Reading Up At The Museo dell'Archivio Storico del Banco di Napoli

What a great spin on a pile of old, useless, dusty bank accounting books. The bank of Naples probably has warehouses full of the giant tomes. Leave them to rot? Nope, create an interesting space, cram it floor to ceiling with the books, have some displays and, bam, you opened a cool museum.

Typical room. Grab a volume, stay a decade.

Details. Some books are open so you can see how much someone owed for three cows. The reading is thick.

Typical room? How about typical rooms. Wandering gets dizzy with information.

No limit on book thickness, whatever the binder could wrap. Yep, these books are from the 1700s and earlier. A later ID label- typing!

Sometimes pages are just wrapped, like old laundry. Washing the accounts.

The Book On Kuthodaw Pagoda In Mandalay

Purported to host the world's largest book, it's a bit of a semantics issue at Kuthodaw Pagoda in Mandalay. The "book" in question is written on stone slabs that are each housed in their own little whitewashed (or blue-washed) stupa. At Kuthodaw, there are 729 stupas with 1,774 more slabs, stupas down the street at Sandamuni Pagoda. The total slab count is considered one book. Who's counting?

In the center of the complex, a grand, gold stupa.

Right, start counting. One of many, many rows of little stupas. Inside each stupa, a fabled slab.

Other details can be found in random prayer areas, mostly Buddha.

More stupa rows, this time wearing white. Darling icon.

Cracking out the wide angle, a grand attempt at capturing the many stupas. Dizzying.