{"id":34,"date":"2019-06-13T16:54:06","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T16:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/?page_id=34"},"modified":"2019-10-05T17:29:13","modified_gmt":"2019-10-05T17:29:13","slug":"the-library-book","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/books\/the-library-book\/","title":{"rendered":"The Library Book"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Order from BN.com<\/a>
\nOrder from IndieBound<\/a>
\nOrder from Amazon<\/a>
\nMore of my books…<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The Library Book<\/h1>\n

I grew up in libraries, or so it seems. My mother and I would take regular trips to the branch library near my house at least twice a week, and those trips were enchanted. The very air in the library seemed charged with possibility and imagination; books seem to have their own almost human vitality.But over time, I had become more of a book buyer than a book borrower, and I had begun to forget how magical libraries are. I never stopped loving libraries, but they receded in my mind, and seemed like a piece of my past.<\/p>\n

And then I started taking my own son to the library, and I was reminded instantly and vividly of how much libraries had meant to me, how formative they were to my love of reading and writing, and how much they mean to us as a culture. The next thing I knew, I was investigating the largest library fire in the history of the United States. The life and times and near-death experience of the Los Angeles Public Library was a story that felt urgent to tell, and gave me a chance to pay tribute to these marvelous places that have been such an essential part of my life.<\/p>\n

About the Book<\/h3>\n

Susan Orlean re-opens the unsolved mystery of the most catastrophic library fire in American history, and delivers a dazzling homage to a beloved institution \u2013 our libraries. On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. Raging through the stacks, the fire reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. It was the largest library fire in the history of the United States: it destroyed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more, and shut the library down for seven years. The mystery remains: did someone purposefully set fire to the library\u2014and if so, who?<\/p>\n

Weaving her life-long love of books and reading with the fascinating history of libraries and the sometimes-eccentric characters who run them, award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Orlean presents a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling story. With her signature wit, insight, compassion and talent for deep research, she investigates the legendary Los Angeles Public Library fire to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives, and reveals how these buildings provide much more than just books and are needed now more than ever.<\/p>\n

