Librarians are (social) heroes; stepping up when other social services have fallen away, to help those with few other places to go...
No wonder the Right wants to defund the libraries (via attrition against local authorities), when you look at the pragmatic but vital social support they are offering to the vulnerable & isolated.
A drone view shows informal shacks of the high-density suburb of Masiphumelele extending into a wetland adjacent to Lake Michelle private estate in Cape Town, South Africa. REUTERS/Nic Bothma
Holly Pester's short novel The Lodgers (2024), is a timely mediation on the unanchored life of the peripatetic life of the renter/lodger. At times elliptical, with two narratives whose relations remains unsettled, this is a book which offers a real feeling for a key element of modern life; moving from one lodging/rental to another. While at time wry, it remains elegiac in its approach to tenant's despair & longing.