These Books Were Free

You may have Little Free Libraries in your town: birdhouse- or china cabinet-looking boxes where the whole neighbourhood can bring books to give away, and take home books to read. Calgary has seen an outbreak of these over the past years, and my household has been known to sow our literary tastes around town by this means.

As far as taking books home, though, I rarely find much to get excited about. The usual selection might include some James Patterson paperbacks and Chicken-Soup kinds of things. But the other day I finally made two solid scores from a Little Free Library: Anthony Burgess’s Earthly Powers and Simon Schama’s Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution.

They were waiting for me in the fine case pictured above, just down the street from where I grew up, and in which we had unloaded a bunch of our old giveaways and doubles the week before.

I like to think they both came from the same person, who must have a prime collection if these are the kinds of things they’re giving away. Maybe they even picked up a couple of our former books while they were dropping these ones off.

Anyways, this library has a cute sign above it saying “All you need in life is a garden and a good library” to which I say, you can keep your vegetables but bring on the books.

A new review is on its way!