A Reading ScrapbookHistorical ephemera gives us a fascinating glimpse into everyday life in Reading in centuries past. In this book David Cliffe uses surviving pieces of ephemera from the collections held in the Department of Typography at the University of Reading and the Local Studies section at Reading Central Library as a starting point for a marvellous and discursive journey into the history of the town. Going back over the last 300 years and more, these scraps of

they discover

remembering times past: childhood holidays and idyllic summers

Spy and Translator (Chatto and Windus 2014

he’d stooped and sweated

the daughter who captures the tenderness of her fore-bearers

Setbacks occur

loss and professional success – that really keeps the shop running

Told with humor

and uncertainty in later experience

From hyperlinked walks of Battersea bombsites and guerilla gardening projects to jagged urban lyrics and dark hymns to the East End

and as attention to the interconnected circuitries the One has with the social

Davies also led the bohemian life to the full