Merging my library with my father’s have given me a new appreciation for him.
Tag Archives: libraries
A World of Books amid a World of Green
Treat yourself to two delightful poems about books and gardens by the Victorian/Edwardian poet Richard Le Gallienne.
A Poem in Praise of Libraries
In his new collection of poems, Norman Finkelstein has one of the best poems I have encountered about libraries. The poem captures the paradoxical nature of libraries, how they both preserve the past but look forward to the future.
Listen Carefully–The Books Are Whispering
I gave a talk last night to Leonardtown, Maryland’s Friends of the Library about—surprise!–“How Literature Can Change Your Life.” It was a busy day, what with writing the talk and turning in final grades and going to one last committee meeting and attending a retirement party (for which I wrote a bit of doggerel) and […]
Fight the Power, Check Out a Book
Alberto Manguel’s The Library at Night is an unusual combination of fact and reflection, probing the nature and meaning of libraries.
Our Inner Library: A Quiz
Last semester my Ljubljana friend Jason Blake sent me a passage from Alberto Manguel’s novel The Library at Night. A colleague of Jason’s was trying to identify all the literary allusions and was stuck on “first centenary encounter with ice.” It took me a while but I think I was able to identify it correctly, […]

