It__ remarkable that a device, which fits in your pocket, can hold thousands of books. But a room full of books is an entirely different kind of remarkable.
Everything I am is based on this ugly building on its lonely lawn__it up during winter darkness; open in the slashing rain__hich allowed a girl so poor she didn__ even own a purse to come in twice a day and experience actual magic: traveling through time, making contact with the dead__orothy Parker, Stella Gibbons, Charlotte Brontë, Spike Milligan.A library in the middle of a community is a cross be-tween an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. On a cold, rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen, instead. A human with a brain and a heart and a desire to be uplifted, rather than a customer with a credit card and an inchoate __eed_ for __tuff._ A mall__he shops__re places where your money makes the wealthy wealthier. But a library is where the wealthy__ taxes pay for you to become a little more extraordinary, instead. A satisfying reversal. A balancing of the power.
Moranthology
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Everything I am is based on this ugly building on its lonely lawn__it up during winter darkness; open in the slashing rain__hich allowed a girl so poor she didn__ even own a purse to come in twice a day and experience actual magic: traveling through time, making contact with the dead__orothy Parker, Stella Gibbons, Charlotte Brontë, Spike Milligan.A library in the middle of a community is a cross be-tween an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. On a cold, rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen, instead. A human with a brain and a heart and a desire to be uplifted, rather than a customer with a credit card and an inchoate __eed_ for __tuff._ A mall__he shops__re places where your money makes the wealthy wealthier. But a library is where the wealthy__ taxes pay for you to become a little more extraordinary, instead. A satisfying reversal. A balancing of the power.
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Many existing top 20 Scottish writers have flourished in part because of good turns done by institutions, arts community, libraries and bookshops.
If you're frightened of the countless number of books in the library, you'll never write anything, until you close your eyes and hold the pen.
When my father first took me to Ennis Library I went down among the shelves and felt company, not only the company of writers, but the readers too, because they had lifted and opened and read these books. The books were worn in a way they can only get worn by hands and eyes and minds
Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method._ Walter Benjamin, "Unpacking My Library
Deserted libraries hold the shades of writers who worked within, and are haunted by their absence.