Books About Libraries & Librarians

Book Summary

In the lakeside town of Larkspur, Wisconsin, Library Director Greta sees life through extra-rosy glasses as her way of dealing with past tragedies. At least she did, until she stumbled upon a body on her way home from work and unexpectedly became a suspect in a murder investigation.

To clear her name in the eyes of the town’s new detective, she’ll need the help of her fellow librarians. She’ll need to dig deep into Larkspur’s real estate market and the victim’s rare book collection to understand why anyone would have authored his death.

Book Summary

Daraya, Syria, lies on the fringe of Damascus, the capital city. But, for four years, while other areas of the country were relatively stable, Daraya was under siege. Bashar al-Assad’s government forces took over the city early in the Syrian Civil War. Its people were deprived of food, bombarded by heavy artillery, and under the constant fire of snipers.

Deep below the devastation, there was a respite for the innocent citizens caught in a war they didn’t want, a hidden library. Long rows of books, from reference materials to Syrian poetry, were collected from the doomed city above them. A shared love of books created new friendships and provided hope and peace in a time when many had neither.

Book Summary

Single mom Tansy is the director of a beloved library, which a hurricane has just damaged. The best option for a quick alternate location is to move the undamaged books to the adjacent county’s botanic gardens. This arrangement isn’t ideal for Tansy because the gardens are run by Jack, the world’s grouchiest gardener, who also happened to save Tansy and her daughter during the flooding.

Jack prefers plants to people, and has been intentionally single since a divorce six years ago. He’s not a fan of Tansy and her bookish colleagues’ encroaching on his territory. But, when Jack and Tansy are both assigned to work on the spring festival together, they’re forced to call a truce.

Book Summary

In the 15th century, an young orphan named Anna lives in Constantiople (what is now Istanbul, Turkey). Growing up in an ancient city famous for it’s libraries, Anna discovers what could be the last copy of a centuries-old book chronicling the story of Aethon. Soon her path crosses with a village boy named Omeir who has been drafted into the army.

In a library in present day Idaho, 80-something Zeno is directing a children’s play adaptation of Aethon. But tucked among the books on the libraries shelves is a bomb planted by a troubled teen.

In the not-too-distant future, Konstance is on an interstellar ship copying down the story of Aethon told he her by her father.

Throughout the novel, the lives of these dreamers are intertwined in such an immersive way that you’ll forget your own world and feel as if you’ve been transported into theirs.

Book Summary

In 1940 London, Juliet is the new deputy librarian for the Bethnal Green Library, which could use some freshening up. She’s ready to show the men in charge that she is up to the task of revitalizing it.

Katie also works for the library, but is headed to university in the fall. She loves the library, but the rest of her life is difficult with a beau killed on the frontlines, family strife, and a life-changing secret.

Sofie is a Jewish refugee who arrived on a domestic service visa, but works for a man who is horrible to her. She escapes to the library for books, friendship, and aid in finding her sister.

When bombs destroy the library they all count on, the woman will need to overcome their personal challenges to save the library together.

Book Summary

Amy was a university librarian, but a relationship gone wrong sent her running to her aunt’s house in a historic Virginia mountain town. In the first book of this series, she finds a job managing the underfunded, but charming library and wrangling the eccentric patrons.

When Richards inherits a farmhouse from his great-uncle, he’s also determined to get to the bottom of a 1925 murder connected to his family. He enlists Amy’s help in investigating the case. She’s skeptical about his theories until inexplicable new murders plunge the quiet town into chaos.

Book Summary

From the ages of 17 to 27, Jubilee has lived in a world of solitude because of a rare allergy to human touch. Her last experience in the world led to a major anaphylactic shock during her first kiss, so it’s safest at home. However, when she loses her mother, she decides to reenter the world. 

She finds employment as a librarian, and there she meets Eric. He’s a divorced father with custody of a troubled 10-year-old son, Aja, and a 14-year-old daughter who lives with her mom and won’t speak to him. Jubilee, Eric, and Aja bond over books at the library, and each begins to find their own healing. 

Their stories are endearing, quirky, and more humorous than you might expect based on each character’s difficult circumstances.

Book Summary

When the classic book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is banned from a school library, a fourth grader boldly fights back. Amy is normally shy, but this is her favorite book ever. She isn’t going to let it disappear without a fight. 

You’ll laugh and cheer as she assembles a group of students who rally together to keep their access to books and make a positive difference in their school.

Book Summary

Colorado librarian Nora had a rough start to life, first orphaned and then witnessing her brother’s fall into addiction. However, she’s still open-hearted and hopes to be reunited with her brother. Nora feeds her desire to give her brother another chance by helping others in need of someone on their side.

Marlene is elderly and has lost hope in the world, Jasmine is a troubled teen, Lewis is a homeless man with his own last wish, and Vlado is the library’s book-loving security guard.

When the group has to shelter in the library with Nora during a storm, they learn more about each other (and themselves) than they could have expected.

