The great Philip Roth recorded himself reading “In Memory of a Friend, Teacher and Mentor” to raise funds for the Newark Public Library.
Every time a reader downloads the free audiobook version of the eulogy Roth wrote for his former teacher, Audible will donate $1 to the Newark Public Library (up to $25,000). The Paris Review caught up with Roth to find out more, getting his thoughts about his childhood library:
The library was very important to me as a kid. The main Newark Public Library was downtown, and I went to a branch library where I lived, about a mile away. I went often, when I got to be eleven, twelve, thirteen. Then, my first year of college, I went to college there in Newark—Newark-Rutgers, now—and the college didn’t have a library, so the Newark Public Library was our library. I’m very attached to it. And I don’t want it to go under. Not that $25,000 will save it, but it can’t hurt.