L.A., Houston Public Libraries Caught In Epic Battle of 'Book Spine Poetry Trash'

The World Series can be a divisive force. It can lead hot dog stands located about 1,500 miles apart to turn against one another. Police chiefs from one city will make a wager with a police chief from another. Even food critics will adopt the spirit of antagonism.

One especially interesting rivalry is happening between the L.A. Public Library and the Houston Public Library, and it’s playing out in a very public forum: Instagram. What’s going on is that the LAPL and the HPL are using book titles (from book spines) to @ one another and root for their respective teams in the World Series. The LAPL describes this “book spine poetry trash” talk as a “library tradition.” While we’ve seen these things play out before (like when Metro and the Bay Area’s BART engaged in a poetry face-off on Twitter), this one is particularly ingenious, and makes the literary nerd in us feel validated.

It all started on October 24, the day of Game 1. The LAPL threw some major shade by referring to Houston’s team as Astro Bunnies (which, according to Amazon, is a children’s book about “inquisitive bunnies”—looking “suspiciously like toddlers in ‘feety’ pajamas'”— hitching a ride on a rocket going into outer space)

http://laist.com/2017/10/31/libraries_world_series.php