From the (Library) Bookshelf: Empires of the Sky

I’ve made some good use of my municipal library’s ebook lending services over the past months, but their selection of titles can sometimes feel like “if you do find something you’ve already heard of, you’re lucky.” As the library itself moved back from “online holds and curbside pickup” to “entry with precautions,” I made a half-curious search of its catalogue for a book noticed months before in a Sunday supplement book review section with the thought this could save the cost of an ebook, and it turned out Alexander Rose’s Empires of the Sky really was available. The only problem once I had the book was that where “exposure to others” can be somewhat controlled, mere thoughts of “contaminated surfaces,” however overwrought they may now be, are harder to shake. I wound up keeping the book in my entry hall, reading it in sessions sitting on the steps right next to the hall and washing my hands immediately after each one. It did take me a while to get through the book for all the interest I took in its subject.
( Modes of transport )