A richly inventive collection of stories about our enduring love of books from the Booker Prize-shortlisted, Women's Prize-winning author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet
Why are books so powerful?
What do the books we read make of us?
And what does the vanishing of public libraries say about us?
These stories 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.
Public libraries are places of joy, freedom, community and discovery - and they are under threat from funding cuts and widespread closures across the UK and further afield. With this brilliantly inventive collection, Ali Smith raises her voice in defence of our public libraries, celebrating their essential place in our culture and history.
'Smith is dazzling in her daring. Sheer inventive power' Observer
“Thank goodness for Ali Smith, for who else could write a short story collection about libraries and make it wild.” —The Times (London)
“A series of wonderful stories on the power of books.” —Mary Beard, The Guardian (Best Books of the Year)
“Extraordinarily artful. . . . A triumph.” —The Times Literary Supplement (London)
“Smith’s own stories leap across space and time, delighting in unexpected connections. . . . Each of Smith’s stories is a gem.” —Financial Times
“A work of endless interventions. . . . Smith’s great talent is her ability to produce on the page the effect of a human voice.” —Ian Samson, The Guardian (London)
“Superb. . . . [A] wonderful collection. . . . It has been Smith’s unlikely triumph throughout her increasingly acclaimed career to combine a playful and experimental approach with material that is both moving and funny—and she has done it again.” —Daily Mail
“There are sentences that sing, or make you smile, and the conceit behind each of the stories is distinctively offbeat.” —The Herald (Glasgow)
“Spritely, poignant. . . . Magical. . . . Alive to the ability words have to garland a life and make the ordinary bloom into something fresh and funny.” —Mail on Sunday (London)
“Reading this collection is like spending an afternoon in a well-stocked library in the company of an erudite and playful companion.” —The Daily Telegraph (London)
“Smith’s stories are so good as to be priceless.” —Sunday Express (London)
“Beautiful. . . . Wonderful. Her prose dances. Her imagination lights up life and experience. This is a book to read slowly, to savour its vitality and variety, one to return to and find new pleasures with each reading.” —The Scotsman
“Endearing and affecting. The extraordinary is always rooted in the corporeal . . . and this lends Smith’s voice much of its considerable charm. . . . The narration is often arch, winking at you from the pages, rightfully proud of its own showmanship and subtlety, and is fundamentally human.” —The London Magazine
“A brilliant, comprehensive, unpredictable defence of public libraries. You can travel anywhere on Ali Smith’s library ticket.” —Kate Kellaway, The Guardian (London)
“Powerful. . . . Beautifully written. . . . A gentle, comforting, and thought-provoking read. . . . It is a blessing to have authors such as Ali Smith.” —Stylist
“Smith’s world is incredibly generous—it’s a place where all sorts of stories and human connections are possible.” —Metro
“A series of spirited short stories, in an ingenious blend of fact and fiction. . . . The result is a love-song to literature that all readers will delight in dipping in and out of.” —Lucy Brooks, Culture Whisper
“A moving, surprising, beautiful collection. . . . So clever and so joyful.” —Open Democracy
