Library: The Drama within - Tapa dura

." . . photographer Diane Asseo Griliches explores the halls and nooks of public libraries around the world, from Paris to Jerusalem, Boston, and Berkeley, alertly scanning for moments of focus, serenity, and irony. This lively volume, which contains an essay by eminent historian Daniel Boorstin, animates an environment we might otherwise ignore in favor of the pages we read within those silent and capacious halls."

Anyone who loves books has a fondness for libraries, but few of us have a sense of their infinite variety. Diane Ass+(c)o Griliches has photographed libraries all over the world, from the grand reading room in the Biblioth+ que Nationale in Paris, to the humble remodelled train depot that serves as the library in Cleveland, Mississippi. Libraries are inhabited by books and people. Diane Griliches has photographed not only the magnificent walls of books and tables full of students at the Biblioteca Marucelliana in Florence, and the library in Sarajevo, which has since been destroyed, but also the homeless seeking shelter, children using their library cards for the first time, patient librarians, lovers in the stacks, and a wealth of other human dramas that take place inside libraries.