The little-known facts and tidbits fueled my curiosity, but my interest quickly fizzled from the pacing.
Summary:
In 1986, the largest library fire in the country sparked in Los Angeles. With more than a million books laying in ruins, the city looked for the guilty party and any potential arsonists. Investigative journalist Susan Orlean, examines the events surrounding the fire including the rebuild of the collection, the man blamed for the fire, and the history of the LA Library and libraries around the world.
Verdict: 3/10
As a former librarian, a book about libraries sounds like peak interest to me, especially one that centers around such a dramatic cases as the LA library fire. Yet this was such a snooze! I couldn't take more than 10-15 pages without having my eyelids droop.
Some sections sparked my interest: the firefighters' accounts, descriptions of supposed-arsonist Harry Peak's lifestyle, and the various characters that ran the library throughout the building's history long history. Yet, the majority of the topics were downright boring.
This book was written like an expose in a magazine, which should be a point in it's favor. Magazine descriptions are generally short enough to fit in a column and snappy to keep you interested and paint a picture. Except Orlean's writing felt too snappy for a whole book and threw off the pacing. She sped through how Harry Peak was molested, lived as a closeted homosexual, had a girlfriend who miscarried twins, and was in the army. All that in just 2-3 pages?! That's not the type of thing you skim over.
And yet, the author spent pages and pages waxing poetic on the building's architecture. I did not need 20 pages for a day in the life of a library manager. I wanted more on the history of library burnings (like Alexandria or the loss of culture with World War II or the conquistadors burning Mayan and Aztec texts). Some of LA's history caught my attention, such as The Library War between the feminist Mary Jones and the radical Charles Lummis (who was quite the eccentric from the couple chapters describing him). But I don't need a hundred pages about who ran the library in 1910. I'm sorry, but who really cares?
Besides a handful of bibliophile anecdotes, I didn't get much from this book other than a good sleep aid. Sorry Orlean, you're likely getting donated to Goodwill.
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