30 Oct 2025
Have you ever picked up a second-hand book and wondered who held it before you?
Who was the Josie or Jack who received it as a gift, with a loving note tucked inside from a parent or grandparent?
Pressed flowers, doodles in the margins, scribbled thoughts and dog-eared pages all are quiet traces reminding us that readers of the past were not so different from us.
This November, the University of Glasgow and The Mitchell Library invite you to explore the rich and historical life of books in a series of engaging Being Human Festival events led by Dr Shanti Graheli, Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature.
Joined by Professor Adrian Streete (English Literature) and Bob MacLean (University of Glasgow Archive & Special Collections), the programme celebrates books not just as texts, but as cherished objects that carry the marks of their readers. On 6 November, researchers Dr Michelle Craig (Information Studies), Rachael Tarrant and Heather Caldwell (English Literature) will illuminate how books tell stories through their physical form - doodles, inscriptions and worn pages. Later in the month, the Books "Antiques" Roadshow invites attendees to bring a book that holds personal meaning and share its story. As Dr Graheli puts it: “Tell us what makes it valuable to you.”
The events programme will explore how books carry the fingerprints of those who loved them and how they connect us across generations. The programme, part of the national Being Human Festival whose theme this year is ‘Between the Lines’, does not just look to the past but also to future generations who will read our own notes or messages to a loved one in books.
Dr Graheli’s research at the University of Glasgow focuses on the marks readers leave behind including annotations, gift inscriptions, multilingual notes, and even doodles.
Dr Graheli, who is based at the University of Glasgow’s School of Modern Languages & Cultures said: “The value of a book doesn’t stop with the text. Books continue to live on through the people who read them. These marks tell us about the lives of readers past and present and they’re also a bridge to the future.”
She shares a poignant example from her own life: an Italian-language copy of George Elliot’s Middlemarch passed between her grandmother and her sisters before adding: “It came back covered in tape after months of intense reading. My grandmother even reread it again before returning it to me so we could talk about it. It’s the most precious thing I own and every time I look at it, I’m transported back to her and her sisters.
“I still have the copy with the tape that my grandmother and her sisters put on it to kind of mend it. That remains for me, a very special memory of the women in my family and how we connected by sharing this one copy of Middlemarch.”
Another example for a research project that Dr Graheli is working on is a book from the library of James Sutherland (1639-1719), the first Regius Keeper at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
She said: “It is very special because it's a botanical picture book from Antwerp, with illustrations and the names of the plants given in different languages. It was made for multilingual readers. Sutherland used it to write about the plants in his garden, for example which ones blossomed in March or April. The keen gardener of a hardy garden in the heart of Edinburgh, he knew that his plants might not behave quite in the same way as his continental books described. So he observes what is around him and records it in the book. Lots of other readers used their books as a way to look at the world and record what they saw and felt.”
The Mitchell Library was chosen as a key partner for these events due to its deep ties to family history and genealogical research.
Dr Graheli said: “It’s the heart of Glasgow’s memory. I am so thrilled to be collaborating with them to showcase items that speak to the theme of ‘reading between the lines.’”
Susan Taylor, Librarian at The Mitchell Library, Glasgow Life said: “Books are more than just stories, they’re vessels of memory, emotion, and connection. We’re proud to be part of this initiative and share some of our books which help highlight the invisible threads that bind readers across time.”
The series includes events at the University of Glasgow’s Library & Advanced Research Centre and The Mitchell Library, inviting families, children and book lovers of all ages to explore the emotional and historical life of books.
Dr Graheli added: “Notes and writing in books, are not just a bridge to the past, they are also a bridge to the future. I think that's a really crucial thing for me, that it is a way for a book to live forward and for our thoughts recorded in that book to live forward.”
Picture courtesy of Martin Shields.
