![]() ![]() I learned about the long history of the Los Angeles Public Library, about its origins, its design, its administrators and staff through the years. ![]() I can’t begin to list all the meanders, but the meandering is half the fun of The Library Book. Orlean’s imagination wanders, too, as she retraces countless related stories that elaborate on the L.A. All these stories are the result of countless interviews plus careful research, weaving descriptions with impressions with solid facts. Orlean tells the stories of that fire-what the patrons and the librarians and firemen recalled, what subsequent investigations exposed, who was arrested for arson, what later happened to the building, how its contents were resuscitated and replaced. On April 29, 1986, a fire burned down much of the building and its precious contents. ![]() Now an adult and a polished investigative reporter, Orlean decides to focus her childhood enthusiasm on one special location-the Los Angeles Public Library. She opens by recalling her love affair with libraries, recounting memories of going to the neighborhood library with her mother and being smitten with all the book treasures they found there. The result is a well-written, in-depth, thoroughly fascinating book about libraries and librarians. Susan Orlean’s The Library Book couples a moving meditation on the author’s part with the solid research she has conducted in archives and libraries around the world. ![]()
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