Book Summary

In 1986, a devastating fire destroyed the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire raged for seven hours and destroyed or damaged more than one million books. Thirty years later, the origin of the fire still hadn’t been determined but many suspected that Harry Peak, a blond-haired actor, set the fire intentionally.

In this non-fiction work, author Susan Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire, but also uses it to explore the greater role that libraries play in our lives. She also researched and included the history of libraries, including the real tale of Mary Foy, who in 1880, at only eighteen years old, was named the head of the Los Angeles Public Library.

Book Summary

The impoverished residents of Troublesome Creek struggle for nearly everything, but thanks to Roosevelt’s Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, they don’t want for books.

Book woman Cussy Mary Carter, is not only Troublesome Creek’s own traveling library, she’s also the last living female of the rare Blue People ancestry. But not everyone approves of Cussy’s family or the government Library Project. Cussy wants to bring the joy of books to the hill folks, but she has to confront prejudice and suspicion as old as the Appalachians.

Book Summary

Luke is a single father who works hard but has a surprising secret. When he realized how much it could affect his five year old daughter, he knows it’s time to get help.

Tessa is new to Luke’s small town and hoping for a fresh start after growing up in an upper crust family, which was not as pleasant as it sounds. She hopes small town life and her job as a librarian will help her anxiety. She didn’t expect to help with the literacy program at work, and she definitely didn’t expect how that task would change her life.

Book Summary

In 1942, Eve fled Paris after her father was arrested for being a Polish Jew. When she arrives in the Free Zone, she decides to help Jewish children escape by creating new identity documents for them. She doesn’t want their true identities to be lost forever, so she begins documenting them in The Book of Lost Names. 

Sixty-five years later, in Florida, Eve is now a semi-retired librarian. She’s shocked when she sees a photo of the book in a magazine article about the looting of libraries in WW2. Only Eve knows that the code contained within the book, but she’s not sure if she has the strength to revisit this tragic time in history.

Book Summary

Komachi is Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian and she has read every book on the shelves. She always knows exactly which book her patrons need at each visit. From the restless sales attendant who feels stuck at her job to the struggling working mother who longs to be a magazine editor, Komachi talks with the visitors and then hands them a book that will have life-changing consequences.

Book Summary

After Daphne makes a big move to her fiancé Peter’s lakeside hometown, he turns her future upside down by discovering he’s actually in love with Petra, his childhood best friend. Now, Daphne is stuck in a new town with no friends. She at least has her dream job as a children’s librarian (which barely covers her bills).

When Daphne needs a roommate, she comes up with Miles, the only other person who can understand her recent heartbreak. Miles was engaged to Petra before Peter moved back to town.

Daphne and Miles mostly avoid each other until they decide to team up and begin posting misleading photos of their summer adventures together. As they partake in fake adventures, surely Daphne won’t fall for her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex, right?

Book Summary

When Thea Olson took a volunteer position at her local library in North Dakota, she expected to be shelving books, not discovering a dead body.

Her brother is the acting police chief in the small town, but Thea is determined to figure out whodunit. She enlists the help of her grandmother and the handsome director of the library.

The trio of amateur sleuths hits a dead-end in the investigation, but then help arrives in the most unexpected form. A snarky chameleon (yes, a reptile) appears in the library with cryptic clues for Thea. At first, Thea thinks she’s halllucinating, but accepting help from the chameleon might just be the final piece to solving the puzzle.

Book Summary

In the final year of WW1, Jessie took a leave of absense from her job at the New York Public Library(NYPL) to work for Anne Morgan’s charity – the Committee for Devastated France (CARD). This international group of women was rebuilding devastated French communities just miles from the front. While she’s shocked to be so close to the fighting that she can hear the shelling, Jessie persevered to set up the first French children’s libraries by turning ambulances into bookmobiles and training the first French female librarians. Then, she disappears.

Seventy years later, in 1987, Wendy is a NYPL librarian who finds a reference to Jessie in the archives. She’s immediately intrigued and begins compulsive research into Jessie’s fate.

Book Summary

In this story that combines fantasy with horror, Carolyn needs to protect the library that holds the power over all of creation.

She started her life as a normal American human, but long, long ago, she and a dozen other children found themselves being raised by a man they learned to call Father. He had many powers, even the ability to raise people from the dead. She was raised according to Father’s ancient Pelapi customs, which she learned about in his special library.

Now, Father is missing. And whoever inherits his library will receive his powers with it. Can Carolyn prevail against fierce competitors and become a God? And if so, will she forget what it was like to ever be human?

Book Summary

Discover the heartwarming true story of Dewey, an abandoned kitten found in the book drop of the Spencer Public Library on a freezing winter morning. Adopted by the library staff, Dewey becomes the beloved mascot of the small-town institution, charming locals and visitors alike with his antics and affections. This non-fiction chronicles Dewey’s impact on the town but also addresses the farming industry in both Spencer and Iowa as a whole.

The author was born in Spencer and raised on an Iowa farm. This book also includes her family story, making it part memoir, part history of Iowa family, and part lovable cat tales about Dewey’s positive impact on the town.

