Iowa City native Colin Hamilton will read from his new book, The Discarded. “In Hamilton’s metafictional work, an unnamed librarian reflects on books pulled from the library’s shelves and relegated to obscurity—and, by extension, the purposes of libraries in general. Hamilton’s clear devotion to ‘the morgue’ of discarded books is oddly inspiring; there’s something mesmerizing about the collective encyclopedia of knowledge they comprise as a whole, even if many of the parts seem less than alluring. He makes a powerful case for the library as ‘both a source of continual rebirth and civic pride’—a place that a genuine community will revere and patronize. An enchanting discussion of the many books that inevitably vanish.” – Kirkus Reviews