Comedian, actor, writer and library fan Robin Ince made a special appearance at Tavistock Library to promote the county library service and his new book.

Robin is a patron for Libraries Unlimited, the charity which runs libraries in Devon and Torbay. The charity runs 50 libraries for Devon Libraries, which is overseen by Devon County Council.

The council is drawing up a new library service strategy ahead of the contract with Libraries Unlimited coming up for renewal next March. A public consultation on the service in November will inform this strategy.

As a passionate advocate for libraries everywhere Robin repeated his favourite quote for the audience, 'I’m with Carl Sagan – libraries are a mark of civilisation – I travel across the UK and beyond and wherever I go I find the library and look, more often than not, in awe. Libraries are so much more than the old-fashioned idea of ‘shush and read’ now, they are such active places'.

Robin is known for presenting the BBC Radio 4 show ‘The Infinite Monkey Cage’ with physicist Brian Cox, creating his live variety science show ‘Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People’, co-creating the comedy production hub ‘The Cosmic Shambles Network’, and his stand-up comedy career.

He entertained an audience of over 60 people in Tavistock Library, starting with thoughts from his book Abnormally Weird and Weirdly Normal: my adventures in neurodiversity.

The book explains his late diagnosis of ADHD and the joy of understanding how his different ways of thinking, and those of so many people he counts as friends or those he has met on his travels, produces creativity in our world.

His live performance of ideas at the library to challenge and entertain were illustrated by Robin's poems and the writings of a range of artists past and present. Tavistock independent booksellers BookStop provided copies of Robin's books which he signed for buyers from the audience.