Libraries, Laminate floors, and "World Without End"

I just picked up Ken Follet’s new 36 CD book, “World Without End”. It is the sequel to the wonderful “Pillars of the Earth”, “ a sweeping, epic novel set in twelfth-century England centered on the building of a cathedral and the men, women, and children whose lives it changed forever.”

I have been nearly rabid with anticipation for this book (which continues the story of the townsfolk of Kingsbridge two hundred years later) since I first heard it was out. So eager was I that I was almost tempted to finish my current book on CD after I listened to Ken Follet’s book. That book, “Bridge of Sighs”, by Richard Russo, the same author who brought us “Empire Falls”, which many doubtless will remember as the delightful HBO presentation starring the late Paul Newman, is captivating in its own right, however. Captivating enough, certainly, that Ken Follet’s book, it will simply have to wait.

The anticipation I feel for new books by beloved authors today is the same anticipation I felt in the sixties and seventies when the Beatles or Bob Dylan put out a new album or the latest issues of Spider-man or the Avengers were due to appear at the local drug store.

Admittedly, a book on CD is not the same as the reading of a book, but I find I now can absorb double the literature I did before books on CD and MP3s came into being. I can listen to books on my MP3 player during the day and read my books at night; two for the price of one almost, although not quite.

Indeed, I suppose I must also credit the tiny little MP3 player with re-establishing my long dormant relationship with the library. I spent a fair amount of time running my fingers along the spines of books in my local library as a boy, and to a lesser extent as an adolescent. But I found it easier, later on, to simply buy books, at the Newstand (the precursor to Barnes and Noble) or at tag sales. There was no time limit on the reading of books this way and one was able to, gradually, build a library of one’s own (for which bookcases would eventually need to be built, walls painted, laminate floors laid down, planter benches built for a patient friend- no wait, that’s another story).

And I must say (before the snoring begins) that anything that brings me, or anyone, back to the library is a good thing. A library is a central repository of free information that is available to anyone, to everyone, regardless of knowledge or ability. How terrible would it be if we were to wake up tomorrow and find out they were all gone because no one found the need to go there anymore?