I love working in the library.

This week I had the pleasure of working from Birmingham University library while staying in my hometown, two station stops along the murky green canal from where I grew up in Bournville.

I love the atmosphere of a student library: desks littered with detritus of revision, the rustle of crisp packets and the occasional pop of a coke can. Sardines of students at desks, bleary-eyed, hunched in hoodies, massive headphones, no makeup. One stares wistfully out the window, waiting for life to happen.

I used to come here when I was a student. In the long summers between terms at Bristol uni. That version of the library has since been torn down and replaced by this bright four-storey £60m demigod of a library, complete with retractable roof cover.

Public visitors can access the library 10 days a year for free, and I’ll happily work here, or in any library for that matter, among the stocked shelves of ideas and the hush of knowledge.

It’s been a busy week at Substack HQ, so I was glad to find a corner of the earth to huddle down in, and will always be thankful to the library system. Back to my local haunt next week (which I wrote about here hannahray.substack.com/p/shelf-life-3)