The Livermore library sat at the intersection of two avenues in a flat residential neighborhood, in the full afternoon sun. I had no car, so I had traveled there on foot, the only pedestrian at that hour or any other hour. The brightness of the Bay Area sun, the heat and dust were a bit oppressive but exciting at the same time. This was all new, I had just arrived in what was to be my new country. Shortly after I got my drivers’ license, I wanted to get a library card which required a form of ID. A car, I could not afford yet.
Now, I was already craving the air-conditioned rooms of the library building with its musty smells. I have always found libraries mysterious and full of promise, hiding treasures on their shelves. Back in Timisoara, the public and school libraries (“bibliotecile”) almost never had the books you were looking for. You could browse, if you had a good relationship with the librarian, but mostly you would fill out a request and then maybe they happened to have the book. The real libraries were built at home, one hard-to-find book at the time. Books in glass fronted bookcases, books in packages, wrapped in paper and lined up against the walls, in the little storage room, under the pull-out sofa, carefully catalogued in a folder so you could find them when you needed them.
Since my first on-foot trip to the Livermore library, at the risk of getting sun stroke, I have used the library system in every American suburb I’ve lived in. Some have been better stocked than others, situated in older or more modern buildings, but they all housed the musty smell of books that seems to be the same no matter the location. Browsing the shelves in person is a favorite pastime of mine, and it has led me to some very unexpected authors and titles. Some of my favorite books I’ve discovered by randomly walking the aisles in the library, perusing titles and author names, partially pulling out volumes to look at more closely and trusting my intuition. Others I have been led to by starting off with a physical copy and then searching the catalog following that invisible thread from author to author to similar books, led just by gut feeling and what looks interesting.
I was pleasantly surprised when I recently found several Romanian authors in translation in the King County Library System, titles that might or might not come up when searching the library catalog by keywords related to Romania. Just in time for fall and winter, here is a selection of titles that brings a bit of Romanian spirit into the home from the library shelves.
In the book stack:
Tava, Irina Georgescu
Solenoid, Mircea Cartarescu
If You Love That Lady, Maya C. Popa
The Town with Acacia Trees, Mihail Sebastian
The Life and Opinions of Zacharias Lichter, Matei Calinescu
About our local Eastside Library System: The King County Library System has 50 library branches stretching across King County and is one of the largest and busiest library systems in the country.
