LARKIN ABOUT IN COVENTRY

Coventry is used to being written off. But it always makes a comeback. Forty years on from being labelled a &lsquo,Ghost Town&rsquo,, it is to be the next UK City of Culture. , After Hull, as it happens, the place where Philip Larkin was head librarian at the university&rsquo,s Brynmor Jones Library. , , , , , , , , , His love of libraries, of books, of poetry began in the city where he was born, went to school and spent his first 18 years. His childhood was not &ldquo,unspent&rdquo,, as he claimed in I Remember, I Remember. , , , , , , , , , He remembered it all too well, the good times as well as the bad, and was devastated by the Luftwaffe&rsquo,s prolonged bombardment of one of England&rsquo,s great mediaeval cities shortly after he had left for Oxford. , , , , , , , , , Larkin About in Coventry goes behind the great poet&rsquo,s curmudgeonly facade and truffles out the places where he was content and even &ldquo,happy&rdquo, in his youth. It also takes a fresh look at a city that has two thriving universities and a burgeoning arts scene. Not a ghost town but a host town for cultures from around the globe. ,  , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  ,Chris Arnot has been a national freelance journalist and author since 1991. , His last book, Small Island by Little Train, has been republished in paperback by the AA after being shortlisted for the Edward Stanford awards for outstanding travel-writing. He has written six other books, co-authored The Archers&rsquo, Archives for the BBC and ghost-wrote eminent educationalist David Kershaw&rsquo,s autobiography Thanks Shanks, how Bill Shankly bought me an education, for Takahe Publishing._,