Strangely compelling pictures of libraries: an occasional series

[MSG]

These pieces are wonderful
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/b...libraries.html

Everywhere I’ve gone since, I’ve found libraries. Those of us launched from bare-bones schools in uncelebrated places will always find particular grace in a library, where the temple doors are thrown wide to all believers, regardless of pedigree. Nowadays I have the normal professional reliance on internet research, but my heart still belongs to the church of the original source. Every book I’ve written has some magic in it I found in physical stacks or archives.

Or the facade, in the case of my first novel. The library I frequented in Tucson was draped in wisteria with long, dangling pods: the bean trees. For my latest, it was a cache of letters Charles Darwin wrote to a lady scientist in Vineland, N.J. Once it was a very old Kikongo-English dictionary I found in the University of Arizona library’s special collections. It wasn’t supposed to leave the room, but I am persuasive. I said, “Something good could happen if you let me borrow this book.” I took it home; a novel called “The Poisonwood Bible” happened.

[oblivion]

I was torn whether to put this here or in the steampunk thread.

This attic is sooooo inviting.

[nostrum]

both!

[borealis]

That is a lovely space.