For the Love of Libraries

I started reading The Library Book by Sudan Orlean as an e-book. I was juggling books, needed to finish reading something for a book club, put it to the side... and it expired off my iPad. And then I picked it up as a physical paper-and-ink book. If ever there was a book to read while holding it in my hand, turning the pages, breathing in the scent of the book, really feeling the book, this was this book.

The Library Book is two things. It's a love affair with libraries - and books. It's also a chronicle of the great library fire at the Los Angeles' Central Library. I really enjoyed the book because it evoked memories of times spent at the library. First at my first library, the Brooklyn Public Library, the library of my childhood, and later at other libraries where I've happened to live. I'm just not sure that the story of the unsolved mystery of the Central Library fire meshed well with that love story. It did, however, serve as a backdrop to Orlean's exploration of the Los Angeles Public Library system. So perhaps it did make sense to pair the two.

I'll be discussing this book with my community book club later in the year. I hope I can remember all I'd like to share with my fellow readers at that time.

Orleans has great memories of going to the library as a young girl with her mother. (Her mother passed away shortly before the publication of this book.) She moves to Los Angeles as a young mother and knows with certainty that she is going to share the library with her small son. Her love of the library - and of books - is so clear.

I loved the library as a young girl. As an older teen, I was reading mostly mass market paperbacks which I could easily afford on my babysitter's budget. I continued buying my books from bookstores until my tastes turned more to recent bestsellers. Although I could still afford them, I was more mature and somewhat wiser and realized that the cost per minute of enjoyment just wasn't there for most books. I became more selective in what I purchased from bookstores. Orlean must have gone through something similar.

I couldn’t walk into a bookstore without leaving with something, or several somethings. I loved the fresh alkaline tang of new ink and paper, a smell that never emanated from a broken-in library book.

The story of why Harry Peak was the prime suspect in the library fire and why he was never convicted dragged on somewhat for me. I'm not really a "true crime" kind of reader. I didn't really care about the details of his poor, sorry life. Hearing what the library fire meant to others was very powerful. Plus this was interspersed with tales of the history of public libraries in America, about how and why people became librarians and about the love of so many for libraries, their books, and what they stand for.

Orlean clearly states her purpose at the conclusion of the book.

I looked around the room at the few people scattered here and there. Some were leaning into books, and a few were just resting, having a private moment in a public place, and I felt buoyed by being here. This is why I wanted to write this book, to tell about a place I love that doesn't belong to me but feels like it is mine, and how that feels marvelous and exceptional. All the things that are wrong in the world seem conquered by a library's simple unspoken promise: Here I am, please tell me your story; here is my story, please listen.

If her purpose resonates with you, this is probably a book you should explore. And I'd encourage you to visit your local public library, browse a little book, and then borrow this gem.

How cool is this book?