Last year I set up The Kindness Club, to prompt random acts of kindness in the UK. Under this umbrella, I've now set up a Refuge for Books.
Lucy Beresford
This came about when I was de-cluttering the house. I planned to take any books to the nearest charity shop. A refuge for my books.
And then it occurred to me. Refuge is the national domestic violence charity. Among many services, the charity provides shelter to women and children fleeing domestic abuse, supporting more than 3000 women and children on any given day. As a result, it saves and changes lives.
Tackling domestic violence is a cause dear to my heart. [My new novel Invisible Threads (Quartet, hardback/e-book) is my love letter to Delhi, and was informed partly by the work I do for a charity in Delhi rescuing women from brothels]. What if I helped women in the UK, by donating books?
The women and kids sheltered by Refuge have had their lives ripped apart. They're desperate for safety and compassion. They crave normality, the kind of normality that comes from dipping into a novel. They also crave escape, not just from their current predicament, but by escaping into their head.
Books are magical, wondrous things to many of us, but to the women and children sheltered by Refuge, such precious objects could mean the difference between despair and hope.
Plus books look attractive on shelves. One particular refuge in London plans to create a library in its building.
So this is where you come in. I'm asking all my author friends, agents and publishers to donate a book in new, or as good-as-new condition to my Refuge for Books, to the PO Box at the end of this piece.
Friends who love reading, when we next meet, bring me a book. Business associates, when we next have a meeting, bring me a book.
And you, reading this: please me a book in good condition, and I'll make sure it becomes part of the library at the Refuge shelter. Please don't send them to Refuge direct - they don't have the space. And because the locations of the shelters remains confidential, Refuge will collect the donated books from my PO Box.
So what type of books can you send? The kids need colourful, stimulating, non-violent books. The women are voracious readers of all genres, eager to try a whole range of books such as thrillers, romance or stories about women's journeys and experiences.
So send me a book you adore, with love. The women being sheltered by Refuge have often arrived there with nothing. Donate a copy of your favourite book and, who knows, it just might become someone else's favourite too.
Because here's the thing. Sending me a book will take you no time at all - and then you can go back to your day, to the life you've created for yourself. But by donating a book you'll be showing kindness to someone who, because of domestic abuse, can't go back to the life they once had, the life they imagined would last, the life they might even still on some level crave.
Just as you'd wish for yourself, women in such situations long for not judgment but understanding. So please, will you be so kind as to send me a book.
PO Box 72287, London SW1P 9LA
