New Piece in Threepenny Review
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
The Fall 2014 issue of the Threepenny Review has a lovely symposium on libraries, with contributions from Oliver Sacks, Francine Prose, Alberto Manguel and many others. My own short piece begins:
One way to organize my thoughts
about libraries would be to begin
with childhood. The public library in
Ann Arbor. Metal bins outside into
which one could slide books, like letters.
Then the dim interior, and mazes
of shelves. Dry smell, display cases—
maps, animals, Michigan—their contents
and purposes above my head. At
last, far back, low down, the shelves for
me. Knees to the ground, examining
thin spine after thin spine—anything
might be back there, but my most
prominent memory, the strongest
returning satisfaction, is connected to
the family of the Smalls, round heads
and eyes, one story having to do with a
fire engine, and a closing line: “That’s
all for the small Smalls.”
The symposium, and the rest of my piece, are available in the print issue. You can find out more here:
http://www.threepennyreview.com/current.html