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Goodreads Librari...: Please delete this book! (pt. 58) [Anyone requests; leave deletions for superlibrarians] In the book’s first section, we learn not just of hospital worker Morgan’s death and its effect on his family, but also about his character – that of a young man who was the life and soul, a mirror image in some ways of his HGV-driving father. These details are important, not just because they paint an intimate portrait of the Hehirs, but because Colin and Morgan are everyman figures. Thanks to Colin’s bravery, we don’t have to imagine. Of those who try to help the family, Whitehouse writes, “They want you to be you again. Happy, smiling Colin Hehir. Would do anything for anyone Colin Hehir. Always up for a laugh Colin Hehir. But the truth is, that’s what’s been taken from you, not just a son. You no longer exist.” Whitehouse writes in a spare style reminiscent of Gordon Burn, with a pathological attention to the vacancy of murder and grief
A modern day fairytale . . . a plot that bounds along, dramatic event after dramatic event . . . It's also fun . . . The message becomes clear: stories can save us, unite us, show us other ways of being, offer solace . . . as messages go, it's a sound one, an example of the open-hearted warmth at the core of this book ( Financial Times) Colin fought and fought to find out where and why the system had failed, and finally brought about change in the way the police, probation and prison services work together to manage violent offenders. This is the single positive to come from a senseless act.Full of heart and hope and absurd bravery, as three lost souls and Bert the dog run away from home in a stolen mobile library. They then set about creating their own kind of family and rewriting the stories of their lives . . . the writer's charismatic, sparky tale of salvation and the stories within stories brilliantly shows how adventure can overtake and transform the most unlikely of people ( Sunday Express)
In response to the increasing amount of book bans in schools and libraries across the United States, Brooklyn Public Library announced they’ll be giving free access to more than half a million e- and audiobooks for young adults from around the country. The year-long Books Unbanned program offers 13 to 21-year-olds a digital library card and access to over 100 databases. Last week in Georgia, a new bill was passed to give more power to school boards and parents in what books are available in schools. Elizabeth is joined by the bestselling crime writer Karin Slaughter who lives in Atlanta Georgia, and Linda Johnson, President of the Brooklyn Library, to discuss their concerns. From the moment he heard the news, Morgan’s father Colin Hehir began to keep an extraordinary diary. It became a record not only of the immediate aftermath of his son’s murder, but also a chronicle of his family’s evolving grief, the trial of Morgan’s killers, and his personal fight to unravel the lies, mistakes and cover-ups that led to a young man with a history of violence being free to take Morgan’s life that night. The quirkiest plot we've seen for a while . . . making for a magical literary tour that evokes how the books we read as children inspire us. Heartwarming and heartbreaking in equal measure ( Glamour)
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Mobile Libraryis an excellent novel about the power of words and how stories can help us transcend loss, loneliness and being an outsider. Whitehouse's ability to mix laughs with pathos makes for a warm-hearted book about family and a love letter to the importance of libraries (Nikesh Shukla, author of COCONUT UNLIMITED) Gray was eventually given a life sentence with a minimum 23-year term for Morgan’s murder; the other two had six- and eight-year sentences for manslaughter and were released in nearly half that time. The Hehir family’s battle to prove that the police and probation services had been disastrously negligent in allowing Gray to be at liberty to kill for a second time meanwhile – a dispiriting, predictable process in which “every department of the institutions designed to protect you will lay claim to changing or having changed, to learning or promising to learn, to having been wrong but not being wrong again” – lasted longer than the latter two jail terms. It may provide the Hehirs with some comfort. I hope that this exceptional book will, too – because as much as it is about his death, it is also a tribute to who Morgan Hehir was, and the memory of his life will live long inside anyone who reads it. And we have our monthly recommendation from inside the book industry with Jacques Testard from Fitzcaraldo Editions,, who chooses Fleur Jaeggy’s The Water Statues translated by Gini Alhadeff from New Directions Publishing.
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