It's #LibrariesWeek this week, so today I'm asking you to something very brave and noble.

I'm asking you to visit your local public library... #MondayMotivaton
The Public Libraries Act of 1850 (And the 1853 Act in Scotland) established the principle of free public libraries for the self-improvement of all citizens in Britain, irrespective of their income.

It was a hard-won battle...
Opponents of the Act believed public libraries would become sites of social agitation: extending education to the lower orders of society would lead to libraries becoming working class "lecture halls" full of radical ideas and demands.
Later Acts built on these noble ideas of 1850, and the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 created a statutory duty for local authorities ‘to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service for all persons.'
But things have been tough for libraries for a while now. Statistics from the 2018 Libraries Taskforce showed a continuing decline in public library use (both in visits and book issues) in England...
...and then came COVID19.

Look, librarians are tough cookies. We fight on the front line of ideas every day. And we need you guys to back us up!
So that's where YOU come in! Rather than tweet about the need for public libraries I need you to take a brave pill, get on the bus, and go visit yours.
As it's #LibrariesWeek Your local public library will have made itself especially alluring for lapsed library patrons, as well as making itself COVID secure. They'll do all they can to encourage you to come back to the habit of borrowing books for free.

FOR FREE!!!
I mean, think about it: these are FREE BOOKS they're offering. You'd queue up in the rain for a half-priced Starbucks cinnamon latte, so why not go somewhere where stories and knowledge are FREE?
How much do you spend on books? Go on, add it up. Gulp!

Now let me tell you - you can more than double your reading without spending a penny more! You just need to visit your local library. They're online too if that's easier, and they'll probably have kerbside pick-up as well.
Put it this way: in Escape From New York what did Snake Plissken do to save the President, defeat The Duke and his hoodlums and escape across the Queensboro Bridge?

Rob a gun store?
Hack into the internet?
No: he went... TO THE PUBLIC LIBRARY!

This #LibrariesWeek be like Snake.

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More from @PulpLibrarian

3 Oct
Let's take a quick look at the work of horror and fantasy artist Hans Arnold today...
Hans Arnold was born in Switzerland, but spent most of his career in Sweden. He's widely known for his horror and folktale art.
Arnold had a very strict Catholic education in Switzerland, with a strong emphasis on heaven and hell. It clearly influenced his work.
Read 10 tweets
1 Oct
Today in pulp I look at a legendary magazine that built an equally legendary publishing house: a tale that starts with reveille and ends in revelry. Stand by your beds!

This is the story of Captain Billy's Whiz Bang... Image
Captain Billy Fawcett was a U.S. Army captain during WWI, working on the military paper Stars and Stripes. After the war he ran a bar in Minneapolis until Prohibition shut it! So in 1919 he decided to publish a men's humour magazine, aimed at former Doughboys like himself. Image
Working on Stars and Stripes, along with previous experience on the Minneapolis Tribune, meant Fawcett had a good idea what ex-servicemen wanted to read and how to write it. His title would also make it plain who his magazine was aimed at: Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang. Image
Read 12 tweets
23 Sep
Cambodia has a rich modern history of pulp art, comics and graphic novels. Today in pulp I look at the Cambodian scene and at some of the artists who made - and continue to make - it all happen.
Cambodian pulp art was initially influenced by the French comic strip style, and later by Indian movie posters and hindi comics. But it also maintains a strong folk-art tradition, melded with contemporary themes.
In the 1960s Cambodian artists were able to make a reasonable living illustrating both comics and book covers for the domestic market. Flower Of Love, Flame Of Suffering by Hak Chay Hok (Khmer Books) is a good example of the genre. The cover is by Hul Sophon.
Read 20 tweets
22 Sep
Today in pulp I look at time travel. It's full of paradoxes but there's one we rarely explore: does it break the Law of Conservation of Energy?

Let’s investigate…
Time travel is a staple of pulp science fiction and it often involves a paradox: changing history, killing your grandfather, creating a time loop etc. Solving the paradox, or realising too late that one is happening, is half the fun of these stories.
Thinking about the nature of time is also fun. Does it exist or is it emergent? It is a local or global event? How many dimensions does it come in? Why is there an ‘arrow of time’? There are many possible answers.
Read 22 tweets
20 Sep
Time for a pulp countdown now, so here's my top 10 future inventions we were promised by Popular Mechanics magazine that we're still waiting for!
At #10: motorised unicycles! This was a very popular Edwardian idea inspired by the penny farthing bicycle. Although a few prototypes were made we never really fell in love with driving one big wheel. Also: not great in the rain.
At #9: personal radar. Now this is actually a pretty neat idea and a number of cars now use radar or lidar as an anti-collision aid. However we're still waiting for it to be built into a hat.
Read 12 tweets
15 Sep
“Space is big. Really big,” as Douglas Adams observed. So why haven’t we seen any alien life yet?

Odds are a big universe must have some – or are the odds wrong? This is the Fermi Paradox, and today in pulp I’m looking at some of the novels that have explored it.

Don’t panic…
In 1950 Physicists Enrico Fermi and Michael Hart were chatting in the Los Alamos canteen when the topic turned to UFOs. Where were they? After a few calculations Fermi felt the probability of alien life was high enough; we just didn’t have any evidence ‘they’ were out there.
Frank Drake built on this in 1961. The Drake equation looked at the probabilities for how many stars and planets over what period could host life that could become intelligent and travel in space. Life on Earth meant the probability must be more than zero, but how much more?
Read 19 tweets

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