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Comments (10)

What did you think about this title?
1 to 10 of 10 items
Jan 30, 2022Urbano rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
So beautiful; ultimately so sad. This was the second book I've read by Martha Baillie and it won't be the last. Her work deserves to be better known.
Dec 22, 2018IndyPL_SteveB rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
Miriam, a 35-year-old Toronto (Canada) public library employee, deals with her confused life and with her sanity-challenged library patrons in the same way – she writes “incident reports”. Miriam’s incident reports are more like diary…
Aug 07, 2016wyenotgo rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Most of this book is poetry masquerading as prose. No matter, it's utterly unique, whatever you name it. Baillie recounts a host of bizarre "incidents" at the library where she works, involving a number of very strange "patrons" many of…
Jan 27, 2014modestgoddess rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
I very much enjoyed the glimpses of library life and the various patrons, but was irritated that the Rigoletto mystery was never solved. Emotion is held at more than arm's length here, too - not a lot is given up to the reader. The word…
Cdnbookworm
Mar 16, 2011Cdnbookworm rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
This novel has an intriguing format. With the narrator, Miriam, an employee of the Public Libraries of Toronto, in the Allan Gardens branch, the book begins with a form used by the library to report on incidents that take place in the…
Jan 23, 2010ontherideau rated this title 1 out of 5 stars
Novel about a Toronto librarian who writes the concurrent story of incidents at the library and incidents in her love life. The first few pages were interesting but that was it for me.
Jan 15, 2010quagga rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Miriam Gordon, a 35-year-old library assistant at the Allan Gardens branch of Toronto Public Library, records interactions with patrons in brief incident reports. If you're in the mood for something different - amusing and perplexing and…
Oct 17, 2009vickiz rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
Emotion wells up quickly from the supposedly dry and clinical reports of day-to-day occurrences at a downtown Toronto library. Written by a frustrated and depressed but conscientious young woman, the ostensible reports trace both fond and…
Sep 23, 2009hadley rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
Pity poor Martha Baillie. She’s written an innovative short novel that’s both laugh-out-loud funny and emotionally compelling, and got herself on the 2009 Giller Longlist. Will it make her rich? No, sir, it will not. That’s because…
Sep 05, 2009tomato rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
This will be especially interesting to those who work in libraries, and deal with oddities every day.