Journalist and bestselling author Susan Orlean joins Zibby to discuss her new collection, On Animals, which was inspired in part by her quarantine puppy. Susan and Zibby talk about Susan's Literati Book Club, how the underlying question of her collected work is "What is it like to coexist on a planet with these other creatures?," and why this collection was a nice go-between her last novel and her upcoming memoir.
Susan: The Library Book is a nonfiction book that has several narrative threads. On one level, it was a book in which I wanted to explore what the daily life of a library was all about. I was focusing on the Los Angeles Public Library, the main branch downtown. I had that in mind when I discovered, quite unexpectedly, that the LA Central Library was the site of the largest library fire in American history. This took place in 1986. It was an arson fire that destroyed 400,000 books. It damaged 700,000 books. It closed the library for seven years. What had begun as this more general curiosity about, what is the daily life of a library like? became a story about the near-death and rebirth of a library and an investigation into who did it and why. At the bottom of that as well, to add one more thread, was the thing that probably got me interested to begin with. I have an incredibly emotional response to libraries. I feel like it isn't entirely rational or logical. It’s some feeling that's much bigger and deeper and more touching than just saying it’s a building with books in it. There's something about libraries that feel really emotional. I don't think I'm alone in that feeling. The book also was an attempt to explore that. Why do we feel so attached and connected to libraries? Why does the idea of one burning down feel so deeply distressing?
