On January 17 I took part in the Reading Agency/Publishers Association conference at the rather lovely Canada Water Library in Southwark, where we discussed ways for libraries to embrace new technologies in order to take their support for readers online.
It was the final event of a project around digital skills sharing, and you can find more details at the Reading Agency website. I took part in a panel session, which was lots of fun.
I also gave the keynote talk at the start of the afternoon, which you can read here.
The Age of Electronics
[Slide: Computers]
We live in a society that is as dependent on access to and engagement with computers, digital data and fast networks as the one I grew up in was on electricity and the one before it on oil – although of course we still depend on both of them, and seem have added computers to the mix rather than replaced what went before.
of Patrick Leigh Fermor. Like many people I’ve been fascinated by Fermor ever since reading his two great travel books — 
and 
. I’ve long been curious to know what the rest of his life was like. Now I’m finding out.
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,a terrific work of intellectual history and the first really convincing account I’ve come across of how and why the post-war liberal consensus ran out of steam and was replaced by the neo-con nonsense that has got us into our current mess.
But just last week my good friends at Faber sent me 
