Thanks to a certain Irishwoman and a dinner she organized at a Prospect Heights restaurant, I met an incredible librarian who fulfilled a dream of mine last Friday. For the first time in my New York life (12 and a half years), I got a tour of the main branch of the New York Public Library. You’ve seen the lions in pictures and in movies, but have you been granted access to “the stacks,” the seven-level storage space for the library’s non-circulating collection? I didn’t think so!
Between gawking and dropping expletives out of pure joy (“Holy shit! That’s a paper copy of the Gutenberg Bible?!”), I used the opportunity to slot another entry in the “Sleeping” series. My friend and colleague Josh Hadro snapped this shot of me in the Rose Main Reading Room with my current read, A Confederacy of Dunces, which I’m loving for its vivid-to-the-point-of-3-D characterizations. I’m only 100 pages in, so more to come. Ow-wee! as Jones would say.
I really could've fallen asleep here. Not because it was so quiet. Because I was overstimulated from touching 600-year-old manuscripts. Yep, paper slut
The Nowhere in the Middle 
aarongraham
March 6, 2011
That is great! I love the picture too. LOL
oniricvonnegut
March 19, 2011
Your blog is awesome. Never been to NYC. The Library will be a must see. Great post.