The Literary Gift Company is delighted to be launching a new range of bags which celebrate our passion for libraries. We are donating 50p to the National Libraries Day campaign for every bag sold. The bags feature original hand-lettered designs by our artist Geoff Sawers who says:“It probably helps that my mum is a librarian, but I have always thought of libraries as magical places. I remember childhood days when I had to go into work with my mum; I’d wander around, pulling out big picture books to look through and make drawings from (it was a medical library), always imagining that there would be more unknown treasures down the next aisle. So, I was delighted to get involved in the campaign to raise awareness about public libraries by doing the artwork for these bags. We chose three quotations to begin – Borges’s ‘paradise-as-a-kind-of-library’ image is a perfect one to start with, we thought, redolent of the secret library scene in the film of Eco’ “The Name Of The Rose,” all impossible curves and angles, and books, books, books hidden around every corner. Virginia Woolf’s line “I ransack public libraries & find them full of sunk treasure” comes from her diary for August 1921; “I want nothing but quiet & an active brain” she went on. Finally, we chose a more modern line, Germaine Greer’s patient defence of the value of libraries and reading. I hope you’ll all enjoy these bags. What’s more, they are the perfect size for dragging home a dozen or so battered hardbacks with you on the bus. “