A Reading Love Letter: The Library Book
A throwback for #106
Sometimes I just have … questions for Past Me and her choices. Really, those cowboy boots? Really, “just one more?” Really? Fortunately as I get older I have fewer Past Me interrogations (possibly this is due to an eroding memory but hey! Silver linings) but this week has raised a truly quizzical Past Me moment.
Specifically the Past Me of roughly Christmas 2018 when I received Susan Orlean’s The Library Book as a gift from my stepmother. Reader, this book is about libraries, books, and readers, all in a narrative non-fiction wrapper, and I … promptly shelved it and actively did not read it until January 2023. Past Me! We are at the library twice a week! Except for french fries and social justice, this is virtually everything we care about!
Don’t be like Past Me - if this sounds appealing, you should check it out.
Why? Because this is just an earnest little love letter, a delectable box of chocolates, a delightful balloon arch about books, libraries, and the people who love them.
The interwebs will try to position this as an investigative true crime book, and like yeah okay maybe but not really? Certainly there is a through line about the 1986 fire that destroyed a huge chunk of the LA Public Library, and the central suspect. And it’s pretty interesting.
But to me, what’s much more compelling are the short vignette chapters that paint a vivid portrait of the LA Library, and by extension all American libraries, then and now. Orlean clearly loves books and libraries, and her great affection for the people who make them possible is irrepressible.
It’s also a thought-provoking meditation on a world where we don’t just tolerate each other, but where we create spaces that are actively, deliberately, and joyfully intended for all members of the community, with deliberately open access. And how in many ways, the library has repeatedly brought out the best in us.
Forget Twitter - the library is the actual public square. It’s often repeated that if libraries were suggested today, they would be a completely non-starter. (“Socialism!” “But who’s going to pay for it!” “I don’t want my kids in a place that’s so dangerous.”) The Library Book reminds us just what we would lose without them, and offers a realistic but hopeful view of the future of these sacred spaces.
YES I LIKE LIBRARIES OKAY LIBRARIES 4EVA PEACE LOVE AND LIBRARIES KEEP CALM AND GO TO A LIBRARY DODGE DUCK DIP LIBRARY & DODGE
Or if you want the romcom version of this, you could just read Emily Henry’s Book Lovers. You do you.
Did you read The Library Book when it actually came out, like a modern-day person? Tell me what you thought!
The Card Catalog of Closing Thoughts
Yes, I 100% made check-out cards for my books when I was a kid. Yes, I have always been this nerdy, homebody person.
If this week’s book doesn’t sound at all interesting to you, check out the archive with many weeks of All Genre of Books (MUCH LIKE A LIBRARY. CAN’T STOP WON’T STOP)
If you wonder why I rhapsodized about this book and then gave it 3.5 lambs, it’s because you don’t yet know the Gentle Lamb Reading Diagnostic Scale! Check it out here.
The links above go to Bookshop.org, which supports indie bookstores. You can select the bookstore you want to support, even! Is there anything more noble.
Love love love love this book. I read it during the early stages of pandemic lockdown in 2020, when I was *inhaling* books to stave off a nervous breakdown (or something) and I returned to it a few weeks ago, sort of to do the same. Here's what I said about it in my (now mostly defunct) reading newsletter back in 2020. I think I stand by it:
The Library Book is a true crime story about a fire at the Downtown Los Angeles Public Library and the troubled man who may or may not have started it. Actually, scratch that. It’s a love letter to the DTLA Public Library in the guise of storytelling about its history, inner workings, and dedicated staff. Hmmm… scratch that, too. It’s in-depth reporting about the modern role of public libraries in our cities, especially Los Angeles, grounded in several compelling character studies.
The Library Book is all of those things, and more. Organized like a library (by topic instead of chronology) it will make you laugh, make you think, and make you head to your local library branch for your own shiny new library card if you don’t have one already. At a minimum, it’ll make you want to visit the DTLA Public Library. (Let me know when you’ve got that urge — I’ll meet you there!)
Original, thorough, and compelling, The Library Book is a beautifully written page-turner about what you might previously have thought was a staid topic.
Just bought it! Libraries were so important to me as a kid. I walked alone as 8 year old to my local library and stayed for hours. I feel so old just writing that sentence and sad knowing that others won’t feel the independence and wonder I felt.
I loved todays newsletter because I love libraries. Thank you!