What People are Saying about The Library Book<\/h3>\n

\u201cMoving . . . A constant pleasure to read . . . Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book. . . . Orlean, a longtime New Yorker 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\u2019s 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 booklover in America is going to give or get this book. . . . You can\u2019t help but finish The Library Book and feel grateful that these marvelous places belong to us all.\u201d
\n\u2014Ron Charles, The Washington Post <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cA sheer delight. . . . Orlean has created a book as rich in insight and as varied as the treasures contained on the shelves in any local library.\u201d
\n\u2014Chris Woodyard, USA Today <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cExquisitely written, consistently entertaining . . . A loving tribute not just to a place or an institution but to an idea . . . What makes The Library Book so enjoyable is the sense of discovery that propels it, the buoyancy when Orlean is surprised or moved by what she finds. . . . Her depiction of the Central Library fire on April 29, 1986, is so rich with specifics that it\u2019s like a blast of heat erupting from the page. . . . The Library Book is about the fire and the mystery of how it started\u2014but in some ways that\u2019s the least of it. It\u2019s also a history of libraries, and of a particular library, as well as the personal story of Orlean and her mother, who was losing her memory to dementia while Orlean was retrieving her own memories by writing this book.\u201d
\n\u2014Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cCaptivating . . . A delightful love letter to public libraries . . . In telling the story of this one library, Orlean reminds readers of the spirit of them all, their mission to welcome and equalize and inform, the wonderful depths and potential that they\u2014and maybe all of us, as well\u2014contain. . . . In other hands the book would have been a notebook dump, packed with random facts that weren\u2019t germane but felt too hard-won or remarkable to omit. Orlean\u2019s lapidary skills include both unearthing the data and carving a storyline out of the sprawl, piling up such copious and relevant details that I wondered how many mountains of research she discarded for each page of jewels.\u201d
\n\u2014Rebekah Denn, Christian Science Monitor <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cA flitting and meandering masterpiece . . . Compelling and undeniably riveting . . . This is a joyful book, and among its many pleasures is the reader\u2019s ability to palpate the author\u2019s thrill as she zooms down from stratospheric viewings of history, to viscerally detailed observations of events and people, and finally to the kind of irresistibly offbeat facts that create an equally irresistible portrait of the author herself.\u201d
\n\u2014J. C. Hallman, San Francisco Chronicle <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cVivid . . . Compelling . . . Ms. Orlean interweaves a memoir of her life in books, a whodunit, a history of Los Angeles, and a meditation on the rise and fall and rise of civic life in the United States. . . . By turns taut and sinuous, intimate and epic, Ms. Orlean\u2019s account evokes the rhythms of a life spent in libraries . . . bringing to life a place and an institution that represents the very best of America: capacious, chaotic, tolerant and even hopeful, with faith in mobility of every kind, even, or perhaps especially, in the face of adversity.\u201d
\n\u2014Jane Kamenski, The Wall Street Journal <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201c[A] loving encomium to libraries everywhere.\u201d
\n\u2014Sue Halpern, The New York Review of Books <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cA lovely book . . . Susan Orlean has once again found rich material where no one else has bothered to look for it. . . . Once again, she\u2019s demonstrated that the feelings of a writer, if that writer is sufficiently talented and her feelings sufficiently strong, can supply her own drama. You really never know how seriously interesting a subject might be until such a person takes a serious interest in it.\u201d
\n\u2014Michael Lewis, New York Times Book Review, Cover Review <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cA book lover\u2019s dream . . . This is an ambitiously researched, elegantly written book that serves as a portal into a place of history, drama, culture, and stories.\u201d
\n\u2014Jeffrey Ann Goudie, Minneapolis Star Tribune<\/strong> <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Susan Orlean fishes for a story, she reels in a hidden world. And so the latest delightful trawl from the author of Rin Tin Tin and The Orchid Thief starts with the tale of the 1986 fire that damaged or destroyed 700,000 books in the Los Angeles Central Library. But The Library Book pans out quickly to the fractious, eccentric history of the institution and then, almost inevitably, a reflection on the past, present, and future of libraries in America. Orlean follows the narrative in all directions, juxtaposing the hunt for the library arsonist\u2014possibly a frustrated actor\u2014with a philosophical treatise on why and how libraries became the closest thing many of us experience to a town hall.\u201d
\n\u2014Hillary Kelly, New York Magazine <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cLike an amble through the rooms and the stacks of a library, where something unexpected and interesting can be discovered on any page.\u201d
\n\u2014Scott Simon, NPR\u2019s Weekend Edition <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMesmerizing . . . A riveting mix of true crime, history, biography, and immersion journalism. . . . Probing, prismatic, witty, dramatic, and deeply appreciative, Orlean\u2019s chronicle celebrates libraries as sanctuaries, community centers, and open universities run by people of commitment, compassion, creativity, and resilience.\u201d
\n\u2014Booklist (starred review) <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cEngaging . . . Bibliophiles will love this fact-filled, bookish journey.\u201d
\n\u2014Kirkus Reviews <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, I will always read anything that Susan Orlean writes\u2014and I would encourage you to do the same, regardless of the topic, because she\u2019s always brilliant. But The Library Book is a particularly beautiful and soul-expanding book\u2014even by Orleanean standards. You\u2019re going to hear a lot about how important this story is, for shining a spotlight on libraries and the heroic people who run them. That\u2019s all true, but there\u2019s an even better reason to read it\u2014because it will keep you spellbound from first page to last. Don\u2019t miss out on this one, people!” \u2014Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love and Big Magic <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a book only Susan Orlean could have written. Somehow she manages to transform the story of a library fire into the story of literacy, civil service, municipal infighting and vision, public spaces in an era of increasingly privatization and social isolation, the transformation of Los Angeles from small provincial hamlet to innovative collossus and model of civic engagement\u2014and the central role libraries have always and will always play in the life and health of a bustling democracy. Beyond all that, like any good library, it\u2019s bursting with incredible tales and characters. There could be no better book for the bookish.\u201d
\n\u2014Dave Eggers, author of The Circle and The Monk of Mokha <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cSusan Orlean has long been one of our finest storytellers, and she proves it again with The Library Book. A beautifully written and richly reported account, it sheds new light on a thirty-year-old mystery\u2014and, what\u2019s more, offers a moving tribute to the invaluableness of libraries.\u201d
\n\u2014David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Lost City of Z <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter reading Susan Orlean\u2019s The Library Book, I\u2019m quite sure I\u2019ll never look at libraries, or librarians, the same way again. This is classic Orlean\u2014an exploration of a devastating fire becomes a journey through a world of infinite richness, populated with unexpected characters doing unexpected things, with unexpected passion.\u201d
\n\u2014Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City, In the Garden of Beasts, and Dead Wake<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Order from BN.com Order from IndieBound Order from Amazon More of my books… The Library Book I grew up in libraries, or so it seems. My mother and I would take regular trips to the branch library near my house at least twice a week, and those trips were enchanted. The very air in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":10,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-34","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34\/revisions\/249"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}