A photographic essay and love poem to libraries with a special emphasis on the literacy function that they serve for the less well to do.  Richly accompanied by quotes from Bellow, Galbraith, Borges, and others, the photographs in blackand white portray a wide variety of libraries from the Bodlein (1488!) at Oxford, to the Widener and Houghton at Harvard (check on the Hyde Oval Exhibition Room with its Johnsonia collection), a number of Paris and Jerusalem libraries, and lots of reading rooms from around the US and abroad.  There is some lovely overlap with the Public Library book—-St. Johnsbury’s Atheneum, libraries in Queens, NY, and the Boston Public Library (McKim who also did the Morgan Library).  A good volume for browsing and one that stimulated an interest in Andrew Carnegie.