ARTS

Read It and Weep: The British Museum’s celebrated domed reading room, where Marx, Lenin and Gandhi pondered ways to change the world, will remain the hushed preserve of readers and thinkers, the museum said Tuesday. The announcement ended half a century of argument over whether to shut down the reading room, beloved by generations of scholars for its cerebral but cozy atmosphere. The reading room’s 18 million books will be moved to the new British Library in the next three years, but the circular chamber will still be a reading room.