare read bottom first!)

School Library:

First library of your life. This place being exclusively built for school kids, is treasure chest jus for your age levels and its where you lay the foundation and inculcate  reading habits in you.  It’s where I got to read lot of books on Science, Folk tales to  fiction etc - Textbooks mattered only after reading those first!

Msg for kids: Hey kids,  make best use of your school libraries. There are not many places you can get a free membership,  for all the collection out there  is exclusively for you! This is one sure way to be well informed, that which adds to your personality in the future.

College Library:

The library in a technical institution(the only one I saw during my Grad), was only an extension of our classroom texts books . God, all those volumes of  technical books one had to pore into(or at least pretend to, if you got lucky you could impress a professor or two for your extra efforts!)!

For the college-goers: Well technical books are expensive, so this is where all your extra efforts, sincere/otherwise,  will payoff eventually. So am sure rather than spending all the time in the canteen, jus stroll into this place, and some knowledge might seep into you even without your “knowledge” - trust me!

And well did u say libraries provide “an ideal setting for Romancing over books”?All that Nazrein milana/ churana(stealing glances) days…yeah many crushes/ romances bloomed and withered in these shrines as well! Good ol days.sigh.

City Libraries:

Ive  always tried to take a membership in any library near home/workplace. Books are anyones’ best friends.

Even the small unassuming ones which have mostly second-hand books, in not-so-good condition can be a places where you find some rare books too. Its jus something is better than nothing case!

Average libraries cater to the needs of every educated man with a reding habit. Memberships are reasonable if you compare what the book would cost you. At all places  one needs to honor the borrowing time and make sure books are duly returned(and in good(as it was) condition please).

Good libraries with modern facilites like the British council / American library are there in all the Metros in guess. One must visit them for all good reasons(presuming this forum is a good crowd of intelligent species who can save me some time typing it all out)

The Expats Library:

My stay in China saw me starving for some reading material in English– Be it newspapers, magazines or other books – jus nothing out here! All I got to read in English were a sparingly few(miss-spelt miseries that sometimes got me in splits!) signboards or otherwise it was only some very interesting slogans on T-shirts. So more often while walking on a street, T-shirts make better reading materials to me rather than peoples’ faces- individuals who didn’t know what they were wearing!

Then one day I came across this small, cozy library for Expatriates at Tianjin at the International Community Centre. The collection  here comes from the donations of book/magazines/DVDs made by expats themselves. I should say I found heaven, and hungrily scoured over  books( in English, wow!).

Books here are in excellent condition and quite a range that is rare to find in censored China. And its run on an honorary basis, no membership fee, you jus need to leave your address/tel no. Ive by now a good amount of magazines/book  which I intend to donate when I leave.

Ok so for the juiciest part of this review,  I happened to meet my hubby in one such library in our neighbourhoods . A time when he had to woo the unsuspecting me and get himself into my good books,  he actually feigned his little reading habits to becoming a member  after finding that I was a regular to this place! I had truly believed we had common reading interests!  Huh!

But he got away with that and was more than impressed as I got to know him better and found he had an answer to all that I sought for in my silly books!  Arent books jus experiences and knowledge a man wants to impart? What if you have a walking-talking  one instead? That’s how much lucky I got!

Ok guys,  I wrote much more than I intended to. The message here is –

• to develop good reading habits

  
  




• join libraries /book clubs which are far cheaper than buying books

  
  




• Donate as much as can to schools or good institutions

  
  

-Beware of Romeos!

But nothing better than having your own library at home!

Ciao, Nice weekend!