Right. This month we are avoiding all talk of politics and spending cuts. Now the Chilean miners have been rescued - did you cry? We did - what we need is a good book to take our minds off all the doom and gloom, which has been going on since forever and a day. Just do it already!
Have you heard of the British Library's web archive? It's a thing we've been meaning to tell you about for a long time and failed miserably in getting around to. Basically, it's a collection sites of cultural, historical and political importance to the UK and you can have a look at it at [http://www.webarchive.org.ukhere]. Part of the plan is to keep a record of how the web has evolved over the years by taking 6-monthly snapshots of a selection of cultural websites. And guess what? Bookbag is included in the blog section - are we a blog? - and snapshots of our site have been archived for posterity since 2008. It tickles us pink to think that we've been included. Take a look - the whole website is just fascinating!
We also wanted to draw your attention to a particular competition we're running this month. Actor Ralph Fiennes brings to life some of Kipling's best known poetry and prose in a wonderful audio CD, recorded in the study at Bateman’s, Kipling’s Jacobean house in East Sussex where he wrote many of his books and where he lived for the last thirty years of his life. It presents the many-sidedness of Kipling's talent, in prose and verse, and shows him to be probably the most versatile English writer of his time. The reading of ''My Boy Jack'', about his son John, killed at the age of one month over eighteen, and recorded in the room where it was written, is almost unbearably poignant. And you can win a copy [[Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling|here]].