Every weekday morning at ten, there is a scrum to enter Seattle’s Central Library. As soon as the security team open the double doors, patrons, many of whom wear two coats even in the height of summer’s heatwave and carry enormous holdalls on their backs like tortoises, stream into the building. Some head straight to the bathrooms, others get their laptops out or pick up the morning’s edition of USA Today or the Seattle Times.
130 people are ahead of me in the queue for one of 33 copies of Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights. As I place my reservation from an expansive floor of Seattle’s magnificent, ten-story public library, it’s clear the city has a great book culture. But, like many places in the US, the city also has a great homelessness problem.
Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month
Content from our partners
