Murder by Death

A small, slim tome that is exactly what it says it is: a miscellany of facts about libraries throughout history.  Some of it is nothing new to anyone who enjoys a good book about a book, but most of it was new and fairly interesting.  It had a few drive-my-husband-crazy moments of "listen to this!" but not so many that there was heavy sighing or eye-rolling going on.  

My personal favourites included the most overdue books and the example of rules at different major libraries in the world (I love that the Vatican Library has a bar).  I'm dying to know why Portugal's legal deposit laws require 11 copies of every book be submitted (as opposed to the more common 1-2 copies).

I'd have liked to have seen some illustrations of a few of the topics mentioned, but overall it's a nice little book, and one I'll likely refer to more than once when I feel the need to torture friends with book related trivia.