Isaac Asimov, public libraries, and National Science Fiction Day

This article for January 2nd is the last in a string of lighter posts for the holiday season. It will soon be time to get back to the depressing biographies and other heavy topics!

January 2nd is the official birthday of the great - if not the greatest - science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, who was featured in an article that marked the 25th anniversary of his death. There is also an article about a never forgiven or forgotten brushing-off experience that he had in common with Noel Streatfeild.

Isaac Asimov and public libraries 
Just like many other writers, Terry Pratchett for example, Isaac Asimov was a great user of public libraries as a boy. He learned far more from library books than he did at school, as did I and many other self-educators.

His autobiography In Memory Yet Green contains some details of his early dealings with public libraries, which he first joined at the age of six. Just as I did, he managed to wangle cards from two different libraries so got twice the normal ration of books; just I did, Asimov was soon able to get access to the adult section.

Isaac Asimov read voraciously to satisfy his craving for knowledge, but he was not indiscriminate. I could have written this myself:

“I wanted excitement and action in my stories rather than introspection, soul-searching, and unpleasant people. So if I did reach for fiction in the library it was likely to be a historical novel by Rafael Sabatini...(Usually, when I discovered one book by a prolific author I found I liked I would methodically go through all the others by him I could find.)“

Isaac Asimov remembers public libraries 
Even though he moved on to academic and other professional libraries and eventually established a reference library of his own at home, Isaac Asimov never forgot the huge debt that he owed to public libraries.

Today is the 25th anniversary of Isaac Asimov's death

Isaac Asimov died at the age of 72 on 6th April 1992. His death was a great loss to the world.

I enjoyed reading his Science Fiction novels and stories very much; I bought an old 2-volume pack of his autobiography at a big discount a while back, and found In Memory Yet Green and In Joy Still Felt just as good.

I like information, and these books are packed with it. He describes his early life so well that reading about it made me feel as though I had grown up in a poor area in 1930s New York myself.

I like the way he puts his life into the context of the times; he comes to realise that while his family were poor, they were not destitute like others in the Depression era. He also puts his life and personality into the context of other people's; he is balanced and objective when interpreting his earlier behaviour and explaining himself to his readers.

I like the way he uses these books to pay off his old debts – of both kinds. Better late than never. He thanks a teacher who let him go on the school outing even though he hadn't qualified, and he thanks a professor who had shown favouritism towards him. He also pays back a few people he had grudges against!

I like the way he makes the small stuff, the petty details of his life, seem fascinating. I enjoyed reading about the food that he ate and the books that he read.

I like his honesty when he says that a lot of people couldn't stand him, and that he failed to get into medical school because of the offensive way he behaved at the interviews. Of course, he wrote this as a rich, famous, adored and successful author who had moved on and could afford to look back with amusement at his past failures and deficiencies; he could offset the bad with the good.