The Life Cycle: Where do books come from?

A city’s DNA makes its way to our shelves every single day. Folks come in, deliberate and focused, bringing contributions to our holdings. Often their books are beloved, and more than once a donor has paused, and snatched the volume back as a keepsake. Others, intent upon housekeeping, bring in books that no longer fit their shelves or their lives.

Catherine accepts a copy Stephen L. Carter’s Palace Council

Motive doesn’t matter. The truth is that Libros Schmibros’ holdings reflect a transfusion of literary matter from the city of Los Angeles. Like any healthy organism, we filter out what we cannot sustain—in our instance books that don’t suit our collection—and retain what we need for our survival: good literature, art books, books in Spanish, books in Farsi, drama, countercultural mainstays, poetry, and literary non-fiction. Each book is a gift from the city to itelf, and from that cross-seeding a new entity is born.

Jezebel donates her Qur’an

–Colleen Jaurretche, co-director of Libros Schmibros