A twist of fate (and googling) brought me and this obscure little British book together. And let me tell you, it was love at first sight (the cover alone!)
It's a collection if essays and short stories, all dedicated to the love of libraries. Famous authors share memories, history, and stories, and all of them are perfectly charming.
"There's something of the importance and power of books that doesn't come from anything else. Nothing else has that magic, that combination of ink and discovery."
"The great unsold truth of libraries is that people need them not because they're about study and solitude, but because they're about connection. Connection with other worlds and different views, even if that's no more than being among other people thinking and breathing."
"Writers, I discovered, were not to be bowed down before and worshipped, but embraced and befriended. Their names resounded through history not because they had massive brows and thought deep incomprehensible thoughts, but because they opened windows in the mind, they put their arms around you and showed you things you always knew and never dared to believe. Even if their names were terrifyingly foreign and intellectual-sounding, like Dostoevsky or Baudelaire, they turned out to be charming and wonderful and quite unalarming after all."
images via google; last one taken by me.
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