An app-solute game changer

Pexels.com

Have I mentioned how much I love my local library’s ebook app? The one that allows me to borrow books even though the entire branch network is shut down due to the coronavirus lockdown?

(Can you tell that one of the audiobooks I’ve got on the go is Shonda Rhimes Year of Saying Yes? I’m asking a lot of rhetorical questions of myself these days…)

As somebody who grew up in a village where the mobile library visited only once a fortnight, the thought of having access to a library’s catalogue via a device in the palm of her hand is pretty frikken exciting.

What I particularly love about the Borrow Box app is that I find myself reading books after I’ve stumbled across the titles, or because I recognise a writer’s name, or simply because the cover appeals to me. Kinda like visiting a real-life library! 

At the moment, I’m reading Susan Faludi’s In The Darkroom, which is a fascinating memoir. It charts Ms Faludi’s relationship with her father who, in old age, has undergone sex reassignment surgery and returned to her native Hungary to live out her days.

Stefi Faludi was born Istvan Friedman in 1920s Budapest, where the assimilated Jewish population was subjected to atrocity after degradation during the war years.

Stefi’s own journey is compelling, not least her often challenging personality traits which are in danger of derailing the delicate relationship with her previously estranged daughter. You can read a review of the book which appeared in the Observer newspaper here.

With Stefi’s personal story set against a wider political and historical context, one of the major themes to emerge from the book is identity. Stefi’s quest to forge a new gender identity in the eyes of wider society. Her ambivalent relationship with her Jewish identity. Hungarian Jews’ cultural identity as fully paid up members of the Magyar people in the early 20th century.

Honestly, pretty much every time I sit down, I find myself reaching for my smartphone and opening the Borrow Box app to get back to Stefi’s story.

If you’re hooked on reading and can’t afford to fund a substantial book habit (particularly these days), download the Borrow Box app, see if your library is on board and sign up.

Now, will you ever be stuck for something to read again? (Don’t answer that…)

PS: My book Simplify Your Life is also available via Borrow Box - though I can see that, for users of Dublin City Library, it's not available to borrow until July... Oh, well...

* borrowbox.com; In The Darkroom, Susan Faludi (2016, pub: Henry Holt and Company)