Milkman won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in England and it won the National Book Critic Award here. My neighborhood library responded appropriately. If my or your library doesn't have the book you want they'll get it for you. You can make your request online if you want. It's fun to order that way if it's midnight and you've just read about a book that excites you.

'Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school.' 
― Beverly Cleary

Walt Whitman exhibit at the big library:

Two hundred years after his birth, Walt Whitman remains one of America's most influential writers, arguably our national poet. His life's work, Leaves of Grass, is a perennial best-seller, and Whitman himself has attained the status of cultural icon, his name nearly a byword for notions of inclusivity, equality, sensuality, and the value of the individual.

Drawing from collections across the Library, Walt Whitman: America's Poet examines many of the individuals, beliefs, and experiences that shaped Whitman's work while also noting his literary legacy and continuing cultural impact.

March 29, 2019 - July 27, 2019.
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery

From time to time I try to get away from reading the Times in hard copy. The internet is easy and it's always brightly lit. But after a few days I know I'm missing something.

In my neighborhood library. His bag looks heavy.

The bus I took on Saturday morning from Boston where I'd gone to see an old friend had no power outlets that were working even though wifi and comfy seats with outlets are what they sell to make their buses seem cool to college student types going between the two cities and the one stop in New Haven. Usually the college kids are typing away on their MacBooks. I brought my laptop too. On the trip up, next to the window, I read the copy of the Times I'd brought with me and I also looked at stuff online. On the way back, with no outlet and an almost-charge-empty laptop which I had figured I'd charge on the bus, I read the morning paper and parts of two good books that I'd crammed into my backpack and sometimes I looked out the window like when I was in college.