The Rupert, Vt. Library was a schoolhouse until 1998 and is now the home of the Kittay Library, where I did several of the first readers I ever did on a book tour.

I loved going to this library, the Kittay Library; I accepted every single invitation I got, there were lovely, small, and knowledgeable crowds.

I was thoroughly charmed the first time I went there, I was on a national book tour (I had my tiny cabin on Colfax Mountain) and was still living in New Jersey, and my publisher was unhappy about my wanting to go there.

Most of the readings on a book tour are big and formal in big bookstores. This one was like sitting down with good and old friends for a chat.

It was too small, they said, a waste of time and money, not enough people to buy lots of books, which is the point of a book tour. I showed up on a dark and cold night; as I remember, the parking lot was whole, and I remember a minister in total carb with a small dog, a chihuahua, I think, poking his head out of his shirt pocket.

It was a whole house – there was always a full house when I read there, and I was asked the most thoughtful and interesting questions.

These people were actual readers; they took their books and library seriously, even in a small Vermont town.

Somebody always brought cookies and coffee, and it was the warmest and coziest place I ever gave a reading in.

I fell in love with Vermont at the Kittay Library and always fought to accept the invitations of any bookstore or library in the state.

We were visiting friends in Vermont today and drove by the library home to New York.

I realized that this is a perfect subject for my photo series on rural America’s beautiful and historic old things. The library also doubles as the home of the Rupert Historical Society.

The library is a wonderful, purely Vermont kind of place, and I am thrilled to be a tiny part of its long and rich history.

There are hardly are any readings like the ones I had in Rupert anymore. When my last few books were published, my publisher would no longer permit me to go there, and they stopped asking me.

Perhaps I’ll get to go there again one day.

Community thrives in Vermont, even though it has rapidly become too expensive for people like me to live there. I’m happy, but I know it is a beautiful place to live.

Most of the perpetually angry and aggrieved people live elsewhere.

I smile every time I think of those nights in that cozy room with good people who cared deeply about books, even mine. The library just oozes characters and history and books.