Librarians Do Not Become Librarians Because They Are Social Creatures

Isn't the internet wonderful? At least for recommending things. I had people I've never talked to before (yes, I consider commenting 'talking') suggest scary/mysterious/generally unsettling things to read, and thereby helped me overcome something of my Horror Genre Idiocy.

Everyone's suggestions got me very excited about getting new things to read, so I went to the Chicago Public Library directly after work, picked up We Have Always Lived in the Castle, marched over to the 'L' section of the broadly-termed 'FICTION' category and! -- discovered there was no H.P. Lovecraft. Well, that's not entirely true. There were two books of Lovecraft "revisions." Yeah, they decided to assemble two collections of stories Lovecraft helped revise. But they had nothing -- NOTHING -- that was just him.

Thinking I might be in the wrong section -- maybe short stories all by one author were in another area? -- I walked up to the Reference librarian, something I hate doing, as while they might be very good at their jobs, CPL librarians tend to be extremely odd. I asked whereabouts Lovecraft stories might be and he, in a happily un-odd fashion, directed me back whence I came, and then decided to walk over and inspect for himself. Upon the realization that there was, in fact, no Lovecraft there, he stated that they apparently had no collections of his. NONE. In the eight-floors-of-books-complete-with-escalators (I'm still very impressed by this seven years after first seeing it) of the main branch of the Chicago Public Library they had not a single H.P. Lovecraft book.

Fortunately, the kindly librarian said he would tell their collections person (oh, I don't know their proper title, stop making fun of me) and that they would order some. Huzzah! And I did manage to check out The 13 Best Horror Stories of All Time, which has ONE Lovecraft story in it (as well as The Tell-Tale Heart, which I'd never read and was shocked/disappointed that it was basically three pages long). So not a completely failed trip.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is fricking weird, though. I rode the Brown Line almost all the way to the end and back yesterday so I'd be able to focus on it, and...I have feelings about Shirley Jackson which I cannot be specific about as of yet. I shall work on articulating them.

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