Brake for a Good Book

Joanna Bailey
Director, Neill Public Library

Hustle and bustle, dart and dash, endings and beginnings.  This time of year is exhilarating and exhausting.  Some holidays are over while others lie just around the bend.  Academic semesters have finished just in time to start prepping for the new ones.  Life moves at Mach speed.  Enough.  Brake.  It’s time for an intervention, library style.

Close your eyes and slow your breathing.  Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.  Feel your lungs fill with air and try to release the tension as you exhale. Keep breathing.  Feel better?  Excellent.  The next good thing happens at the library, so come along.

Neill Public Library has really good entertainment options, quiet corners and comfy chairs.  Perfect for calming chaos and taking a break.  Staff smiles and welcomes you by name.  The space feels vibrant, comfortable, and familiar.  It should; a public library is a reflection of you, our library community.

Come browse our shelves.  We’ve got what you’re in the mood for.  Browse at your own pace. No agendas, no homework assignments, no ticking clock, just moments of relaxed browsing.  Come in sweat pants and slippers, we won’t care.  These are your moments of unscripted time.  Let your fingers run over titles and your eyes roam until you find something that looks interesting.  Glance at it, noncommittally.  If it looks promising, hold on to it.  If it doesn’t, put it back on the shelf.  The best finds come when you least expect them.

Your next step is to claim a comfy chair.  Then, hunker down, prop your feet up, and open your new find.  Try a few pages.  If you don't like it, stop reading and pick something else instead.  This is called pleasure reading.  It’s the opposite of required reading.  With pleasure reading, you read whatever you fancy.  Read in a library, and never worry about being judged.  Pleasure reading is the “open range” of reading styles, with no preconceived notions or social mores to fence you in or barricade your progress.  Central to pleasure reading is the fact that there are too many good titles out there to get stuck with one that doesn't interest you.  Books don’t have hurt feelings.  So browse with abandon, select, discard, and browse again.  Anything and everything is available to you at the library.  Feels indulgent doesn’t it?

Of course, if you’d like assistance, library staff stands at the ready.  Looking for something specific?  Ready to read outside your comfort zone?  Excellent, we have many recommendations for you.  Ready to try the wonderful world of downloadable reading?  We can’t wait to show you how to use Libby, the one-touch reading app recently named one of Google Play’s Best Apps for 2017.

Are you still breathing slowly?  In through the nose, out through the mouth.  Great job.  We can’t wait to see you.