So. The British Library. After experiencing a little bit of confusion, a few minutes of wandering and examining road signs,
and a kindly man in St Pancras Station, I managed to find the place (which, rather embarrassingly, was massive and ludicrously well sign-posted, but the kindly St Pancras man refrained from pointing this out).It doesn't look much like a library from the outside, more like a very well designed school. But inside it's amazing. It's all open and white and full of light, with a huge glass tower going right up through the middle, containing the King's Library, with 65,000 printed volumes along with other manuscripts collected by King George III between 1763 and 1820 (as you probably tell, I did a lot of browsing in the shop).
Registering took a while, although it did give me a chance to listen to lots of interesting conversations, including one between two men where they were discussing anaesthesia for a novel that one of them was attempting to write, and a woman explaining to the receptionist that she didn't necessarily want to read but instead sit in the reading rooms and 'absorb knowledge'. I never got to find out what the receptionist said to this, as I was then called forward to be questioned, photographed, searched, etc. Turns out libraries are more of a security risk than airports, who knew?
I then had to order the books that I wanted in the Humanities Room by computer, and wait for an hour and a half for them to be brought up. I went and had a coffee while I waited and did some more people-watching, which is a favourite past-time of mine, and read some of my current book, 'American Psycho' by Bret Easton Ellis. Here's a tip for you. Never read this book in a public place. It was so horrifyingly graphic and violent that I kept squeezing my eyes shut and gasping and groaning and shuddering, which earns you a fair few bemused glances when you're in a cafe.
After that I spent around four hours reading and scribbling and thinking in the Humanities Room (which is incredible, packed with hundreds of people but utterly silent) before going to meet my friend Lydia for dinner, and going back to stay at her flat. The next day I managed another five or six hours before having to dash for my train back to Norwich.
So, in short, it was bloody excellent. I got so much done, the coffee was great, there was a Charles Darwin exhibition where I saw one of the first printed copies of 'The Origin of Species', I bought a womens suffrage postcard, and I'm now fully signed up for another twelve months. I'm definitely going back. But not taking 'American Psycho'.
