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3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
I was given this book as a gift-‘a bookish book for a bookish person’. It’s a memoir of the LA public library, focussing on the devastating fire the 1980s, but also looking at the history, social impact and future of the library and libraries more generally. It is beautifully written, and, despite being build around a tragic event, strangely uplifting. I loved it!
3.5
Jumps around, hard to follow at times. Maybe it's just me because I had an audiobook copy?
Jumps around, hard to follow at times. Maybe it's just me because I had an audiobook copy?
What a sweeping saga for the history of the central LA public library! And also this glowing shrine of the wonderful things that our libraries bring to us on community and personal levels. Interesting and educational.
Enjoyed this thoroughly, it is about the Los Angeles library fire and so much more. I am going to hear the author speak next month and I can’t wait. I’d really love to take a day trip to the Los Angeles Central Library downtown!
This should be on every librarian's book club list. An ode to all the hard work librarians do for the public and gives us renewed hope about the future of libraries.
I really enjoyed this lively report on the Los Angeles Central Library. Every once in a while it expands to cover the general history of libraries in the US, but it’s mostly about this particular building and its history.
The Los Angeles Central Library has had a stormy history, and much of the book is about the enormously destructive fire in 1986. Orlean takes us through the drama of that day, and the aftermath, when a young man named Harry Peak was considered the main suspect. She also has a chapter describing how new knowledge about fires has debunked many past assumptions of arson.
Orlean also puts herself in the story at times, recounting the special place that libraries have had in her life.
The Los Angeles Central Library has had a stormy history, and much of the book is about the enormously destructive fire in 1986. Orlean takes us through the drama of that day, and the aftermath, when a young man named Harry Peak was considered the main suspect. She also has a chapter describing how new knowledge about fires has debunked many past assumptions of arson.
Orlean also puts herself in the story at times, recounting the special place that libraries have had in her life.
I thought the information was interesting, but only at times. It really was quite a dreadful and dry read. What made it worse (for me, anyway) was that I read it via Audible and it was narrated by the author herself, and she has the most monotonous, BORING voice in the history of voices reading books. It. Was. Awful. I increased the speed at times just to hobble through listening to her. I read to the end b/c I wanted to see where she would go with this book, and, sadly, it didn't get better for me. Although I learned something (quite a bit of something) about the history of libraries, much of it was SO mundane in its presentation and narration and was drilled down to the most ridiculous level of detail, it was more like reading an anthropology textbook or a scholarly journal article on architecture, and, at times, like reading a dissertation. You could tell the author did lots of research, but, honestly, for me, it was TOO much research and took away from the main crux of the storyline: The fire, and the story of the libary that it destroyed. It was about so much more than this library--TOO much more. In my opinion. Glad it's over; took me months of driving back and forth to work to finish this read (I only listen to my Audible books to and from work; at home, I read in different ways and different books). Oh, well. I don't entirely regret it. I learned some stuff.
For anyone who loves books or libraries, this is a fascinating read.