The Library Book by Susan Orlean 2018: NY Simon & Shuster; 309 Pages Excerpts Chosen by Barbara Keating, February, 2021
Library Book: Page 1 of 8 The Library Book by Susan Orlean 2018: NY Simon & Shuster; 309 pages Excerpts chosen by Barbara Keating, February, 2021 • Memory believes before knowing remembers. Page 25: In the physics of fire, there is a chemical (William Faulkner, Light in August) phenomenon known as a stoichiometric condition, • And when they ask us what we’re doing, you can in which a fire achieves the perfect burning ratio of say, We’re remembering. (Ray Bradbury, oxygen to fuel – in other words, there is exactly Fahrenheit 451) enough air available for the fire to consume all of • I have always imagined Paradise as a kind of what it is burning. Such a ratio creates an ideal fire library. (Jorge Luis Borges, Dreamtigers) situation, which results in total, perfect combustion. A stoichiometric condition is almost impossible to Pages 13-4: I expected Central Library to look like create outside of a laboratory. It requires such an the main libraries I knew best. New York Public elusive, precise balance of fuel and fire and oxygen Library and the Cleveland Public Library are serious that, in a sense, it is more theoretical than actual. buildings, with grand entrances and a stern, almost Many firefighters have never seen such a blaze and religious aura. By contrast, the Los Angeles Central never will. (Firefighter Captain Hamel) Although Library looks like what a child might assemble out of over thirty years have passed, he remains awed by blocks. The building – buff-colored, with black inset what he saw that day at the library.
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