The Biblioteca Pública do Amazonas, opened in 1910, is another of the rubber-boom-era public buildings that crowd central Manaus. A stately neoclassical facade gives onto a luminous double-height reading room with curved wooden balconies, cast-iron columns, and skylights overhead. The collection includes rare 19th-century books on the Amazon, regional newspapers going back over a century, and a botanical print archive.
Visitors are welcome to walk in during opening hours; the staff will usually guide foreigners to the rarer reading rooms upstairs. A particularly atmospheric place to escape the midday heat.