Favorite memory of a library or bookstore

[asakiyume]

I participated in this week's SF Signal Mind Meld. The question was excellent: what is your favorite memory of a library or bookstore? As several of the participants said, it's hard to pick just one! I told a story of an unusual encounter . . .

But how about you guys? What are some of your favorite memories?

Comments

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

I love your library memory.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Thanks--It was such a cool experience!

How about you? Any good library or bookstore memories?

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

You know, I can't pick out any memory that's superior to another, but I do remember spending a lot of time during the summer at the local public libraries and loving it. These days, I find that bookstores fill me with a kind of peace I don't really experience elsewhere. Strange, huh?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

It makes good sense to me!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Cool!

I think my favorite was discovering Blackwood's Children's Bookstore in Oxford. But I discovered it in time for it to close, in 1972. I was heartbroken, and even dreamed about it. But the last time I managed to get to England, in 1975, I made it to Oxford--and it was open, and just as delightful as I had expected.

My favorite library was the children's library (well, the adult, too) downtown L.A. The children's annex was enormous, and had these huge murals on the walls in thirties Art Deco style, depicting scenes from Robin Hood and other famous tales. They had simply everything.

I loved it so much I took the bus down there in 1972 to help put books back on the shelves after the Sylmar quake. But alas, that library burned down a few years later.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

What wonderful memories of the LA library--what a shame that it burned down. I wonder if the murals are preserved anywhere in photographs.

And how great that you were able to get to the Blackwood's Children's Bookstore when it was actually open. My favorite childhood memory of a bookstore was one in Williamstown that my parents would visit when they were visiting there--but what I loved it for was that it was near a courtyard where I could always find bird feathers.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Extra magic, those bird feathers!

[gwynnega]

I used to love looking at the bound books of old (circa 1900 or so) women's periodicals at the old downtown LA library. I wonder how much of that stuff survived in the fire?

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I hope some, at least!

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

The library of the University of Kent where I discovered how to study history madly, deeply and passionately. :o)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Excellent--a friend on Facebook shared the story of queuing outside her university at 6 am, waiting to get in and get the best seats for studying :-)

Favorite Library/book store memory

[docdad2.livejournal.com]

I remember smiling when I finished reading the last science fiction book in my middle school library and and then again when I finished all the SciFi books in the high school library.
Summer time: My mother volunteered at a hospital and would bring home SciFi books from the library cart. I had to read them and give them back in a week. Many summer nights, reading late and loving it.
Thank you for asking. I just relived one of my best adolescent summer memories.
:-)

Re: Favorite Library/book store memory

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

What an excellent story--I can just imagine finishing an excellent SF book late at night, knowing it was going to have to go back the next day….

[mercwriter.livejournal.com]

Loved your library story! :)

As for me, I don't remember what store it was--but when I was a small!Merc, and was deeply obsessed with Brian Jacques' Redwall books, I was visiting this store with my mom and siblings. I had just gotten allowance, and was torn on what to get with it, when I walked into a small corner of the store and saw racks of audio books (on cassette tape).

And right there on the shelf eye-level to me was an audio version of Martin the Warrior, with the front cover noting it was read by the author and full cast.

I grabbed it so fast, I could hardly breathe. This was totally the thing I had wanted FOR.EV.ER. and didn't think actually existed! (We'd worn out the library's copy of Redwall, I'm pretty sure, but that was just the Recorded Books version, with a single narrator.) I had to borrow a little of my future allowance to buy it, but I spent the whole ride home holding the audiobook and beaming, and hoping I wouldn't wake up and discover it was a dream.

(It wasn't.)

I proceeded to spend the next few months listening to Martin the Warrior non-stop and kept being delighted that it was a thing that was real.

(Later on, I started to collect the other full-cast recordings on CD, but that first time seeing an audiobook of a Redwall novel I'd read and loved was just the best.)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Redwall for the win!

One of my best memories of my kids' childhood was them playing Redwall and reciting the Marlfox poem (available here (http://personal.palouse.net/gsk/Greystripe/poems.htm), if you want a refresher), and one of the only events I took them to was Brian Jacques talking at a bookstore--he really was as fabulous in person as he sounds on his recordings. What a great guy!

[mercwriter.livejournal.com]

He really was. :) I got to meet him at a signing when Castaways of the Flying Dutchman came out, and he was touring in the Twin Cities. He was delightful to everyone, taking time to chat with every fan who had books to sign.

Turkish Studies, University of Lancaster Library

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

My trouble has always been distraction. I thought I had managed to avoid distraction by sitting in Law, but I mentioned this to a lecturer in law, who - horrified - showed me that those thousands of boring-looking backs hid a million stories.

So I tried other parts of the library that had books I could not read. These were mostly too small, or had lots of works of criticism in English.

Turkish studies was perfect. There was just one book in English (Mehmet my hawk), so I read that, and then settled down to work.

Re: Turkish Studies, University of Lancaster Library

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

So what was Mehmet my Hawk about? It sounds like a book for young people. I can just imagine the cover--boy with hawk on his gloved hand.

[time-shark.livejournal.com]

That's a great anecdote, Francesca.