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A review by navahx
The Library: A Fragile History by Arthur der Weduwen, Andrew Pettegree
adventurous
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
This book is masterfully written. It's about libraries (duh), but I read a lot of history for non-academic audiences and the way the author centers his topic is like nothing I've read recently. Political players, cultural movements, and technologies are introduced through the lens of the library without ever getting off track just to make a good narrative. The narrow lens means more details can be revealed in a single book, because there is little time spent on exposition.
The mastery comes in because I think anyone casually interested in history could jump right into this book. I know a lot of history (mostly Western, late antiquity to early modern, but I'm no beginner to other times and places), but anyone could get from this book what I got.
The author just really stays on topic so the thread of the evolution of libraries has space to blossom.
I plan to re-read this in a year or two, that's my cadence for the non-fiction books I enjoy the most. This is in that top <5% which gets it tagged as "read again".
The mastery comes in because I think anyone casually interested in history could jump right into this book. I know a lot of history (mostly Western, late antiquity to early modern, but I'm no beginner to other times and places), but anyone could get from this book what I got.
The author just really stays on topic so the thread of the evolution of libraries has space to blossom.
I plan to re-read this in a year or two, that's my cadence for the non-fiction books I enjoy the most. This is in that top <5% which gets it tagged as "read again".