The Library Book

I thought I was going to read a book about a fire. Instead, I learned about the history of the Los Angeles library system and more about libraries themselves than I ever expected to learn. 

Books, man. 

I read in passing about this book and about how it detailed the mystery behind a massive fire than destroyed millions of books in the 1980's. Something about the description appealed to me, but I really didn't take the time to read what else the book was about before I checked it out from the library. I'm sort of glad I didn't. I feel like if I knew it was going to be about a library system I've never set foot in, I probably would have written it off and found something else. 

I'm so glad I didn't.

For example... Did you know there are more public libraries in the U.S. than there are McDonald's? Did you know movie studios used to steal so many books from the libraries in L.A. that they hired two full-time people to visit the studios and take them back? That's the kind of thing I learned from this book. And about how library collections and circulations closely mirror the issues of the day (right before prohibition, for example, people stole most of the books about making liquor at home from the libraries.)

Susan Orlean has a clear love and appreciation for public libraries and their role in our communities. In the course of investigating the fire that ravaged the library (about which she really does uncover some revelations), she started to see why libraries matter so much to her. In that discovery, she draws parallels to her mother's battle with dementia. It's a book about books, a book about family, a book about memory and a book about communities.

I really enjoyed this book, though I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. It's educational, it's profound and it's, at times, fascinating. But, if you're not a lover of libraries, you may find yourself slogging through, hoping to learn who really started the fire. 

There is one line that Orlean I loved that sums up that love and appreciation of libraries and of books - and, of her need to write this one. "Writing a book, just like building a library, is an act of sheer defiance. It is a declaration that you believe in the persistence of memory."