I am a librarian. 

Much like Evie in the Mummy I am clumsy, passionate, and more than willing to carry heavy books around in the event of the upcoming apocalypse. 

Librarians have to go to Library school. We talk to other librarians. We tend to know a bit about our own profession.

So when this book about a fire at the Los Angeles Public Library came out I was intrigued. 

I care about my professional development. I work in a special collection with rare books. I had never heard of the biggest library fire in the country. 

My coworkers had not heard of it.

My interns, currently library students working on disaster preparedness plans for class had not hear of it.

So in I dove. 

First, some of the positives.

I felt seen.

Susan Orlean begins The Library Book but explaining her relationship to libraries. It is personal and it also takes some detours. By the time she moves to Los Angeles and finds the inspiration to write about the LA Library fire she was is longer a regular patron anywhere. Bookstores are here default home.

I can relate. Which is a sad thing to say as a librarian. However this is another post for another day.

As an incentive for me to actually finish the book, and to get some of my fellow Librarians in on the wild ride I made this my staff book club pick for June. The discussion it provoked was moving. Books about books and book lovers tend to fall into two camps, saccharine or clinical. The Library Book toes the line between the two in such a way to allow for critical discussion while also being able to reflect on the importance of books in the reader’s life. 

The Library Book is actually 3 stories in one. It is the story of the Los Angeles Library fire that took out over a million items and severely damaged the building, a tale of public libraries in LA, and in a way all of America, and a textbook about the many different careers available in library systems. 

I was here for 2 of these things. The blurb told me about the fire. I love me some true crime. Unfortunately this is where the Library Book falls flat. Sometimes the idea of a story is more interesting than the story itself. SPOILER ALERT (though this is a historical fact) To this day no one knows how the LA Library fire started. No one was ever prosecuted. This makes for a bit of a true crime dud.

Orlean compensates by giving the reader a full history of the LA Library system from boys club to haven for all. I found these sections fascinating. Each director came off the page with such personality. It was easy to see American culture reflected in the issues the library faced during each decade, each century. 

Lastly, The Library Book highlights the different jobs and individuals working in the LA Library Main Branch. 

As an industry professional I thought these sections, while thoughtful, lacked a lot of substance. They were fluff pieces to make up for the fact that the fire couldn’t carry the whole book. I don’t need to see it in writing to know that library work is important. 

This was always going to be a bit of a hard sell.

Overall I really did enjoy The Library Book. I am glad I spent a week learning more about library history. I cherish the time I spent talking with my coworkers about this book. It is the definition of a book club book. It provokes discussion, side tangents, and personal musings just by existing. It also gave my non librarian coworkers a new language to use when they interact with me. It lead them to questions about my work that were both surprising and thoughtful. 

Definitely pick this up with a book club. Come for the fire. Stay for the history. If you’re a librarian be prepared for some dry bits, but they’re totally worth it in the end.