At the library, some of the people who share our city but are mostly ignored become fellow book-lovers, and it’s a great equaliser. In the rest of their lives, they are asking for help, or being told what to do; here they are just people who are welcome to take a book. And when you take away a book, you’re taking an escape route from your own problems, or from the boredom of empty hours. John describes the library as a combination of things: it’s a place where practical things – information, face-to-face contact, filling your time – combine with elements that are harder to pin down, like
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