First book of 2019!

It's been many years since I've read something by Susan Orlean, so when I heard about her newest book, The Library Book, and learned that it was about the 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Public Library, I knew I had to become re-acquainted with her expert non-fiction writing.   As a lover of libraries, and a new resident of Los Angeles, this book seemed perfect for me to deepen my understanding of literary LA.  Since Orleans is also a book lover and an LA resident as well, her passion for the topic comes across very strongly.  

I learned a lot, indeed!  Orlean did an amazing job of weaving together the facts, the mysteries, the eccentrics, and the heartbreaks that all comprise the story of the largest library fire in United States history.  She interviews librarians and spends ample time at the library, thus becoming intimately familiar with the opportunities (providing information in a digital age, etc.), and challenges (how to make libraries welcoming to the homeless and the housed, etc.), typical issues libraries face (stolen books, etc.), a brief history of book burning, and a history of leadership at the LA Public Library.  

Facts I learned:

- The LA Public library has 73 branches
- More than one million books were burned in the fire, 400,000 were lost (value of $14 million)
- Damaged books were stored in ice lockers, then thawed, to varying degrees of success
- The library had been written up for fire code violations, but to this day it is still believed to have been an arson (arsonists have 99% chance of getting away with the crime)
- 700 new books arrive at the library every month
- Ray Bradbury couldn't afford to go to college so he spent 13 years at the library learning
- Book drops are often separated from the library because people used to put lit matches in them
- Dale Carnegie couldn't afford the $2 membership fee to libraries as a young child.  He committed the last third of his life to giving away his money, and built 1,700 libraries (six are in LA)
- There was, believe it or not, something called the Great Library War of Los Angeles
- A dead person who "looked like he didn't have a dime in the world" was found in the library with $20,000 cash in his pocket.  
- In the fjords of Norway, people receive books via a library boat.  

And, some quotes from Orleans that I can strongly relate to:  

...in the library I could have anything I wanted.

I wanted to have my books around me, forming a totem pole of the narratives I'd visited.