Public Library and Other Stories
Ali Smith
Penguin Books Ltd
<p><b>A richly inventive new collection of stories from Ali Smith, author of <i>How to be both</i>, winner of the Baileys Women's Prize and the Costa Novel Award and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize</b><br><b></b><br><b></b>Why are books so very powerful?</p><p>What do the books we've read over our lives - our own personal libraries - make of us?</p><p>What does the unravelling of our tradition of public libraries, so hard-won but now in jeopardy, say about us?</p><p>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.</p><p>Public libraries are places of joy, freedom, community and discovery - and right now they are under threat from funding cuts and widespread closures across the UK and further afield. With this brilliantly inventive...</br></br></p>