Three Wee Things

Day 317 of the "What are you reading?" project, and a bunch of people in New York City are reading books right off the shelves of this guy!

He is Ed Schmidt, the writer-actor of My Last Play, which takes place in his home! He is retiring from the stage and giving away his theater library. You can read about it here.

The second wee thing I share today, in the busy holiday season, is that new poems are up at Escape Into Life, by Dustin Junkert, a poet I have met only in letters! He wrote one to me at the bookstore where I work, and once I figured out he wasn't 1) a stalker or 2) in prison, I wrote back.  Once I got home, I found his poems in Willow Review, with some of mine, and it all fell into place. I also found him in the New York Times, when I immediately Googled him at work! Anyhoo, enjoy his poems here.

And thirdly, I return to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith, to say that wee Francie Nolan is reading her way through the public library.  Having made it through the A's, she is well into the B's when she checks out The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton, and the librarian suggests she take another book, too, "just for fun."

The book in the movie looked remarkably like my ex-library copy, the all English (no Latin) version edited by Floyd Dell and Paul Jordan-Smith, copyright 1927, this one the 1938 Tudor edition of The Anatomy of Melancholy.  I have been advised that this is a book to read around in, not straight through. I hope Francie took that librarian's advice, too, and read the other book, just for fun!