Saturday, April 28, 2007

Tribute to the library




"A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life." said Henry Ward Beecher.

I have to agree with him on that. But how often do we consider how privileged we are to have the libraries that we have in this country? A copious reader goes through many more books from a library than (usually) they could afford to buy. My reading marathon of last week was only possible because the books were readily available in the local library. The second to last book arrived in time to be gulped down and now I await eagerly the final installment of the Shadow Children series. Admittedly, I'm starting to tire of the repetition necessary to bring readers up to speed who haven't read previous books in the series, but overall, the story line was intriguing.

Back to libraries. An amusing children's picture book about a bibliophile is The Library by Sarah Stewart. I can fully relate to a house overflowing with books and will be happy one day to start giving the books away to my children's children.

One amazing feature of our library is the interlibrary loan service. By requesting books that aren't available locally, you can read books from all over the country - and maybe further, I don't know. My latest acquistion came from Tumbler Ridge, entitled "Forbidden City" by William Bell. Again, a young adult book. The writing style wasn't very "heavy", but the content more than made up for it. This is the story of events leading up to the Tian An Men Square massacre. Very first-hand; very informative. Knowing that his significant other is from China leads you to believe that what he writes about is as factual as it can possibly be.
















Tian An Men Square

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