Have you found yourself thinking, “I need to read a nice ode to public libraries”? Well, you’re in luck. Orlean (staff writer at the New Yorker for a number of years) had vowed to herself that she was done writing books. As she puts it, writing a book on any given topic is like a “slow motion wrestling match.” Here she spends a good part of a decade wrestling and exploring the circumstances around a fire that consumed much of the Downtown branch of the Los Angeles Public Library in April, 1986.
Was it arson? Maybe. Did the authorities catch the guilty party? Maybe. Did justice prevail and an innocent man was set free? Maybe. You decide. It’s like a choose-your-own-adventure tale!
What is known about the LAPL fire is that it was, and still is, the worst library fire in American history. 400,000 books burned, another 700,000 were damaged by smoke and/or water. Devastating.
Threaded through the story of the LAPL fire, a specific event at a particular time and place, Orlean pulls together the various threads of library history, library philosophy, the public library’s rather unique place in American culture and incorporates a fair bit of library humor to stitch together the story of an institution that is simultaneously fragile and extremely resilient.
Even if I weren’t a public librarian, I would still give this five stars. It’s Orlean’s best work to date. You can find a copy at your local public library: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1085572852
ReMarkable 