Carnival of Snackery: Diaries 2003-2020 - by David Sedaris

When I read Sedaris' first book of diary entries (Theft by Finding) I lamented that he did not include enough about libraries and that I hoped that the second volume would include more. Alas, this 566 page work mentioned libraries a measly seven times. The first was the sad entry on January 11, 2005

The Guardian ran a story on Gerald Allen, an Alabama state representative who wants to ban books with homosexual characters. They can still sell them in shops, but he wants them out of schools and publicly funded institutions, like libraries and state universities. If the book presents a tragic homosexual, the type who suffers and then commits suicide, that's okay. He just doesn't want the happy kind, the ones who, in his words, "promote homosexuality as a healthy and accepted lifestyle."
Which one am I? I wonder.

Other uses of the library include:

• Waiting
• Taking a Citizenship Test
• As part of a tour (grandmother unimpressed that granddaughter wanted to see this)
• A place not to practice archery
• A place with "nothing but a coloring book and a box of crayons" - this would be a disparaging remark about George Bush (43)'s Presidential Library

My favorite was this: someone checking out a CD of  Lightnin' Hopkins' music wants to know "is that a person or a thing?" Sedaris is able to help where the librarian is not. The young man who checked the CD out kept asking himself "Does it matter?" And eventually returns to the librarian to ask "Does it matter?" "Definitely not" they librarian said. 

That's what I would have said, too.