I love visiting libraries and checking out books.

Growing up, on Saturday afternoons my sisters and I usually accompanied our dad while he ran errands. Often the first stop was the local library.

My sisters and I would pick out several books and start reading them as soon as we got to the car. Sometimes it was hard for my parents to get us to put them down again. In one family photo, I’m captured on film at age 10 vacuuming the house (one of my Saturday jobs) with a book in hand, trying to read and vacuum at the same time.

In college, I felt the best part about writing research papers was having an excuse to walk up and down the library stacks. I spent hours browsing through books, not infrequently finding myself sidetracked from the paper topic.

Today I still visit my local library at least once a month to stock up on books to read during my 2-2.5 hour round-trip daily work commute.

I appreciate that over my lifetime, I’ve been able to read hundreds of books for free. If I had had to buy every book I wanted to read, I simply wouldn’t have been able to afford it (what book lover would)?

And now my love of books has led me to write my own about a topic I am very passionate about: street harassment.

My book is relatively expensive (you can find it for 20% off online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble), and I know that $35 or $45 for a book is not realistic for everyone.

Thank goodness library books are free!

Does your library carry Stop Street Harassment in its catalog?

If not and if you want to become better informed about street harassment and learn how you can help stop  it, & if you want people in your community to as well, consider requesting Stop Street Harassment:  Making Public Places Safe and Welcoming for Women for your local library.

On your local library’s website, they likely will have a page called “Suggest a Title” or “Suggest a Book.” To request the book, you will need to provide your library card number, the book title (above) and author’s name (Holly Kearl). If they need an age range, it’s for teenagers and adults.

“Golden Silence,” a woman who has shared several of her street harassment stories on this blog, requested Stop Street Harassment for her library and she just informed me that the library agreed to order it. So, folks in Arlington, VA, you can check it out in 4-6 weeks 🙂

I hope that you, too, will request the book for your library. It’s a fast, easy, and free way to help make this information accessible for everyone in your community.

(And if you happen to have an extra copy or are done with yours, you can always donate it to the library. When so many libraries, including mine, are facing budget cuts, that is one way to ensure your library can carry a copy.)