Inside Wytham Abbey, to the right of the main entrance, lies the liebrary. Its walls are reddish-brown, like clay. Set in their concavities are hundreds of titles: Pinkerton’s Geography; Memoir of the Rev. T. Scott; Sermons du Bourdalour, written in gold lettering on dull blue and brown spines.
Inside the liebrary lie blankets, pillows, and couches, sharing the same sepia color scheme. They’re arranged in an arc facing two large easel pads. On each pad lie multicolored markers and sheets of paper — tonight, one shows a hastily-sketched yellow flower pattern, and the other a math problem on distributing numbers. Crumpled behind them are notes from a previous class; to their left is an unlit fireplace.
During the day, light streams through the massive eight-panel window opposite the main entrance.
It’s impossible to pluck any of those fascinating titles from the wall. I’ll never read Archæologia Græca, or any of the four volumes of Pennant’s Zoology. Nor will I ever read The Last Man. They’re just spines. No words or pages inside; no inside at all. They have the right textures, cracks, and discolorations — an convincing imitation of a collection of ancient books.
Three of the “bookshelves” are doors. Two of them have two doorknobs, one on each side, giving the appearance of dual cabinets. They lead to an empty closet and to the dining room. The last one opens to the rest of the abbey — helpfully marked with a “Fire Exit” sign. It too had double knobs, but one was removed. In case of fire, the abbey prefers its inhabitants not waste precious seconds trying the wrong knob.
It’s cozy. Sipping tea and sitting in those all-too-soft cushions, we’ve learned that the map is not the territory; that data compression is limited by entropy; that Stag loves dancing. We’ve learned to boggle at blankets and tissue boxes and mugs; to calculate Kullback-Leibler divergence; to actively behave in unexpected ways.
The liebrary’s a bit like ESPR — not quite what I expected, filled with tricks and turns and not-quite-truths, but warm and comfortable all the same.