The other day I listened to a beautiful interview with Susan Orlean on CBC radio about libraries and all they meant to her growing up.  As a child, the primary way Orlean bonded with her mother was going to the library.

Sadly her mother would get dementia causing all those precious memories to fade.

Especially before the internet, a library stored the culture’s memories, much like the human brain stores our individual memories, so Orlean would see the tragic burning of  Los Angeles Central Library in 1986 as a metaphor for her mother’s dementia.

You can listen to the full interview here.