Lonely Planet Hidden Libraries: The World’s Most Unusual Book Depositories

This guide to 50 hidden (unfamiliar, unknown, unique) libraries across the globe highlights the desire to gather, curate, organize, display, and share books. Selected from locations across North America, South America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, Europe, Oceania, and even outer space, the collection includes libraries anyone in the area can visit, such as a Little Free Library in a cottonwood tree in Idaho, and those that only intrepid travelers might browse, such as a Little Free Library at the South Pole. There are libraries in monasteries, vending machines, and on the beach. There is a horse library, one in space, and one online. There are memoriam libraries included as well, such as the now defunct Occupy Wall Street library, and, as is the case with “the Lost Library of the Moscow Tsars,” perhaps one that never existed at all. Each library is illustrated, has instructions on how to find it, and gets a brief commentary. Nancy Pearl writes a warm-hearted forward.