Public library and other stories

Smith, Ali 1962- (author.).

Summary: "Why are books so very powerful? What do the books we've read over our lives - our own personal libraries - make of us? What does the unravelling of our tradition of public libraries, so hard-won but now in jeopardy, say about us? The stories in Ali Smith's new collection are about what we do with books and what they do with us: how they travel with us; how they shock us, change us, challenge us, banish time while making us older, wiser and ageless all at once; how they remind us to pay attention to the world we make.-- Publisher.

Record details

ISBN: 9780670069965 (softcover) :
Physical Description: 219 pages ; 21 cm
regular print
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Toronto : Hamish Hamilton, 2016.
Copyright: ©2015.

Content descriptions

General Note:

Originally published in hardcover in the UK in 2015.

"Woven between the stories are conversations with writers and readers reflecting on the essential role that libraries have played in their lives"--Page 4 of cover.

Formatted Contents Note:

Library -- Last -- That beautiful new build -- Good voice -- Opened by Mark Twain -- The beholder -- A clean, well-lighted place -- The poet -- The ideal model of society -- The human claim -- Soon to be sold -- The ex-wife -- Put a price on that -- The art of elsewhere -- On Bleak House Road -- After life -- Curve tracing -- The definite article -- The library sunlight -- Grass -- The making of me -- Say I won't be there -- The infinite possibilities -- And so on.