Val McDermid was so young when she first visited her local library in Fife that she couldn’t even say the word, calling it the ‘labrador’ (after her family’s pet). Kirkcaldy Library rapidly became, though, a home-from-home. Soon enough, young Val was working her way methodically around the shelves. She would come up with ingenious, cheeky ways to bypass the librarians and gain access to the forbidden grown-up shelves. This education laid the foundations for the illustrious writing career that has followed: with over sixteen million copies sold in more than thirty languages, today Val is often called ‘The Queen of Crime’. Bluntly, this career would not have been possible without the public library system (in Val’s own words). This episode covers those formative years - how the library helped Val not only escape herself but also find a sense of identity - before broadening into an exploration of the library’s continuing legacy for Val, exemplified by her campaigning efforts to save other such ‘palaces for the people’. We also learn about her writing process: Ben unpacks with Val the similarities therein with the professional workings of her fictitious criminal profiler, Tony Hill. How she must always be several steps ahead of her readers… Val speaks to Ben not at the library, though, but within a cosy nook of her favourite indie bookshop - Topping & Company in St Andrews. It’s a beautiful shop. Val is old pals with founder Robert Topping. She loves this place so much that she even arranged for her home bookshelves to be handcrafted by the shop’s go-to joiners. Joining the conversation is Topping’s Senior Bookseller (and poet), Michael Grieve. Kirkcaldy Library was Michael’s local branch too while growing up. The duo make for warm, kindred spirits amid the shop’s artisan shelves, sliding ladders and seemingly endless signed first editions. ... Please find below a full transcript of this episode of Ex Libris, featuring Val McDermid in Topping & Co: This episode of Ex Libris comes to you from bonny St. Andrews. We're here to meet the queen of crime herself. Val McDermid’s books have sold 16 million times over in more than 40 languages. So it's a garlanded career, and one that is owed to the public library system, in Val’s own words. I can't wait to ask her more about that debt to libraries. She has elected, however, to meet in a bookshop. The scene of today's crime is Topping and Company here on Greyfriars Garden. Joining the conversation today is Michael Grieve, senior bookseller at Toppings. Let's head inside now into the book-lined warmth. The fires are on and books are the best sort of insulation after all, not just from the cold. Interview Ben Holden: Val, Michael, thank you so much for meeting us and talking here in this lovely nook in Toppings. Val, why is the shop personally special to you? I know you have fond attachments to libraries, but it's a beautiful, beautiful store. Val McDermid: It is a beautiful shop, but my relationship with Toppings goes back a very long time. I've known Robert Topping since the early 1990s, when he was running Waterstones in Deansgate, their flagship store there. And when my first books were coming out, Robert was incredibly supportive. That, for me, sort of forged our friendship and we've stayed in touch ever since. And then when Robert started opening wonderful, independent bookshops, because that was huge for those of us who love his style of bookselling, and this one is very dear to me, because, you know, I grew up in Fife, and to have a bookshop like this in Fife would have been an absolute dream for me growing up. The first time I came into the shop, I just fell in love with the shelves, beautiful shelves, all handmade, different levels, and beautiful beading. I said to my partner, I said, “We need to have a house that will go with these shelves”. Subsequently, we do now, we have a townhouse in Edinburgh, and we have sorted shelves all over the house. We have a library basically on the first floor that was made by the same joiners who installed the shelves here. We have ladders that go around corners. It's lovely, and it's what I've always dreamed of, I suppose, to have that kind of place, to have a room of books in that way. I walk in there and sit down in my reading chair, and I just think it's all worthwhile. Ben Holden: And Michael, can you speak a little bit more to the history of the store? Michael Grieve: Well, as Val was talking about, Robert used to run Manchester Deansgate, and it was by all accounts the best stocked, most richly diverse Waterstones in the country at the time. And it was when they started slimming down their operation, when they were taken over by HMV. Robert refused to slim down with them, and was shown the door, and he decided to set up to show them how to do it, and opened the first bookshop, first Topping and Company in Ely ...
