I love Ali Smith but these stories were not my favourite piece of work by her. Some better than others.

This collection of stories is quite eclectic. The stories are interspersed with different people's thoughts on the role the libraries played and still play in their lives. Apparently, the number of UK library closures is staggering. This is such a shame.

Smith's talent shines through each and every story, even in the more convoluted ones. Those familiar with her writing won't be surprised. The newbies will get a broad view of her abilities and originality.

This is a collection of short stories that celebrate books, reading, and public libraries. I found this interesting because it's a British author and I'm not as familiar reading about public libraries in other countries.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishers for this review copy, given in exchange for an honest review.

I love to read books about libraries - working in one certainly helps with the fascination. I'd seen this book so many times on the library shelf, so was please to be able to read it. This is a collection of short stories, all with some connection to libraries. To be honest, I didn't really get on with this book. I found it really hard to read, which in turn made me lose interest in it. A real shame that it wasn't my thing!

I always preface reviews of short story collections saying that anthologies tend to have bad stories included, but this book might just be an exception. I had never read Smith's work before but was immediately drawn by these characters, their lives, and struggles. Between stories readers find vignettes about public libraries and their importance. I read this book in a little more than an hour and found it very satisfying.

Short stories with a literary topic interspersed with intimate stories about the importance of public libraries. These libraries are based in the United Kingdom which have been threatened with closure or closed in a massive scale over the past 15 years. Ali Smith's stories and essays are intended to demonstrate what will be lost without them. Sometimes the only hope a person has is the public library. We see the many ways in these stories and essays.

Favorite Passages:

I can’t tell you what the opening of that librarywas like where we lived – it was an event. It was areally fantastic moment in my life, in our lives, amoment of real change. The brand new buildingbrought with it the idea that our local history wasimportant – that books were important, but alsothat we were too, and that where we lived was,that it had a heritage and a future that mattered.There was something very grounded about thatbeautiful new build. I’m pretty sure that’s why wewere allowed to go there, on our bikes byourselves like we did, so long as we cycled on thepavement there and back and were careful aboutthe traffic.
p32

I read it. A man of mud and sadness rises like agreat wave. He is like a great cloud much bigger than the earth, like an animation from a Ministry of Information film, amateur, jerky, terrifying. He is made of spores, bones, stone, feet still in their boots, dead horses, steel. He speaks with all the gone voices. He is a roaring silence. There are slices of railway track sticking out of his thighs and wrists.
p48

Libraries save the world, a lot, but outside thenarrative mode of heroism: through contemplative action, anonymously and collectively. For me, the public library is the ideal model of society, the best possible shared space, a community of consent –an anarcho-syndicalist collective where each person is pursuing their own aim (education,entertainment, affect, rest) with respect to others,through the best possible medium of thetransmission of ideas, feelings and knowledge: the book.
I believe that within every library is a door that opens to every other library in time and space:that door is the book. The library is what Michel Foucault called a ‘heterotopia’, an ideal yet realand historically delimited place that allows us to step into ritual time (like the cinema and thegarden). It is a site of possibility and connection(and possibility in connection).

Without public libraries, I would not have known there was a world outside the conservative religious community in which I grew up (and ofwhich I would probably still be a part without theheroic librarians in our small suburban library who faced out work by Jane Rule and MelanieKaye/Kantrowitz and Leslie Feinberg even afterthe passage of Section 28). I believe libraries are essential for informed and participatory democracy, and that there is therefore an ideological war on them via cuts and closures,depriving individuals and communities of their right to knowledge and becoming on their own terms. p84

Everything in life that we really accept undergoesa change. So suffering must become love.
That is the mystery.p126

Elsewhere there are no mobile phones. Elsewhere sleep is deep and the mornings are wonderful. Elsewhere art is endless, exhibitions are free and galleries are open twenty-four hours a day. Elsewhere alcohol is a joke that everybody finds funny. Elsewhere everybody is as welcoming as they'd be if you’d come home after a very long time away and they’d really missed you. Elsewhere nobody stops you in the street and says, are you a Catholic or a Protestant, and when you say neither,I’m a Muslim, then says yeah but are you a Catholic Muslim or a Protestant Muslim? Elsewhere there are no religions. Elsewhere there are no borders.Elsewhere nobody is a refugee or an asylum seeker whose worth can be decided about by government. Elsewhere nobody is something to be decided about by anybody. Elsewhere there are no preconceptions. Elsewhere all wrongs are righted.Elsewhere the supermarkets don’t own us.Elsewhere we use our hands for cups and the rivers are clean and drinkable. Elsewhere the words of the politicians are nourishing to the heart. Elsewhere charlatans are known for their wisdom. Elsewhere history has been kind. Elsewhere nobody would ever say the words bring back the death penalty.Elsewhere the graves of the dead are empty and their spirits fly above the cities in instinctual,shape shifting formations that astound the eye.Elsewhere poems cancel imprisonment. Elsewhere we do time differently. PP 139

It's a cultural human trip that could have been done just thanks to books, just thanks to public libraries this one chosen by Ali Smith for celebrating culture with Public Library and Other Stories published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Not only this book is an immersion in great, touching stories and memories, but also an homage to the best beloved British authors.



Books and culture present the possibility of enlarging horizons and perspectives and that's why public libraries so crucial.

Participated, with the contributor of 30 intellectuals, you can really enjoy this jewel of the British author.


I thank NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Not quite what I thought it would be, but there are some good moments and odes to public libraries, librarians, and books of all kinds. Where would we be without them? I hope we never have to find out.

Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Three Stars

This was my first time reading an Ali Smith book and while I can't say I was blown away I have faith that her work will be something that I love in one form or another. I do have a tendency to struggle with short form fiction and understanding what it's trying to say to me, but nevertheless I like dipping into it every now and then. Unfortunately, while Smith's writing was perfectly pleasant and had some interesting things to say, it didn't really engage me. I'm pretty sure this was the fact they were short stories as some of the concepts still interest me when I think about them outside of the collection. The writing, also, was very easy to take in, but a bit too stream-of-consciousness for me to be able to work out what's really going on beneath the surface.

Fantastic collection that was linked together really well. I don't usually like short story collections, but this was a great introduction to Smith's work