"In his decades with the department, Hamel fought thousands of fires, but he said he never experienced another that was as extraordinary as the fire at Central Library. Orlean does exceptional work reconstructing the path and ferocity of the blaze, interviewing firefighters like then-captain Ron Hamel: If you haven't heard of the fire, it's likely because it was buried in the news by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. According to Orlean: "It was one of the biggest fires in the history of Los Angeles and the single biggest library fire in the history of the United States." This time, Orlean digs into the world of libraries, offering both a meditation on the value of libraries in a digital age and a deep dive into the history of the Los Angeles Public Library-with a particular focus on a fire at the LAPL in 1986 that destroyed almost half a million books and damaged 700,000 more. Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief, Rin Tin Tin and many more, investigates another passionate subculture in The Library Book.
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