Library literotica--I had no idea! I discovered this book when I was invited to appear on a panel with the author and looked her up, as most any librarian would. I immediately checked NYPL and was pleased to see Mid-Manhattan had three copies of the micropublished book. The whole story of how the book got published is fascinating, but I'll leave it to you to get into it. To me the craziest thing about the book is that Weist began it as part of a sculptural installation project for Cooper Union, where she got her BA. It's a little slim at 141 pages, but it's good. Weist is a good writer. It's kind of unfair, really. She's an outrageously articulate speaker, an inspired artist, skilled techie (digital archivist), and super young.
The semi-autobiographical story is that of artist librarian Audrey Reed's sexual and bibliographic adventures in Rochester, Minnesota, where she goes to escape sexual, romantic and other demons in NYC. It's an erotic romance novel with enough true-to-life library details to make it doubly pornful to people of my persuasion. As erotica/romance the strongest elements aren't the plot or even highly believable character development, for me the compelling parts are the library details and deft language.
Quotations:
At times it was clear to Audrey that the Dewey Decimal system had subtly transformed her life approach. Her belongings were so perfectly classified and categorized by some subconscious information science system that the entire house had come together in the matter of a morning. The items in the last room she was tackling, the kitchen, were now almost completely organized by potential usage. Multi-purpose tools like the blender were centrally shelved between breakfast implements and cocktail hour accessories, a cross-reference between the smoothie and the piña-colada.
