New: ‘The Floating Library' in Echo Park Lake

Hop a pedal boat and go peruse art books in the middle of the lake.

We SoCalers, loving transportation as we do, reach our local library branch in myriad ways.

We can hop the bus, drive, have a friend drop us off, bike, roller skate, or use a pogo stick or unicycle to reach our local magical book place. However we reach the stacks is super; at the end of our journey stories and tales await, which are most excellent treasures to possess.

But most people, we'll confidently wager, have never taken a pedal boat out to the center of a lake to call upon a library. That'll change for a few days in the middle of February, when "The Floating Library" debuts in Echo Park Lake.

Yes, we said "in" and not "at," which might imply that the pop-up library would appear on the banks of the body of water. This temporary biblio-spot, which will be open from Thursday, Feb. 11 through Sunday, Feb. 14, is in Echo Park Lake, or on the surface, at least (nobody likes to see books get wet, because curly pages, smeared type, and so forth).

Machine Project, an art collective based in Echo Park, is hosting the wee 'n whimsical happening "in conjunction" with the LA Art Book Fair, which is not occuring at the lake but rather can be found at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA from Feb. 12 through 14.

Artist Sarah Peters is behind the pedal-by-and-read-an-art-book bash, which'll be open each of its specified days from 11 a.m. to 4 in the afternoon.

The books are on an impressivly constructed raft, if you're curious about the "floating" part of "The Floating Library," and you're welcome to while away some time paging through the tomes. (They're generally art-themed, befitting the nature of the project and the larger book fair.)

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While it is free to pedal out, via boat, to the book-laden raft, you'll need ten bucks to rent your ride at the Echo Park Lake Boat House. Sunscreen, water, and the usual accoutrements you might take on a boat ride would be good, too. (We mention because sunscreen is not a typical going-to-the-library recommendation.)

Is this affiliated with the Los Angeles Public Library system? It is not, but it is worth mentioning that Feb. 14, the final day of "The Floating Library," is the last day of the "return your overdue books for free" program at LAPL. If you can visit one library, you can visit two libraries, one where you may return your late books and the other one that's weirdly in the middle of Echo Park Lake.

Ms. Peters and her enchanted project have had other iterations elsewhere, so if you'd like to know more, get the backstory. If you want to go in fresh, that's cool, too.

Cool as lake water, which is something we don't typically encounter as we pogo-stick our way over to our local library branch.

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