Historical Fiction Books About Libraries

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 require courage to survive.

In 1976, Kathleen was 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

Dita, a 14-year-old girl, was imprisoned by the Nazis at Auschwitz after being taken from Prague. She’s still trying to adjust to the daily terror she is surrounded by when Jewish leader Freddy Hirsch asks her to be in charge of the eight precious books that have been smuggled inside the camp.

When she agrees, she becomes the Librarian of Auschwitz and works to provide courage and hope inside a horrific place.

Book Summary

As Lacey looks through her grandmother’s papers, she’s surprised to find a mysterious letter stamped with the Windsor Castle crest. She’s from Philadelphia, so why would her family have something from the British Royal Family? Her grandmother doesn’t want to talk about it, but Lacey is determined to find answers, even if she needs to travel to England to do so.

In 1938, Sophie and her sister were orphaned in Austria. In an effort to save her younger sister, she sent her on a ship to America with a couple that was rescuing children. Sophia stayed in Europe and found work with the British government, where she was assigned to work in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. There, she finds out that Windsor Castle is compromised and the young royal sisters, Elizabeth and Margaret, must be protected at all costs.

Book Summary

In 1943, two American best friends, Selene and Beatrice, who were both librarians in Boston before being trained by the U.S. Intelligence Office and sent to Lisbon. While their official job is to catalog all the information gathered by the Allies, they’re also undercover at night trying to infiltrate the Axis spy network.

Selene is soon charming her way through the lavish world of the outcast Portuguese baron, Luca. Meanwhile, Beatrice is plunged into the shadowy world of informants and double agents. While they both must succeed in their missions to achieve victory for the US and the Allies, a betrayal risks everything they have worked for.

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

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

In the final year of WW1, Jessie took a leave of absence 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 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

In a small town in Maine, Avis Montgomery’s brother has left for the European Front. His departure leaves her in charge of the small town library despite not being much of a reader. However, when wartime resource limitations threaten to close the library, she does everything she can to save it, including starting a library book club.

The club’s new attendees couldn’t be more different, but all need an escape from the news of the war abroad and of the U-boat battles happening right off their coast. However, the growing friendships between the members are tested by secrets of the past and present.

Book Summary

Hana is a middle-aged librarian who just wants to be left alone. But then a detective arrives to share the terrible news that her best friend has been murdered. She knows that the past she shared with her friend has caught up to them.

Thirty years earlier, Hana’s name was Nura. She was a normal teen in the mountains of Bosnia until Serbian soldiers slaughtered her entire family in front of her. The horrific event led her to join a militia, where she rose through the ranks to become a legend. Eventually, she fled to the US with a bounty on her head.

Now, she has custody of her friend’s grandson. To protect the child, she must find the killer before the past finds them.

Book Summary

Millie is a Works Progress Administration (WPA) editor sent to Montana in 1936 to work on the state’s American Guide Series. The travel books were designed to help provide jobs for writers struggling amid the Depression. When she arrives, the eclectic staff claims they’ve been sabotaged by the powerful Copper Kings, who don’t want the world to read about their bloody fights with union organizers.

However, Millie believes the town’s mysterious librarian, Alice Monroe, might be involved. A decade earlier, Alice created the Boxcar Library to deliver books to isolated mining towns. She hired Colette, a miner’s daughter, to staff the library. While both women went out on the inaugural journey of the Boxcar Library, only Alice returned.

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

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

Book woman Cussy Mary Carter is not only Troublesome Creek’s own traveling library but 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

This historical fiction novel is based on the remarkable true story of J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian, a Black woman who became one of the most powerful women in NYC at the turn of the century.

Belle da Costa Greene was working at the Princeton University Library when J.P. Morgan’s nephew recommended her for a position curating a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and art books for his uncle’s newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. This position of prominence made her one of the most influential people in the art and book world. She became a fixture on the New York social scene.

But Belle had a secret that could change everything. She led people to believe that her dark complexion was the result of her alleged Portuguese heritage. In truth, however, she was born Bella Marion Greener – the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard University.

Book Summary

When English Alice Wright marries an American, she looks forward to moving to the US. But life in Kentucky comes with an overbearing father-in-law, so Alice takes an opportunity to join Eleanor Roosevelt’s team of traveling packhorse librarians. 

Alice bands together with Margery and three other women to become the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky. They must rely on friendship, courage, and perseverance in this beautiful story about making a difference.