Book Summary

Lucy enjoyed her job poring over rare tomes of literature for the Harvard Library, but when her 10-year relationship come to an end, she decides to rewrite the plot of her life.

She plans a getaway to the Outer Banks in search of the sun, but she ends up taking a job as a librarian at the lighthouse library on Bodie Island.

In the most recent book, The Stranger in the Library, Lucy is working on an art show at the library when paintings – and people – start to go missing.

Book Summary

Twenty-five-year-old widowed librarian Clara has turned Bethnal Green tube station into England’s only underground library after the original Bethnal Green library was destroyed in the blitz. While WW2 rages above ground, the secret library serves thousands looking for solace in books as bombs fall above them.

However, Clara’s resolve is tested as the war drags on. With the help of her assistant (and best friend) Ruby, Clara tries to stay strong, even as the safety of their loved ones is in jeopardy.

Book Summary

Chicago librarian Henry suffers from a rare genetic disorder that causes him to drift unpredictably through time. On one of his travels when Henry is 36, he meets a six-year-old girl named Clare. The two marry at a different point in time when Henry is 31 and Clare is 23. 

This is a story about their passionate love for one another, but the complexities of marriage are multiplied by Henry’s inability to remain in one time and place. Told from both points of view, the book asks the question, “Don’t you think it’s better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?”

Book Summary

This dual-timeline book features two ground-breaking women. In 1918, Emmaline signed up as one of the volunteer librarians on the frontlines in France. As she participates in a secret book club for censored books, a romance blooms. However, this leads to events that cause her to find the courage she needs to survive.

In 1976, Kathleen has been accepted to the first co-ed class at the US Naval Academy. But not everyone is welcoming to the women, and the Navy hasn’t prepared for them very well. After a tragedy, Kathleen becomes a target and must learn to trust others to make it through the Academy safely.

Book Summary

It’s 1913, and Laura’s husband is the superintendent of the NY Public Library. The job comes with an apartment in the grand building for the couple and their two children. Laura seems to have it all, but after she enters journalism school at Columbia and has her worldview rocked, she starts to question if the things she has are the things she wants.

Eighty years later, in 1993, Sadie landed her dream job as a curator at the NY Public Library, but her grandmother Laura’s legacy looms over her until she can no longer ignore it.

Book Summary

Amy’s husband left on a business trip three years ago and decided not to return. Forced into single parenthood and without child support, she did what she had to do – cutting back expenses and taking a job as a school librarian. Now, her husband has shown up out of the blue, wanting to reconnect with his teenagers. Amy is reluctant to let him have them over the summer, but she finally gives in.

With her newfound freedom, Amy decides to escape rural Pennsylvania to attend a librarian conference in NYC. Overworked and underappreciated, Amy describes herself simply as “a 40-year-old mom-shaped-librarian.” But her old friend Talia, a fashion magazine editor in the city, wants to help her see herself in a new light. A makeover, a few blind dates, and a trending hashtag later, Amy gets a glimpse of what her life could have been if she had chosen different priorities.

Just as Amy is struggling with whether to stay in this exciting new chapter of her life or return to the life she left behind, a crisis brings her two worlds crashing together.

Book Summary

The first few chapters of What You Wish For may have you convinced that you’ve picked up just another romance, but as the story unfolds you’ll find so much more. Katherine Center’s writing captures the bittersweet struggles of real life, and the two main characters are each struggling with traumatic pasts. You’ll alternate between laughing out loud and reaching for the tissues, but this story is ultimately uplifting.

Samantha is a school librarian who loves her job at her current school and who has a bold zest for life…but she hasn’t always been that way. Duncan, the new school principal, is very regimented and unwilling to stray from the rules…but he hasn’t always been that way.

Sam and Duncan have met before. They worked together at another school years ago, back when they were both very different people. When Duncan takes over as the new principal at Sam’s school, she’s shocked to discover that the fun-loving guy she remembers has turned into a completely different person – one she’s afraid will ruin everything she loves about her loving and welcoming school community.

As things spiral out of control, Sam and Duncan are forced to get real with one another, and to reveal to each other the traumas from their pasts, in order to save the school, and themselves.

Book Summary

This novel imagines a United States where a nationalistic law called PACT, the Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act, rules the land. While it was sold as a way to preserve American values after an economic collapse, it’s being used as an excuse for violence and discrimination against minorities. 

The book is largely told from the perspective of Bird, a twelve-year-old boy, who lives with his father after his Chinese-American mother left when he was nine. They live in a small dorm room at the college where his father was a professor and is now a librarian. However, the library is missing many books banned under PACT, including basic history and cultural works. 

When Bird receives a letter from his mother, he sets out to find her and discovers an America he didn’t want to see. Along the way, you’ll see chapters from her perspective and explore how art can help heal.

Book Summary

Teenager Tom and pensioner Maggie are unlikely friends after an encounter at their local library. While Tom dreads his future, partly because his mom is gone, Maggie is dwelling on her past, partly because her son is gone. 

As the duo works together to save the library, they prove that libraries are about more than just books.