Babino Library
Babino, North Macedonia

As we approach the wee hours of the new year, we feature a library in one of the least populated villages in North Macedonia. The village of Babino used to have more than 800 inhabitants, but now there are just three permanent residents. An aging population, sinking birthrate, and mass migration has left rural villages, such as Babino, virtually abandoned. Still this tiny mountain village boasts a library of over 20,000 books, the largest private library in the country.

The library is a result of three generations’ of collecting by the family of Stevo Stepanovski, whose great-grandfather, as a soldier of the Ottoman Empire, acquired the first books in the late 19th century. The anecdote says the Empire, when lacking money, paid the soldiers in books. And Stepanovski's great-grandfather started freeing the soldiers of their book collections.

The library serves the local needs of the municipality, but it is also a tourist destination for bibliophiles as it contains many rare books. The oldest one is an Arabic dictionary from 1307. Among others, there are the first editions of 1,001 Nights and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Along with history books and novels in the Macedonian language, there are tomes in Farsi, Arabic, and Turkish along with a host of books in Serbo-Croat, the main language of the old Yugoslavia of which the village was once a part.

Stepanovski regularly welcomes guests with cups of coffee and shots of homemade fruit brandy in the centuries-old stone home where the library is housed. “We offer a peaceful mindset for people to come and sit here and experience the atmosphere,” Stepanovski says. “If you want to discover the magic of books ... you can do that perfectly here.”

The Norfolk Library will be open on Saturday, December 31, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. We will be closed on Sunday, January 1. Happy New Year!

The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin
Book Discussion Group with Kelly Kandra Hughes
Mondays, beginning January 9, 1:00 - 2:00 p.m.

Join us virtually this winter as we gain insight into our personality using Gretchen Rubin’s The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People’s Lives Better, Too).  Each week we’ll read assigned chapters, reflect on the material, and then come together via Zoom to discuss our insights. Discussions will take place from 1:00-2:00 p.m. on Mondays, from January 9 through February 27. Feel free to join the book discussion at any point on our schedule! Visit here to find out more and to register.

Norfolk Library Book Group with Mark Scarbrough
Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon (1997)
Thursdays, January 12, 26, February 9
10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. or 7:30 - 9:00 p.m.

For the Big Winter Novel, Mark has chosen Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon. Discussion will take place virtually over three Thursdays, with Part One (Episodes 1-25) to be discussed on January 12. Charles Mason (1728-1786) and Jeremiah Dixon (1733-1779) were the British surveyors best remembered for running the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland that we know today as the Mason-Dixon Line.

If you are new to the Book Group and would like to participate, please email Mark at [email protected], and he will email you a formal invitation link to the online discussion group.

Click Here to view the Norfolk Library Night Owl - December 30, 2022.