Little Free Library divination - Wandering Attention

I have discovered the ancient art of divination via Little Free Libraries. Known technically as “microeleutheriobibliothekomancy”, it is more popularly called “EllEffEllomancy”. Augury using LFLs is related to bibliomancy (divination by opening books at random). It is more accessible than omoplatoscopy (divination by observing cracks in burning scapulae), and certainly more socially acceptable than anthropomancy (human entrails) or cephalonomancy (boiled ass’s heads), though oinomancy (wine), tyromancy (cheese), and ailuromancy (movements of cats) all have their places.

EllEffEllomancy reveals the future of the world or your fate in it through the books in the Little Free Libraries that pop up in moderately well-to-do neighbourhoods. There are three main schools: 1) School of First Glances. Here fate is revealed in a flash by the first book you notice on opening the LFL’s door. 2) School of Thoughtful Consideration. In this approach, the LFL diviner examines all the books, then carefully chooses the most appropriate one (although choosing the least appropriate one can be fun too). 3) School of Acquisitiveness. This uses the book that you take home and actually read, which is something else you can do with books.

The joy of divination – and the key to being a professional oracle – is ambiguity. Statements like “You will return never you will die” have kept a lots of soothsayers in business. There is scope for interpretation if the LFL reveals your future to be, say, “The Full Moon Whaling Chronicles” (a book, incidentally, about a werewolf whaling crew, written entirely in rhyming couplets), or “Barkskins“. On the other hand, if you get “First Look at Trucks“, you might want to be a bit more careful riding home. Then again, if the LFL gives you the US Golf Association’s “Decisions on the Rules of Golf 2016/2017″, you may want to consider taking up oinomancy or maybe meconomancy (divination using sleep) instead.

To help you develop as an EllEffEllomancer, I produced a training guide: 9 neighbourhood LFLs, and some of the messages they contained (click to zoom in). And remember that it isn’t always clear whether you are determined by your fate, or vice versa.