West End Letters: Reading room revisited | Joyce Glasser | Literary heritage

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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 15 August 2008

Reading Room revisited

• JOYCE Glasser (Reading Room could be the focus of a real blockbuster, August 8) is right about the possibilities for it to exhibit its literary heritage, but wrong about the need for an exhibition.
Blockbusters are about the triumph of kitsch: pre-digested exhibitions where people are told that they will have a wonderful time, and then feel themselves obliged to do so.
The alternative for the Reading Room is to mount a permanent, revolving, exhibition, varying the ambience according to the period, whereby notable users and their periods are featured, combined with, perhaps, a focus on philosophers, novelists, French, American, and all, users.
Plenty of scope for an imaginative curator to conceive an ever-changing themed exhibition designed to draw visitors into the world of writers who slogged away there, and their times.
Jacqueline Castles
Westbourne Terrace, W2

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld.
Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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