Read by the author. Requires 1 set of earphones and a AAA battery for listening. Issued on Playaway, a dedicated audio media player.
Summary:
On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual false alarm. As one fireman recounted later, "Once that first stack got going, it was 'Goodbye, Charlie.'" The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library -- and, if so, who? Susan Orlean re-opens the unsolved mystery of the most catastrophic library fire in American history. She delivers a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution -- our libraries.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.