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A high-concept book that I thought would be a winner for me turned out to be dreadful. Disorganized, shallow, condescending to working class interviewees and characterized by purple, cliché-ridden prose, the breaking point was chapter five, which was entirely the author's self-indulgent witterings about the difficulty of bringing herself to burn a book, just to see how it feels. Wish she'd burned this one.
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This book is surprising and fantastic. I was very surprised first because I had never heard the story of the Central Library Fire, and second because the book is a such page-turner. I think I was prejudiced against reading Orlean based on the film Adaptation, it gave me the impression her writing would be dry or pretentious, but it is certainly not. Los Angeles history is always interesting to me, partially of course because it's where I live, but partially because it all happened really fast pr
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What I like about this book is that Susan Orlean didn't waste her words on dispelling many myths associated with librarians and libraries. She focused on her story (LA library fire of 1986) and how the libraries have evolved over the years in terms of a community place, materials and fulfilling many needs of the communities they serve, in a very readable, storytelling way.
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This Library Book is a love letter to libraries and librarians and books. It is chock full of information and much of it was fascinating to me.

Jan 03, 2019
Rachel
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Mar 08, 2019
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Mar 23, 2019
Gary Dale
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May 07, 2019
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May 26, 2019
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May 27, 2019
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Jul 27, 2019
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Oct 23, 2019
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Jan 29, 2020
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Feb 01, 2020
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May 18, 2020
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Apr 28, 2022
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