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catsbooksandtea 's review for:
The Library Book
by Susan Orlean
Really this 2.5 rounded up to 3 stars, because wow did that feel like it took forever to get through.
I wanted to love this book. So much. From the moment I read a review months ago (before it was named any book club's pick). I even specifically made a trip to the book store to pick a hard copy when I saw that not only did they have only 1 in stock at the time, but it was also a signed copy. I mean it's a a book about books and libraries. Why wouldn't I want to love it.
Unfortunately, love is not the word I'd use to describe my reading experience. Sure there were points that I really liked it and there were parts that I enjoyed. But the meandering path that the narrative took to get from beginning to end was excruciating. It felt like one of those Family Circus comics where Billy takes the longest, most out of the way routes to get from A to B. Part of that I blame on the PR and dust jacket descriptions that made it sound like this books mostly focused on the 1986 fire at Los Angeles' Central Library. Made it sound like this was a cold case, an unsolvable mystery with some other anecdotal information thrown in. Starting out that's what it was. The focus was on the fire and what happened that day; how it was buried in the news cycle because bigger news happened a world away. And then the author made a hard left turn into tangent-ville. There's a section on the history of book burning (which, ok I can kind of see that connection, but there was too much). Then there's all the stuff on the history of the LA library system and how it's changed and how it all works today. So much so that we went huge section of the book without even a side mention of the fire, Harry Peak, the investigation, the lawsuits etc. But I also put some of the blame on the author. I know she loves using note cards to organize her thoughts/narrative order, but it seemed there was no order. One page she's talking about the fire, 3 pages later she's talking about interviewing a current librarian about their new social program and 10 pages after that she's babbling in great detail about what happened in 1923. It was that minutia on things that didn't matter to the over all story that left me not feeling bad about putting the book down.
While I appreciate the vast amount of research the author accumulated and I understand wanting to use as much of it as possible, I feel this was really two books that shouldn't have been squished into one.
I wanted to love this book. So much. From the moment I read a review months ago (before it was named any book club's pick). I even specifically made a trip to the book store to pick a hard copy when I saw that not only did they have only 1 in stock at the time, but it was also a signed copy. I mean it's a a book about books and libraries. Why wouldn't I want to love it.
Unfortunately, love is not the word I'd use to describe my reading experience. Sure there were points that I really liked it and there were parts that I enjoyed. But the meandering path that the narrative took to get from beginning to end was excruciating. It felt like one of those Family Circus comics where Billy takes the longest, most out of the way routes to get from A to B. Part of that I blame on the PR and dust jacket descriptions that made it sound like this books mostly focused on the 1986 fire at Los Angeles' Central Library. Made it sound like this was a cold case, an unsolvable mystery with some other anecdotal information thrown in. Starting out that's what it was. The focus was on the fire and what happened that day; how it was buried in the news cycle because bigger news happened a world away. And then the author made a hard left turn into tangent-ville. There's a section on the history of book burning (which, ok I can kind of see that connection, but there was too much). Then there's all the stuff on the history of the LA library system and how it's changed and how it all works today. So much so that we went huge section of the book without even a side mention of the fire, Harry Peak, the investigation, the lawsuits etc. But I also put some of the blame on the author. I know she loves using note cards to organize her thoughts/narrative order, but it seemed there was no order. One page she's talking about the fire, 3 pages later she's talking about interviewing a current librarian about their new social program and 10 pages after that she's babbling in great detail about what happened in 1923. It was that minutia on things that didn't matter to the over all story that left me not feeling bad about putting the book down.
While I appreciate the vast amount of research the author accumulated and I understand wanting to use as much of it as possible, I feel this was really two books that shouldn't have been squished into one.