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Thank you to a scandalous woman . . .
It is International Women’s Day, and I am mad at my brother. It might as well be 1974, the two of us in the back seat of our father’s yellow Honda Civic, cushions strategically stacked in the middle to stop us from hitting each other on the long drive to a campground near Loch Lomond in Scotland. In passing this morning, with an entire stretch of Atlantic ocean and a sizable chunk of the North American continent between us, I casually mentioned to him that I might just sit down and write a sentence or two about Edna O’Brien, my favorite writer. She was the first woman to commit to paper…
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In celebration of World Book Day, I am remembering last summer when I realized, among other things, that my daughter loves to read . . .
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Memories of a Mobile Library
John Scalzi‘s homage to the libraries of his life prompted me to remember my first encounter with a library. Not a bricks and mortar library, the mobile library of my childhood was essentially a bus full of magic that visited a housing estate on Antrim’s Dublin Road every week. Although far from America, on this day that we celebrate the birh of Dr. Seuss, I suspect it was exactly what Thomas Jefferson had in mind: I have often thought that nothing would do more extensive good at small expense than the establishment of a small circulating library in every county, to consist of a few well-chosen books, to be lent to…
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a life-long love affair with books
When I was a child, the library came to me. Every couple of weeks, the mobile library van parked around the corner, its desultory young driver oblivious to my excitement as I climbed the steps up into the back of his van, a cramped space lined with shelves of books. For me, it was Aladdin’s cave. It was the place where I fell in love with books. Everyone should have such a place. Thank you John Scalzi, for thanking the libraries . . .
