Thursday, November 21, 2013

London book benches: are you sitting comfortably?

Wind in the Willows bench for NLT
Wind in the Willows bench by artist Mik Richardson (to be situated at the Bank of England, not on the Thames), for NLT

Visitors to London will able to enjoy books in a new way next summer – by sitting on them.
A series of benches designed as open books – from Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows to George Orwell's 1984 – will go on display for 10 weeks as part of a literary trail, under a fundraising scheme launched by the literary charity the National Literacy Trust.
JM Barrie's Peter Pan and Michael Rosen's We're Going on a Bear Hunt are among the first batch of commissions, after children's publishers Walker Books and tax advisors KPMG joined up as sponsors.

It is hoped that enough business backers will come forward to create 50 to 70 "BookBenches," which will be placed in appropriate sites across the capital in July.
If all goes to plan, the Wind in the Willows bench will be found not on the banks of the Thames, but beside the Bank of England, where Kenneth Grahame was working as secretary when the book was published in 1908, said a Literacy Trust spokeswoman. 
She added that it hadn't yet been decided where the bench for 1984 – Orwell's great totalitarian dystopia – would go, "but we're open to suggestions, and to sponsorship for it."

Michael Rosen said Coram's Fields would be his choice for the Bear Hunt bench. "It's the world's first purpose-built playground still in use, so in a way, it's a rare monument to the importance of play."
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