Best-selling authors rally to restock Spellow Library after it was destroyed by rioters

Authors across the UK have been sending books to help restock Spellow Library after it was destroyed by rioters just over a week ago.

More than 300 writers, along with publishers and literary agencies, have responded to an appeal to donate books to Spellow Library by best-selling Manchester novelist Marnie Riches, with hopes that thousands will be collected.

Marnie, 52, says the reaction to her Twitter (X) plea has been ‘brilliant’: “I have never gone viral before, but this went viral, and it’s heartening that it was for something for good.

“I had hoped that it would have that effect.”

She adds: “People have wanted to express solidarity with the library staff and the community, and outrage at the people who did this. 

“It’s been a practical and tangible way of doing that, alongside the very successful crowdfunder set up to repair the terrible damage. It shows the power of people supporting each other.”

Marnie says she put out a single Tweet when it hit the headlines that Spellow Library and community hub in County Road had been ‘trashed’: “And it gathered momentum in 24 hours.”

She explains: “It bothered me so much because I grew up in Cheetham Hill, the roughest bit of North Manchester. I was from a single-parent family and I lived on a council estate, and my local library was the beginning of a love of learning for me.

“It’s where I developed a love of books and a thirst for knowledge as much as anything I was getting out of school. I still use my local library, and I used it a lot when my children were born when money was tight, and I think it’s an invaluable resource for communities to make sure there’s no barrier to those on low incomes to get books and get reading.

“For me it was an accelerant to escaping impoverishment in many ways.”

The award-winning author, who’s well-known for her George McKenzie and DS Jackson Cooke crime-thrillers as well as a host of historical sagas she writes under the pseudonym Maggie Campbell, goes on: “It’s a blue line between people really struggling and having aspiration.  Access to books is a huge factor in social mobility.”

Marnie says: “When I saw what had been done, I was really angry. You’re talking about a library in the North West that’s just been trashed.  Criminal damage and vandalism is no form of political protest. I was appalled.

“I knew there was a crowdfunder, but what the library needed immediately was access to books to loan out as quickly as possible, and authors always have a lot of books lying around.

“So I thought I’ll pledge my back list, and if all my mates do that too – and they’re all very popular with library readers – then Spellow Hub Library can get a collection together quite quickly.

“It was a damage limitation exercise.

“I have had over 300 authors pledging, and a couple of literary agencies and publishers, some only able to send a couple of books but others boxes of 20-plus or more than 100. A few bloggers too.

“Hopefully the library will soon have its hands of thousands of books from all sorts of genres, crime thrillers, general fiction, children’s books, non-fiction and poetry – everything you can think of. I have fielded all the admin and spent four or five days dealing with the requests so that Liverpool Libraries didn’t have to.”

And she concludes: “Spellow Hub Library has been a unifying cause for book lovers who were appalled at the ignorance of those who did this.

“And all authors feel very strongly that libraries are an essential part of the literary food chain because that’s where avid readers and the writers of tomorrow are created.

“Until my mother died she was using her library in North Manchester, she used to read three historical sagas a week and it was the place she went to for free reads and human contact.  You can’t knock libraries; they are essential.”

Find out how Spellow Library on County Road had become a beacon of hope for the community here.