It’s the middle of exam season when the going tends to get tough, so we wanted to try and bring you some light-hearted joy to make you smile and allow you to #TakeABreak from studies for a bit.
As the UK is hosting one of the biggest pop culture events in the the world – Eurovision, we could not resist but to organise a rival competition – #LibraryEurovision! We looked up books, films, music and other resources in CityLibrary collection that are related to each of the participant countries, and put them out for you to enjoy on our Instagram and Twitter. If you are not following us there, here’s a recap of the exciting resources we’ve shared for each of the countries – in their running order in both semi-finals!
Dive into award-winning novels and cinema, explore polyphonic lullabies, plays, graphic novels, DVDs and articles, fantastic folk and classic music albums and more… (We’ve added the link to resources in Instagram posts separately too, so that you can access them if you don’t have an Instagram account!)
| 1. Denmark | Instagram (Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales) | |
| 2. Armenia | Instagram (Armenian short film Red Apples) | |
| 3. Romania | Instagram (Folk music from the Moldavian region of Romania) | |
| 4. Estonia | Instagram (An article from Estonia’s Prime Minister on cyber security) | |
| 5. Belgium | Instagram (A book on Belgian cartoonist – Hergé in his own words) | |
| 6. Cyprus | Instagram (Acclaimed novel about Cyprus – The Island of Missing Trees) | |
| 7. Iceland | Instagram (Icelandic magic realist film The Seer and the Unseen) | |
| 8. Greece | Instagram (A selection of poems by Michális Ganás: A Greek Ballad) | |
| 9. Poland | Instagram (An album of Frederic Chopin’s work) | |
| 10. Slovenia | Instagram (A book of contemporary analysis of Slovenia through burek) | |
| 11. Georgia | Instagram (Georgian short film Black Mulberry) | |
| 12. San Marino | Instagram (A travel documentary about San Marino) | |
| 13. Austria | Instagram (A biography of Freud: in his time and ours) | |
| 14. Albania | Instagram (A book on Modern Albania and its journey to democracy) | |
| 15. Lithuania | Instagram (An album of harp arrangements of the piano works of Čiurlionis) | |
| 16. Australia | Instagram (A modern memoir on Australia – Island Home) | |
| 17. Spain | Instagram (A book on democracy in modern Spain) | |
| 18. Ukraine | Instagram (A book of everything you need to know about Ukraine) | |
| 19. United Kingdom | Instagram (A book examining the link between Liverpool and music) |
No matter what you think of the singing competition, we hope you’ve enjoyed discovering a wealth of literature, music, films and learning about aspects of life elsewhere that you might otherwise have not thought about. (Relatedly, if you’re interested to venture further afield, we have a lovely e-book and audiobook collection “Let a novel take you to another country” on OverDrive with literature from all over the world.)
If you’re interested to learn about Eurovision from a more academic viewpoint for some aspect of your studies, there’s a lot to discover on CityLibrary Search – eg, The Eurovision Song Contest as a cultural phenomenon: from concert halls to the halls of academia or A song for Europe: popular music and politics in the Eurovision song contest. And don’t forget that you can catch up on the past shows on Box of Broadcasts!