Wednesday, January 28, 2026

Supply and demand

 The British novelist Lee Child got his education through the public library. Here’s a recollection from his childhood: 

We moved the next year to Birmingham, where the library system let you take two books at once, which was great, except with weekly visits two wasn’t really enough, so I instituted a Chicago voter-fraud system at our house. All visitors were signed up for library tickets. Deceased relatives were encouraged to apply. Soon, I could get six books a week, a pace I have kept up all my life.

 

I like the suggestion that things in limited supply take on great value. And of course he’s right. Two a week is not enough.

• Source: Lee Child, “Lee Child: Books let me escape my dull, grey Sixties childhood”; The Sunday Times, Jan. 17, 2026. It’s here:

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/get-britain-reading/article/lee-child-author-prison-literacy-interview-x6nb88890

at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

When to be an American

 I’ve already had enough of the 250 th  anniversary. I’m pretty sure that if Henry David Thoreau were still with us, he’d have had his fill ...

  • When Willa Cather's life began
     Willa Cather had a maxim: “Life began for me when I ceased to admire and began to remember.” She liked what the Greeks called  anamnesis , ...
  • The things you hear
      Some days you go into the woods and see all kinds of things. Some days you don’t. And then there are days when you don’t see but   hear . ...
  • Alice Oswald's poem on battle
     An appropriate read for Memorial Day? How about Alice Oswald’s long poem  Memorial , which recounts how soldiers in the  Iliad  met their e...