The Floating Library first bobbed out onto a Minneapolis lake in the summer of 2013. Volunteer librarians handed out chapbooks, art books and other unique reading material to surprised folks passing by in boats.
Bookmark: Floating Library to spend this summer at Lake Phalen in St. Paul
July 15, 2016 at 1:02PM
(The boaters had to hand them back later — it was a library, after all.)
Created by Minneapolis artist Sarah Peters, the library was meant to have "an element of delight and surprise," Peters told me in a 2014 interview. "First of all, canoeing along and coming across a library. And then having it stocked with books that are totally unique. It's like this double whammy of inventiveness."
Over the past three years, the library has gotten around; it has floated on lakes in Minneapolis, St. Anthony, Winona, and — on vacation, maybe? — Los Angeles.
Last year it hosted a floating poet, Steve Healey, through Coffee House Press' Writers in the Stacks program.
OK, St. Paul. It is finally your turn!
Beginning this weekend, the library — really a custom-built raft with shelves — moves to Lake Phalen, where it will be anchored just off Phalen beach between 1 and 7 p.m. each weekend day through Aug. 7. Boaters, kayakers, canoeists and rubber-raft-floaters are welcome to glide up and browse.
(Sorry, swimmers, not you; there is no room on the raft for you. Even the floating poet had to have a boat.)
And the books? No Jodi Picoult, no Stephen King; these are handmade art books (hopefully wrapped in plastic or something else waterproof), some specifically about water and Lake Phalen.
Paddle on over and take a look. Don't forget your life jacket and your sunscreen. And know that there is a "return" box on Phalen beach, for when you are done. It is a library, after all.
Laurie Hertzel is the Star Tribune's senior editor for books. On Twitter: @StribBooks. On Facebook: facebook.com/startribunebooks
