A Guide to Society Libraries, Part 2

In yesterday's post about private libraries, I neglected to mention the Mercantile Library in my hometown of Cincinnati.  My grandmother used to belong, but the library has long since shed any staid associations it once might have had.  Indeed, its website trumpets that anyone may belong, and the very modest annual fee of $45 backs up the claim. 

While trolling the library's website, I noticed with delight--and a certain amount of envy, since I live too far away to attend--that Jonathan Kamholtz is leading a series at the Mercantile on literary thrillers.  He is one of the smartest and funniest English professors I ever had the pleasure to take a course from.  (Oops, I ended a sentence about an English professor with a proposition.  So sue me.)

Maddeningly, however, the link to an intriguing member group called the Chic.lits ("fashionable friends of fine art, fine reading and the Mercantile Library") does not work. The elusive Chic.lits, whoever they may be, do not write the Mercantile's saucily-named blog, Stacked.  It appears to be helmed instead by a man.  But it's a good thing when a library's website makes one laugh out loud, right?