Library Love

Daughter of the legendary Danish journalist Leif Blaedel and revered actress Annegrethe Nissen, Blaedel founded Denmark’s first crime publishing house in 1993 with SARA B. Subsequently her numerous talents extended to writing thrillers herself and being voted as the most popular author in Denmark four times as well as selling into 37 territories. She tells WWWB how her love for reading and writing came about. 

It was ALWAYS raining and dark when my parents drove me down to the Hvalsø library.

We lived in Lerbjerg, a tiny, nine-house village five kilometers outside of Hvalsø.  To be completely honest, I occasionally rode my bicycle there. That must have been on the days and evenings when it wasn’t dark and rainy, but apparently, I’ve repressed those memories. Just as I only remember taking the school bus in the mornings.  I can still almost physically recall my exhaustion from pushing my bike up Smidstrup Hill on the way home from school.

Both my mother and father were happy to chauffeur me to the library. It was a type of outing.  Frequently, they’d drop me off and pick me up again a few hours later.  Even though I was there several times a month, each and every visit took time.

The public library, a neat little red brick building where the school doctor had an office on the second floor, was connected to the gray, dreary concrete school. The school library was much different.  It lacked the pleasant atmosphere and peace and quiet, which made picking out all the good reads from the short titles on book spines so wonderful. It was always noisy and chaotic, especially when the boys stumbled onto books about love – then, all hell would break loose as they laughed hysterically and snorted. I never dared pull out from those shelves anything other than history or academic books for fear of being ridiculed. And I only borrowed books from the school library when a teacher made me do it. For me, the fun and grand experience resided in browsing around the tall shelves, reading the back covers, and holding the books in the comfy surroundings of the public library.

Usually, we went to the library after dinner. My mother most often drove because my father was the television critic for Information, a Danish newspaper; he had to be sitting in front of the TV with his notebook when the news started at seven-thirty p.m. When he did drive, the trip to the library was always a bit stressful.

We’d park in the school parking lot, and I’d run the short stretch to the library through the rain, a heavy bag of books under my arm to either be returned or renewed. Now, thirty years later, I can still recall the feeling of walking into the small building and being greeted as if I were visiting someone I knew very well. When my mother last ran into the librarian on the street in Copenhagen, the greetings and handshake they exchanged were warm and heartfelt, even though my parents had moved away from Lerbjerg long before.

Once I’d shaken the rain off my hair, shrugged off my coat, and handed over the bag of books, a calmness would set in. Then came a deep breath, and a glance at the shelves. There were two areas in particular I always wanted to cover: young adult and crime fiction. Considering the size of the library, the number of books in those genres was quite impressive.

I still get a giddy feeling from recalling how it felt to stand there with a book in my hand, knowing it was exactly what I was looking for. The joy was something like when the number drawn from the squirrel cage at the Western Pentecost party on Main Street was mine for a change. I knew I wasn’t going to win anything worth a damn, but the feeling was there anyway; even if the prize were just a plastic back scratcher. Of course, the chances for a winner at the library were much greater.

I still remember reading Peter’s Baby many, many years ago.  In fact, I read it twice to make sure I’d picked up on everything. It was about a young guy who became a father. Instead of the usual stories about girl problems, it took the boy’s point of view, and that intrigued me.

I loved to lie around in my room with popcorn and tea, completely absorbed in a book. I didn’t read to improve my mind; it wasn’t that. I read for entertainment.  To be introduced to a whole new world, new friends and social circles, and also to see myself in the truckloads of young adult books that passed through my room in those years. On numerous occasions, I fell deeply in love with a boy protagonist or made friends I’d only read about … not that I walked around talking to them; it was just that I felt I knew them somehow. And that’s what it’s all about when a book really grabs you. It should feel as if you’re there yourself, right at the spot!  And, personally involved.

I’m not sure if my favorite librarian secretly scowled at me when I pulled out books from the crime fiction shelves, but I don’t think so. I may have been a bit young for that genre, but it wasn’t the hard-core crime novels that interested me. The ones I plowed through were the good old classics, the whodunits. The books about solving mysteries instead of surpassing the boundaries of evil. I was right alongside Miss Marple, Poirot, and other dethroned private eyes, not to mention Christer Wijk, Maria Lang’s Swedish hero. I went through a period when I thought that one day I would marry him, completely ignoring the fact that he had a very beautiful opera singer wife, Camilla Martin, oh, and also that he was a character in a novel. He just seemed to be exactly my type.  And, what I thought was a perfect fit.

The best thing in the world to me then was discovering a new crime fiction writer, knowing there was another world to venture into, with many sweet hours of reading ahead.

Another reason the librarian at the Hvalsø Library was my favorite: when I found a book by a writer I didn’t know, I could immediately ask her if she thought I’d like it. And I wasn’t exactly the only person needing her help.  She always took the time to talk to readers; to help them by getting acquainted with their respective tastes. We built something together, found new books, and expanded horizons. It was never embarrassing to engage myself in the young adult romances or crime novels. She was happy to find more of the same for me to get lost in, and what more can you ask of a librarian?

And now that I think about it, I miss so very, very much those days when books were stamped the old-fashioned way; when you had a chat at the library counter; when you had a real library card! There’s not much of that at the Frederiksberg Library where I spend my time now. It’s incredible, all the memories that come flooding out when you dig into the past.

Something else happened sometimes when I was at the library, something that could give me as big a rush as when I stood there holding a good book. The door would open, and stepping inside was the boy I had an absolute enormous crush on. Then, my happiness would be complete.

There was something incredibly special about settling into the hard sofa by the comic book and magazine section with HIM, laughing at Calvin and Hobbes or the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, even though I didn’t normally read that type of thing. At least it broadened my scope, while I managed to steal some time together with Mr. Dreamy. It was better than meeting in the schoolyard or at Arvid’s Refreshments booth after a soccer match. If it hadn’t been for these totally spontaneous dates, I would never have read those comics. Those experiences, together with my librarian’s love of introducing books helped create a fertile ground for the delight in reading I’ve enjoyed throughout my life. And likely also contributed to my burning desire to write. Really and truly, my favorite librarian deserves a medal.   So, I’m presenting her with one right here and now. I hope others have been as lucky with their librarians as I’ve been with the woman who left such a lasting impact on me. She did something for me I will never forget, even though I’m not certain I’d recognize her if I met her on the street today.

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Daughter of the legendary Danish journalist Leif Blaedel and revered actress Annegrethe Nissen, Blaedel founded Denmark’s first crime publishing house in 1993 with SARA B. Subsequently her numerous talents extended to writing thrillers herself and being voted as the most popular author in Denmark four times as well as selling into 37 territories. Her debut Grønt Støv (GREEN DUST) won the Danish Crime Academy’s Debutant Award and has gone on to become a bestselling series in Denmark and abroad. In 2015, Sara Blaedel was awarded the most prestigious literary prize in Denmark, De gyldne laurbӕr (The Golden Laurel).

Following the incredible success of Sara Blaedel’s #1 international bestsellers The Forgotten Girls and The Killing Forest, the next installment of the Louise Rick series, The Lost Woman, is now available.

Website: http://sarablaedel.com/

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Tags: featured, library, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers