"A collection of short fiction on the subject of books and libraries, by great writers from the past two centuries"--

CONTENTS Ray Bradbury, “Exchange” Helen Oyeyemi, “Books And Roses" Richard de Bury, from The Philobiblon Umberto Eco, from The Name of the Rose John Bale, from The Laborious Journey Italo Calvino, “A General in the Library” Lorrie Moore, “Community Life” Mary Arnold, “A Morning in the Bodleian” Elizabeth Taylor, “Girl Reading” Evelyn Waugh, “The Man Who Liked Dickens” Julio Cortazar, “A Continuity of Parks” Ali Smith, “The Ex-Wife” Isaac Babel, “The Public Library” Elizabeth McCracken, “Juliet” Max Beerbohm, “Enoch Soames” Jorge Luis Borges, “The Library of Babel” Michel de Montaigne, from "Of Three Kinds of Association" Samuel Pepys, from The Diary Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, "On the Reading of Novels" Alan Bennett, from The Uncommon Reader Maxim Gorky, “The Icon-Painters” Charles Lamb, “Two Essays of Elia” Colette, “My Mother and the Books” Saki, “Forewarned” Italo Calvino, from If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler Teffi, “My First Tolstoy” Fay Weldon, “Lily Bart’s Hat Shop” Jasper Fforde, “Wuthering Heights” Helene Hanff, from 84 Charing Cross Road Walter Benjamin, “Unpacking My Library” Ernest Rhys, from Everyman Remembers John Evelyn, from Instructions Concerning Erecting of a Library Seneca, from De Tranqvillitate Animi J. W. Von Goethe, from Conversations with Goethe Azar Nafisi, from Reading Lolita In Tehran Ray Bradbury, “The Library”