You're not a single idea. You are a stack of potential.

I’m sick of the polarised rhetoric. Of the trend to pretend that we can be boiled down to a single element, idea, or position. That any of us just have one ‘interest’ or view. Every time I hear the phrase "the will of the people" it makes my teeth clench. Each of us are more than one thing. 

We all need to broaden our views, and that means taking in information you haven’t heard. 

I love the internet for all the information if offers me.  

However, I still spend so much of my time reading books. Whether downloaded, newly printed, borrowed, or bought from a dusty shelf. As a teenager in 1990, I recall the misery of arriving ten minutes late to meet a friend on a corner. Standing waiting for them in the rain, not knowing if they had come and gone, or were running late too. I also remember that when you wanted to know something, you had to talk to an actual human being. The horror of human interaction! That one person would tell you if they knew what you needed to know, or knew-someone-who-might-know, or could point you to a book the information might be in.

Librarians were the keepers of knowledge. People who read books could Tell You Things.

I was very lucky to grow up in a house lined with books. True, you might have to wait your turn when the latest Dick Francis thriller came through the door, or put a bid in to read the Len Deighton before your sister, but there were always the dusty Penguin paperbacks you could delve into, their orange spines beckoning you to give them a try. Admittedly, I started on Peanuts cartoons and worked my way along the shelf. I’m not sure I ever would have chosen to read a bunch of science fiction short stories, or a book on social science, had it not been a wet weekend Before The Internet.  

My four grandparents each had an impact on me.

Taciturn Welsh granddad teaching me to fish, and his miniature train set which took up a whole room (I love tiny things). He was deathly silent about his work in the mortuary. 

Screechy North London Nan taking me around houses as she cleaned, and telling me to mind my manners (they are still bad) and tie my shoes.

Aussie Grandma knitting and making Aussie cakes, watching Paul Hogan on the telly (I definitely like Aussie cakes and Koalas)

Vaguely Jewish granddad showing me how you turn a table leg, long coils of pine drifting to the floor of the shed. (The smell of freshly cut wood transports me every time, and add in the smell of petrol for the mower and it’s 1985).

From a line of tall and strong Russian horse-dealers who escaped persecution in the 1890's to sample the delights of Manchester, Granddad was hilarious, if often cross and stompy. This could find you wide-eyed with terror when his six-foot-seven frame was pulling cupboards apart looking for a lost thingamajig, or a plaster for his carpentry-afflicted finger. If he wasn't making things from wood, you could find him either at his desk, writing, or in his library, reading. It sounds grand. But the truth is he was self-educated. He had been a copper in the Met Police, and then in the Navy in World War II, and then a copper again briefly, before telling his commander to do something very rude, and anatomically impossible. Grandad become a comedy writer. But I never saw that aspect of him really. While I went to watch plays as a child and saw his writing on TV his type of comedy was fading as I turned 10. More than anything, I remember him as a reader, and as a portal of information. 

As the house emptied of my mum, aunt and uncle, he constructed shelves and filled them with books. How he lived his life is a huge influence on me, because I see him as incredibly blessed. Blessed in that you can follow your passions, that reading can open new worlds for you, and there are no limits on what you can be interested in, or where you can end up. It's why I want libraries to stay open. Because access to information should be democratic. No one should be denied the chance to read a lot of books because their house is empty-shelved. Equally, audio books give those who are dyslexic access to previously hidden worlds. I'm not knocking Youtube, it has its place. But if you want deep knowledge, it often sits in a book. 

What’s your academic background?

This question tends to leave me stumped. It always strikes me as funny that people get qualifications and then stop reading, almost as if all the fun of learning has been beaten out of them. I left school at 16. Although over the years I've dipped into work-based exams, my academic background is simple: I read. Anything and everything. When I've read all the books, and the books they mention, I'm reading the academic papers. That said, fiction will often teach you new and interesting things. When I’m spent from reading a ton of facts, it’s what I need to recharge. Halfway through a novel, an idea for a piece of research will pop into my head. Or I'll think of a funny slide for a presentation. Or a really inappropriate joke. It's in the genes. 

How not to end up in a box (prematurely)

Let your curiosity not be contained. If you wake up one day and decide you want to learn quantum physics, or the workings of the brain: Go for it. You’re never too old. No subject is out of bounds. Believe me, I’ve got the book collection to prove it.