{"id":2445462,"date":"2019-06-18T17:50:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T23:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=308124"},"modified":"2019-06-18T17:50:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-18T23:50:00","slug":"susan-orlean-on-the-library-book-her-aspen-bear-encounter-and-the-ideal-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/susan-orlean-on-the-library-book-her-aspen-bear-encounter-and-the-ideal-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Susan Orlean on \u2018The Library Book,\u2019 her Aspen bear encounter and the ideal story"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Author Susan Orlean in conversation with comedian Pete Dominick at Hooch Craft Cocktail Bar during the Aspen Ideas Festival in 2017. Orlean returns to Aspen on Wednesday to speak at the Aspen Words Summer Benefit.<\/strong>
Ian Wagreigh\/Aspen Institute<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Susan Orlean had sworn off writing books before \u201cThe Library Book\u201d<\/a> lured her back.<\/p>\n

The insatiably curious Orlean, a longtime New Yorker staff writer, had resolved to stick to magazine work and shorter pieces after finishing the all-consuming \u201cRin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend,\u201d published in 2011, while raising a toddler.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really exhausted,\u201d Orlean recalled in a phone interview from her home in Upstate New York. \u201cIt was a huge challenge to do a book that was heavily reported when I was also parenting for the first time and managing a very lively young person. It just felt like an overwhelming commitment and I\u2019m not going to do it again. \u2026 I felt that certainly.\u201d<\/p>\n

But then, on a whim, she took a tour of the downtown Los Angeles Public Library and heard, for the first time, about the 1986 fire that destroyed it along with some 400,000 books and collections.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kept thinking, \u2018I don\u2019t want to write another book, so I\u2019m going to keep resisting,\u2019\u201d she recalled. \u201cBut hearing about the fire I thought, \u2018I can\u2019t not do this. It\u2019s calling me in. I can\u2019t resist, despite my best intentions otherwise.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

What came of it in \u201cThe Library Book\u201d is more than a true-crime mystery about the historic fire, who set it and why \u2014 it\u2019s a history of libraries and how they work, a portrait of the many eccentric characters who populate them and a study of the meaning of libraries, a full-throated celebration of the idea of a library: this common civic space where we all share books, where children and families mingle with scholars and the homeless.<\/p>\n

Published in October, \u201cThe Library Book\u201d became an instant bestseller and one of the most acclaimed books of 2018, quickly optioned for a television series (Orlean is now at work on the screenplay). She has been surprised and gratified by its reception.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were moments when I thought, \u2018Oh my God, I\u2019m writing a book about libraries,\u201d she recalled. \u201cIt just sounded so boring. There was part of me that was worried about that, what the reaction would be \u2014 that people would think, \u2018Who wants to read a book about a library?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But \u201cwho wants to read about that?\u201d is a common place for Orlean to start from.<\/p>\n

Her far-flung subjects often sound mundane at first glance \u2014 like her social biography of the movie star dog Rin Tin Tin or her research on orchid poachers that led to \u201cThe Orchid Thief\u201d and the film \u201cAdaptation\u201d \u2014 but with her wit, her eye for telling detail and her personal style, she crafts page-turning nonfiction. As she put it in a 2017 talk about curiosity at the Aspen Ideas Festival<\/a>: \u201cI would say that everything I\u2019ve ever written about, most people\u2019s first reaction is, \u2018That\u2019s a really bad idea to write about.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Her classic 1992 Esquire story, \u201cThe American Male at Age 10,\u201d offered a meticulously detailed portrait of the day-to-day life of a pre-adolescent kid in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. Orlean said that kind of seemingly dull subject, with fascinating depths that have yet to be plumbed, is still her ideal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stories that appeal to me are those that have a certain familiarity, a world that we know very well but have never examined closely,\u201d she said. \u201cSo that story represents the zenith of my interests as a writer.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a previous visit to Aspen, a black bear broke into the home she was staying in, trashing the kitchen and living room. A bear break-in is a hell of a story for any tourist to leave town with. But for Orlean, it made her think about what she might learn if she dug deeply into what it means for Aspenites to live in bear habitat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat fascinated me was the idea of living in nature in a situation where nature appeared to be winning,\u201d she said. \u201cIt instantly became something I thought about. It would be an incredible story and an interesting way to look at a place like Aspen as being on the very brink of being reclaimed by nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orlean is back in Aspen this week for the Summer Words literary conference, and will give a talk at the Aspen Words Summer Benefit on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

Eight months after the \u201cThe Library Book\u201d was released, Orlean is still criss-crossing the country talking about it. With libraries on her mind, addressing supporters of the local literary organization is the perfect audience, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that\u2019s ideal is talking about it is a way of talking about the meaning of books and writing in general,\u201d she said \u201cIt fits nicely for a conversation that\u2019s more generally about writing and that\u2019s the point of this event.\u201d<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author Susan Orlean in conversation with comedian Pete Dominick at Hooch Craft Cocktail Bar during the Aspen Ideas Festival in 2017. Orlean returns to Aspen on Wednesday to speak at the Aspen Words Summer Benefit.Ian Wagreigh\/Aspen Institute Susan Orlean had sworn off writing books before \u201cThe Library Book\u201d lured her back. The insatiably curious Orlean, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2445462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 21:41:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2445462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}