Tiny Cathedrals of Thwarted Longing
The Sections of the Little Free Library
Jul 23, 2017 · 5 min read

In recent years, birdhouse-sized repositories of “take a book, leave a book” collections have popped up on lawns around the country. This is your definitive guide of the categories you’ll find inside. Take a tour to learn about the human wreckage living in YOUR neighborhood.
- The Embossed-Foil Cover Airport-Purchased Thriller. These interchangeably forgettable potboilers are written by thin-lipped white men who look like they might manage a Radio Shack, and all feature square-jawed antiheroes with troubled pasts with names like Dax Carter and Brice Hardwick. Not for reading per se, so much as for wielding at chatty strangers on the bus.
- The Discredited Diet Fad. This is the Greg Kinnear-in-Little-Miss-Sunshine of literature — desperate to help, powerless to do so; should only be taken by sociologists doing work in Obesity, Historical. Only read the notes of self-encouragement from previous owner’s doomed battle with their weight if you feel like having a good cry.
- The Unread Creepy-Sad Poorly Rendered Christian Kid’s Book. This listlessly illustrated retelling of the story of Abraham and Isaac was clearly purchased for the Library owner’s child by that one aunt who got super-religious later in life. Though unread, this book was subject to the lizard-brain superstition of an otherwise secular person, rendering them dimly afraid to throw it away.
- The Mostly Completed Sodoku/Word Search/Mad Libs. This section might just as easily be called Landfill We Held Onto For Some Reason — You Guys Want It?
- The Travel Guide That’s Honestly Just a Painful Reminder of That Trip to Barcelona/Vienna/Fiji/Quito That Douglas/Sharon/Evelyn/James and I Never Took Because We Got Separated and Subsequently Divorced. Each dog-eared page is a fond memory. That was stillborn.
- Dated Celebrity Autobiography. If you wondered what the inner life and earliest days of Grizzly Adams star Dan Haggerty, or prog bassist Greg Lake, this section of the Little Free Library is for you.
- Entry-Level Smut. Not Fifty Shades — that goes into the Dumpster, as it would reveal too much of the simmering un-slaked libido of its ashamed reader — but like bodice-ripper eroti-mances with a heavy reliance on words like “turgid” and “engorged.” LOTS of flower-based opening metaphors.
- Tertiary Works of Fantasy. In a transparent bid to make a grab for some of that sweet, sweet Game of Thrones lucre, every ponytailed dime store denizen of the goddamn Ren Faire fancies themselves able to fling together some dragons and shapely wenches with some Troubled Warrior and a Wise Mage or two, and hit upon the formula needed to score big. Luckily for them, the nerds of the Medieval Times-osphere have all read all the GOT books a million times, so will happily part with ten goddamn dollars for the latest disgorging of the Male Pattern Baldness pit of World of Warcraft cliché and unresolved sexual aggression. If you have a mustache and get into heated sub-Reddit imbroglios about things that aren’t real, this section is for you, Tubby.
- The Necropolis of Relinquished Crafts. This section tells the forlorn serialized story of vain attempts to Change Everything, Pastimes Included. In response to amped up horror in the news cycle, or the departure of Douglas/Sharon/Evelyn/James (which has honestly been the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me, I’m Really Doing Well/Happier Than I’ve Ever Been, Ever. You Shut Up. YOU’RE Crying.) You can witness the litany of Things Never Mastered, from cross stictch to book binding, you may witness the mounting desperation of the Little Free Library’s proprietor to For God’s Sake Have a SOMEWHAT Fulfilling Life, Because Is That Too Much To ASK?
- That One Baffling Cultural Moment You Had Totally Forgotten About Till Just Now. ‘Member Alf? He had an irreverent advice book, apparently. And some asshole dashed off a How-To book on Planking, which some might call a cynical ploy to skim eleven bucks off the Especially Impulsive and Guileless Barnes & Noble Consumer Unable to Resist the Trinkets and GewGaws Up By the Register, or Out-of-Touch Grandma Desperate to Connect With Her Grandkids In Such a Tone Deaf and Wrongheaded Way, It Breaks Your Damn Heart, Just About.
- Adult Coloring Books. These fucking things.
- Bat Shit Right Wing Garbage. The mealy-looking Shift Leader at Best Buy-looking dude down the block? The shelves inside his house are groaning with Hannity and Papa Bear O’Reilly. Steer well clear of this proto Alex Jones.
- The GRE/LSAT Test Prep That’s Only Dog-Eared/Hightlighted Like a Quarter of the Way Through. This grave marker of academic ambition that was snuffed out so young is for you if, like most of us, you have an ever-growing Unrealistic and Futile Pipe Dreams file.
- The Slag Heap of Aborted Financial Planning. Shit-ton of Suze Orman, grinning her bleach-toothed skeletal orange under those frosted, frosted tips. The owner of this Little Library conceded that they’d be living paycheck to paycheck till they keel over dead, so what even is the point of stressing about saving for retirement? You’re different, though. You can beat the system, for sure. Eventual prosperity and freedom are yours for the taking. Though you currently work at Quizno’s. And will soon be fired.
- Dave Fucking Barry.
- Malcolm Gladwell-Style Tripe. Do you like seemingly unrelated things — say open office spaces and habitat loss in the Amazon basin — to be MASHED UP IN SOME TOTES UNEXPECTED WAY THAT IS SERIOUSLY BLOWING MY MIND RIGHT NOW? Or wrongheaded conclusions about vast and complex phenomena that are easily arrived at if you’re willing to frame things in pithy, reductive declarations? Or a smug, chiding tone directed at the simpletons who’ve failed to make these Transformative Connections previously? Do you have a tab open to a TED Talk right now? Have you used the word “disruptor” unironically at any point in the past four months? Then this section is for you, Secret Nitwit Who Projects the Persona of Public Intellectual.
- Shoddy Kids’ Books. Shit like Barbie picture books and Confounding Product Tie-Ins like Lego Ninjago and shit. These look illustrated by despondent victims of human trafficking, consigned to a Malay sweatshop where they must churn out the graphic novelization of the motherfucking Gummi Bears Movie.
- Antiquated Tech. If you need to snag a virginal circa-’93 copy of AOL For Dummies, the Little Free Library has got you covered.
- Ye Olde Adventure On Ye Highe Seas. Tall ships, derring-do, latent homoeroticism. This is the Bloodless White Dude version of chick lit. And it’s every bit as vapid and self-indulgent. And derivative. And pointless. And sad-making.
Sections not appearing in the Little Free Library:
- Literary fiction.
- Nuanced political analysis.
- History.
- Sociology.
- Reference.
- Biography of anybody of consequence.
- Any beloved or Caldecott Medal-winning children’s book.
- Essentially anything that connotes an adult level of literacy.
So if you wish to continue avoiding talking with your neighbors, but remain morbidly curious about What Even Is Their Deal, Though? Then swing by the Little Free Library and pore over the grisly leavings of their unquiet minds.
More stuff at ianbelknap.com, including info on creative writing workshops. Twitter: @writeclubrules
