reading biographies

While reading the Tiptree biography, I noted to Z that for me, one mark of a good biography is that it makes me wonder about the lives of the other people mentioned within.

Another, I think, is that it makes me think about how aspects of my life compare with that of the subject.  This seems to especially come up when the subject is compared with someone else in the book -- I noticed this when Phillips (the author of the biography) mentioned ways in which Tiptree/Sheldon's parents were like Ursula LeGuin's parents, and I therefore set to thinking about *my* parents.

And: I adore the modern library.  While it was once idyllic to wander the seven floors worth of dusty stacks at the university library (replaced, I'm afraid, by an open airy modern thing while I was still attending), now that I've got a baby I'm glad I can get online, put six books on hold, go pick them up when email arrives indicating that they're ready, and renew them online when I can't read them as quickly as I'd like.

The cap hill public library reminds me more of every other small library that I've been in, and less of either of the main campus libraries (old, new) at berkeley or the grand public library in san francisco.  Libraries should be grand, says my subconscious.  My lizard-brain thinks that the hush of a library should be one of awe.  This is in conflict with my sense that libraries should be common, accessible, everyday parts of people's lives.

I'm trying to become a regular library-goer for the first time in ten years.  I own too many books and perhaps this way I will refrain from buying too many more. (After I spend the credit from the used bookstore I racked up when selling the boxes of culls from my sci-fi shelves...)  Perhaps becoming comfortable and familiar with my local libraries again will do ... something.

I wonder which branch of the seattle public library has the most enjoyably browseable speculative fiction section?  The one in cap hill is rather small.