Welcome to this week’s blog, and our roundup of your comments and photos from last week.

This week of all weeks, a reminder of what it means to lose your freedom, from nilpferd:

It was the 72nd Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on Friday, and on that same day there was news of a monument to the organiser of the Kindertransports to be erected in Prague.

Marcel Reich-Ranicki’s autobiography touches on both events. As a 16-year-old eager to devour books he registered himself in two of Berlin’s well-stocked libraries in order to maximise his reading. But in 1936 Berlin many authors were “red-lined”- Jews, liberals, communists, socialists, pacifists, anti-facists. The “red lines” may have symbolised their book’s removal from libraries but the names were still readable beneath the red ink in the catalogue. Reich-Ranicki made it his business to seek out Roth, Zweig, Kafka, Mann et al. wherever possible. Despite the book-burnings there were still many copies available in private houses, particularly in the house of Marcel’s uncle, who frequently employed him to babysit his 5-year-old in the evening. That was a win-win situation for R-R, who got to earn money while indulging in his uncle’s comprehensive library of banned books. And as an added sweetener the cousin never once woke up while he was there.

Reich-Ranicki’s cousin was the artist Frank Auerbach, who was put onto a Kindertransport in 1939, and whose parents were both murdered in Auschwitz in 1943.

Inevitably, politics intruded often last week. Fourpaws couldn’t help seeing interesting parallels in Red Plenty by Francis Spufford:

He is a very good writer and deals with complicated subjects efficiently and interestingly. Allworthy encouraged me to read more by Spufford. It’s a big book, but can highly recommend. Will read some other recommended books on my TBR list and then might try Spufford’s book on religion. Anyway it’s made me wonder whether Trump is modern-day US embodiment of Kruschev?

Elsewhere, Ellie Rose had interesting thoughts on dialect:

I read Weirdo by Cathi Unsworth last week. It’s a crime novel set in Norfolk based around a historical murder of a teenager being reinvestigated by a cold-case PI (so far, so standard), alternating between the present-day investigation and flashbacks to the build-up to the crime. I wasn’t expecting much more than an enjoyably light read after my nineteenth-century odyssey for the last couple of weeks, but I was very pleasantly surprised...

I also really liked the way Unsworth wrote the dialogue. Never been to Norfolk, so I’m not sure whether it’s accurate, but there was a very strong dialect/voice coming through. Characters said things like “What’s he now said?” or “[character] come from London and she know more about music than you do”. I found it fascinating.

On a similar theme, goodyorkshirelass has been enjoying a national treasure:

Alan Bennett’s Keeping On Keeping On is an everlasting delight. Just the ticket to chase away the grey, depressing skies yesterday. At one point he was “scrattin’ around” in the coal bunker. How that did my heart good, haven’t heard it said in years. Must revive it.

At my school in Lancashire, if anyone bent down to pick up a coin from the street they were immediately labelled a “scratter”. I still bear the mental scars. But I’m 7p richer.

Anyway! Jessica Lucy Beckitt has also been reading a dialect rich novel:

Over the last weekend I read Pig Iron by Ben Myers. I much enjoyed it, although it’s not as polished as Beastings and not as clipped as Turning Blue - still, a cracking first novel. Especially enjoyed his commitment and faithfulness in rendering the North East dialect and an even more mysterious and beautiful gypsy variant of it. The roots of his fascination with violence and brutality are evident, which he gets just right in Beastings but perhaps takes a little too far in Turning Blue.

Talking of excitement, I completely understand this short post from Boocat01:

I’m reading the Box of Delights and I’m loving it.

Finally, the question of ‘where we read’ came up last week. An ideal location was suggested by pearcesleftfoot:

Where do I read?

Typically in bed. Most nights I get through 100 or so pages unless Mrs. leftfoot has trouble sleeping. In that instance I’m required to stroke her back and play with her hair until she dozes off.

Other than that I always manage to get through a good chunk of reading on my commute to and from work, and on my lunch break also. I try to grab any moment that I can to read a few pages, particularly if I’m enthralled by my current novel.

My absolute favourite place to read was Robin Hoods Bay, a seaside village just outside of Whitby. Sat overlooking the sea, sun shining, pint of Old Peculiar, dog asleep by my side. It was complete bliss.

Sounds blissful. Anyone else got a favourite reading spot?

Interesting links about books and reading

• Roxane Gay in the always interesting New York Times feature called By the Book
• Frightening times ahead for UK publishing.
• No apologies for repetition. Mobylives, the Melville House blog, is just essential reading at the moment. One of the oldest and best books blogs is breathing fire about the nightmare in America. Everything Dennis Johnson writes is gold.
• Enjoy artist Harland Miller’s cheeky take on classic Penguin cover designs.

If you would like to share a photo of the book you are reading, or film your own book review, please do. Click the blue button on this page to share your video or image. I’ll include some of your posts in next week’s blog.

If you’re on Instagram and a book lover, chances are you’re already sharing beautiful pictures of books you are reading, “shelfies” or all kinds of still lifes with books as protagonists. Now, you can share your reads with us on the mobile photography platform – simply tag your pictures there with #GuardianBooks, and we’ll include a selection here. Happy reading!