When I was first given a tour of the Birmingham & Midland Institute’s library I felt I was in Heaven.

‘A reading people always be a knowing people’. These words from the writer and preacher John Wesley are from a letter written in 1790, eleven years after the Birmingham Library first came into existence in 1779.

And when I first entered the BMI Library about seven years ago, I found those words to be true. The volunteers I met there were passionate about reading, but they also knew how to offer a warm welcome and support to all those who wandered through the library doors.

Published in July 2020, this book was, Harris says, largely written in lockdown. He describes attempts by the British to hamper the Germans’ V2 flying bomb launches.

Mansfield’s Selected Stories brings together her finest work; from early stories inspired by her time in Germany to those written during the final, prolific twelve months leading up to her untimely death at just 34.

The book begins with some children in an aeroplane flying over the Amazon, and then the plane crashes in the middle of the jungle. The children are stranded in the jungle.

Mary Lennox lives in India, and then a disease called cholera breaks out and her whole family dies. She is sent to England to live at Misselthwaite Manor.

As a self-confessed serial killer documentary enthusiast, I strangely enjoy reading and watching academics attempt to uncover the mysteries of murder.

I had the absolute treat over Christmas and the New Year (perhaps I’m a bit behind times on writing the review, oops…) of reading Siri Hustvedt’s captivating social drama and novel of ideas, What I Loved.