Places I'd like to see:

I have a profound love for books. My idea of a good afternoon is going to Barnes & Noble and just reading, for hours. Since moving to Greenwood, I was devastated to find no commercial bookstores. Don't get me wrong, I love non-corporate, privately owned bookshops, but the few that I've found here have a very limited selection and they're the kind of places you feel guilty walking out of without buying something. You can imagine how awkward it would be to sit in a corner and begin reading a whole book with no intention of purchasing. I could go to the library, yes, but to say that the library is a bit outdated would be an understatement. The computers are from the 90's and there's no solid organizational system.

I've always dreamed of having a kind of library in my house like the one from Beauty and the Beast, with books from floor to ceiling and luxurious Rococo staircases.




I came across this photo of the library in Stockholm:


That made me remember the rest of the photos I've seen and thrown into my inspiration folder:

Handelingenkamer Tweede Kamer Der Staten-Generaal Den Haag, the Hague, Netherlands

Biblioteca Angelica, Rome, Italy



Abbey Library St. Gallen, Switzerland

Austrian National Library, Vienna, Austria

Stockholm Library, Sweden (as shown above)

Rijkmuseum Library, Amsterdam

Riggs Library, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA

Real Gabinete Portugues De Leitura Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

Melk Monastery Library, Melk, Austria

Rennie Mackintosh Library, Glasgow School of Art, Scotland

George Vanderbilt's Biltmore House Library, Asheville, NC, USA: I've been to the Biltmore Estate once, and was too young to remember the library, if we ever got to it. That mansion is enormous!

Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, Toronto, Canada

George Peabody Library, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Trinity College Library, Dublin, Ireland: Known as the Long Room, this is a beautiful library that I walked through in 2005. I bought a journal with this picture on the cover from the gift shop there.

For tons more libraries like these, visit Curious Expeditions.