Why Do We Love the Great Libraries of the World?

Posted on 13. Aug, 2009 by Chris Matney in Book Publishing, Front Page Posts

In case I haven’t mentioned it before, I really love the weather in Colorado. It only takes a day in KC to remind me why hot and humid are two words best left unspoken – and avoided. But, it’s nice to be home for a few days.

Much to my surprise, I was discussing the Lara Croft movie, Tomb Raider, the other day with a couple of friends over drinks. When I first saw the movie in the cinema, I was underwhelmed by the story, character development, blah, blah, blah. However, I found myself watching it again on a movie channel the other day. Not for the delectable Angelina Jolie, which might seem the obvious reason, but because I really like her mansion – okay, the library in her mansion. I can imagine myself fortified in an overstuffed leather chair exploring the volumes of forgotten lore. I guess as a book fiend, I have a bit of biblio-envy – not that I don’t own a few titles myself.

Our cocktail discussion turned to great libraries of the world, not the Library of Alexandria or the Library of Congress, but fictional libraries as depicted in books and movies. I brought several of my favorites to the table – libraries from The Name of the Rose, The Ninth Gate, Inkheart, and even Sherlock Holmes’ library at 221B Baker Street. It’s fun to imagine ourselves in those settings, even if it is just Hollywood’s CGI dream world. For a real library, I like the Great Reading Room in the British Museum, but I would love to hear your favorites – both real and imagined.

What sparked this seemingly random topic today was an article in BoingBoing entitled Photos of Science Fiction Writer’s Nests. It shows writers in their natural habitat – surrounded by shelves of books, generally with a computer peeking out from behind the stacks of paper. Now, my office is a sad comparison. I have lots of books, but my life is almost paperless from the standpoint of stacks of loose-leaf sheets. I guess this comes from several decades of traveling with my entire office each week to a client site. My office appears tidy, almost boring by comparison – but it at least has several comfortable chairs for reading.

I will leave you today with one of my favorite episodes of Twilight Zone, Time Enough at Last (1959). In the episode, Henry Bemis (played by Burgess Meredith) is a heavily bespectacled bank teller who delights in stealing away to read despite the protestations of his wife and boss. One day, while escaping into the bank vault to read a book, the human population is wiped out by a nuclear bomb (it was the 1950’s remember). When Mr. Bemis emerges, he finds books everywhere – scattered from the local library. As he prepares for a lifetime of reading by stacking his beloved books about him, the poor man’s glasses slip off his face and smash. Talking about a heart wrenching story – one that hit this book lover where it hurts. It’s a good thing that I have a spare set of glasses with me, eh?