Book Club November 2019 – The Library Book, Susan Orlean

“Moving… A constant pleasure to read… Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book… Orlean, a longtime New York writer, has been captivating us with human stories for decades, and her latest book is a wide-ranging, deeply personal, and terrifically engaging investigation of humanity’s bulwark against oblivion: the library… As a narrator, Orlean moves like fire herself, with a pyrotechnic style that smolders for a time over some ancient bibliographic tragedy, leaps to the latest technique in book restoration, and then illuminates the story of a wildly eccentric librarian. Along the way, we learn how libraries have evolved, responded to depressions and wars, and generally thrived despite a constant struggle for funds. Over the holidays, every book lover in America is going to give or get this book… You can’t help but finish The Library Book and feel grateful that these marvelous places belong to us all.”

—Ron Charles, The Washington Post