Public Library and Other Stories is a wonderful collection by Ali Smith, one of the best writers in the UK today.

The 12 stories are about what we do with books and what they do with us. Brilliant, imaginative and unpredictable, they range from a wheelchair-bound woman trapped in a railway carriage, to Katherine Mansfield as the “other woman” in a contemporary marriage. Smith’s love of language is apparent as she plays with words and examines and changes their meanings.

The collection is published in the context of a massive assault by central government and local councils on the existence of public libraries throughout Britain. As Smith explains, “Over the past few years, just in the time it’s taken me to write these stories, library culture has suffered unimaginably. The statistics suggest that by the time this book is published there will be one thousand fewer libraries in the UK than there were at the time I began writing the first of the stories.” A passionate activist in the public campaign against these cuts, she goes on to declare “Because libraries have always been a part of any civilization they are not negotiable. They are part of our inheritance.”

While editing this book, Smith asked friends what libraries mean to them and their eloquent answers are interspersed among the 12 short stories.

Ali Smith has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize three times. Her last novel How to be both won the 2015 Baileys Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize and the Costa Novel Award.