The Great Library Challenge

I was almost giddy with excitement yesterday when I discovered how close my new office location is to the Surry Hills library, of which I am a member through my City of Sydney libraries membership.

Have I mentioned that I LOVE LIBRARIES?!!!?

Where else can you get a smorgasbord of books, dvds and cds that you can borrow for FREE? Where else can you discover new authors and lose yourself in different worlds in the comfort of a quiet air-conditioned space solely dedicated to readers?

Ah, library memories... in primary school, my friends and I used to get regularly ejected from our local Ashfield Library for being noisy, then I used to sneak back, sans friends, to borrow books and tapes (yes cassette tapes. I am that old.). During high school, the library foyer was primarily the location for my friends and I to hang out and play card games. I think for pretty much most of my life, I've never been without at least one library card on my person.

Anyway, back to my Great Library Challenge. The background to this is that there are SO MANY BOOKS in the world, and my exposure to them is limited. I tend to re-read books I love, read the same authors or in the same genres, and don't often read books unless they've been recommended by trusted sources or received a good public review. So I've decided to go through the alphabet and borrow from amongst authors that I've never read, starting with A.

Beginning the Great Library Challenge is Boris Akunin. According to the back of his books, he's a Russian crime writer who's been compared to Tolstoy and Dostoesvky - let's hope that comparison isn't just based on his nationality. Fingers crossed... let's go!