LIBRARY BLOG
Happy National Library Lovers Month!
Here’s a fun fact: February is National Library Lover’s Month! In honor of the momentous occasion, here’s a list of books set in libraries or about libraries from all over our collection.
Children’s Fiction
At the Library (I Spy)
Spencer Brinker
2019
Look around the library! What do you spy? This title uses a repetitive sentence pattern and strong visual cues to help young readers discover wonderful things at the library. This book features repetitive and predictable text and incorporates high-frequency and familiar sight words. Children just learning how to read will love these colorful and engaging nonfiction books.
The Book Hog
Pizzoli, Greg
2019
The Book Hog loves books—the way they look, the way they feel, the way they smell—and he’ll grab whatever he can find. There’s only one problem: he can’t read! But when a kind librarian invites him to join for storytime, this literature-loving pig discovers the treasure that books really are.
A Girl, a Raccoon, and the Midnight Moon
Karen Romano Young
2019
Reading is believing. Pearl can’t imagine her life anywhere else than the Lancaster Avenue branch of the New York City Library, where her mom is the librarian. Then the head of the statue in the library’s garden is stolen, and everything changes. The city decides that if the crime isn’t solved or the building isn’t extensively repaired, the library—the only home Pearl has ever known—must close. Luckily, Pearl’s not the only one who loves the library like it’s family. There’s Bruce, the manager and her mom’s boyfriend, who’s determined to convince the mayor that circulation numbers are on the rise; and Oleg, a boy obsessed with rocks who’s certain he can carve a new head for the statue. There’s constantly tap-dancing new girl Francine, whose pluck and optimism have Pearl thinking that she might finally understand what all those books about friendship are making such a fuss about. And what about the resourceful, uniquely skilled raccoons who live in the library basement? With an eclectic cast of richly drawn characters, a hint of just-around-the-corner magic, and Jessixa Bagley’s classic illustrations throughout, this warm-hearted tale of reading and raccoons from beloved author Karen Romano Young tells of a world where the stories you believe in make all the difference.
The Night Library
David Zeltser
2019
What can you do when you’ve lost your love of books? A mighty lion takes a reluctant reader on an enchanted nighttime journey across the city skyline to a huge public library. There, books magically tumble from the shelves and create scenes from stories the boy used to love. Seeing this fantastic display reminds him that he once loved reading. And when magic reveals the boy’s late grandfather patiently reading to him, he begins to understand what books have done for him and the people he loves.
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library (Mr. Lemoncello’s Library, Book 1)
Chris Grabenstein
2013
Kyle Keeley is the class clown and a huge fan of all games—board games, word games, and particularly video games. His hero, Luigi Lemoncello, the most notorious and creative gamemaker in the world, just so happens to be the genius behind the construction of the new town library. Lucky Kyle wins a coveted spot as one of twelve kids invited for an overnight sleepover in the library, hosted by Mr. Lemoncello and riddled with lots and lots of games. But when morning comes, the doors stay locked. Kyle and the other kids must solve every clue and figure out every secret puzzle to find the hidden escape route.
Young Adult Fiction
Sorcery of Thorns
Margaret Rogerson
2019
All sorcerers are evil. Elisabeth has known that as long as she has known anything. Raised as a foundling in one of Austermeer’s Great Libraries, Elisabeth has grown up among the tools of sorcery—magical grimoires that whisper on the shelves and rattle beneath iron chains. If provoked, they transform into grotesque monsters of ink and leather. She hopes to become a warden, charged with protecting the kingdom from their power.
Then an act of sabotage releases the library’s most dangerous grimoire. Elisabeth’s desperate intervention implicates her in the crime, and she is torn from her home to face justice in the capital. With no one to turn to but her sworn enemy, the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn, and his mysterious demonic servant, she finds herself entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy. Not only could the Great Libraries go up in flames, but the world along with them.
As her alliance with Nathaniel grows stronger, Elisabeth starts to question everything she’s been taught—about sorcerers, about the libraries she so loves, even about herself. For Elisabeth has a power she has never guessed, and a future she could never have imagined.
What You Hide
Natalie D. Richards
2018
On the mirror, in red-brown lipstick smears, is a message that was absolutely not here when I walked in. STAY HIDDEN. It’s not like Mallory wanted to leave home, but it wasn’t safe to stay. So she sleeps at her best friend’s house and spends most of her time at the library figuring out what comes next, determined not to live in fear like her mother. Spencer volunteers at the library. Sure, it’s community service for a stunt he pulled, but he likes the work. And it’s the perfect escape from his parents’ pressure to excel at school, at ice hockey, at everything. Especially after he meets Mallory. Then a tragic death turns their sanctuary into someplace sinister. Ghostly footprints, strange scratching sounds, scrawled messages on bulletin boards and walls… Mallory and Spencer don’t know who or what is responsible, but one thing is for sure: they are not as alone—or as safe—as they thought.
Ink and Bone (Great Library, Book 1)
Rachel Caine
2015
Ruthless and supremely powerful, the Great Library is now a presence in every major city, governing the flow of knowledge to the masses. When Jess Brightwell inadvertently commits heresy by creating a device that could change the world, Jess discovers that those who control the Great Library believe that knowledge is more valuable than any human life—and soon both heretics and books will burn.
Adult Fiction
The Broken Spine
Dorothy St. James
2021
When small-town assistant librarian Tru Beckett sets up a secret book room in her newly modernized library, she discovers that protecting the printed word is harder than she’d ever imagined. In fact, it’s murder. Trudell Becket, known to her friends as Tru, finds herself in a bind when her library in lovely Cypress, South Carolina, is turned into a state-of-the-art bookless “technological center.” A library with no books breaks Tru’s book-loving heart so she decides to rescue hundreds of beloved tomes slated for the town dump. Under the cover of darkness, Tru, along with her best friends-coffee shop owner Tori Green and mysterious bestselling author Flossie Finnegan-Baker-set up a secret bookroom in the library’s basement and prepare to open it to their most loyal, trustworthy patrons. But as Tru and her crew are putting the finishing touches on their new book room, the town manager, who was behind the big push for the library’s transformation, is crushed by an overturned shelf of DVDs. Tru becomes the prime suspect as she hadn’t hid the fact that she hated having all of those wonderful books replaced by tablets and computers. But if she gives the police her alibi, she’ll have to explain about the secret book room and risk losing the books. Tru knows she’s in a heap of trouble, and it doesn’t help that the officer in charge of the case is her old crush from high school, who broke her teenaged heart. To keep herself out of jail and her beloved bookroom up and running, Tru-with the help of Tori, Flossie, and a brown tabby stray cat named Dewey Decimal-decides to investigate. And faster than you can say “Shhhh!” Tru quickly finds herself on the same page with a killer who would love to write her final chapter….
The Midnight Library
Matt Haig
2020
Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?
In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting new novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
The Lions of Fifth Avenue: A Novel
Fiona Davis
2020
It’s 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn’t ask for more out of life—her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open. As her studies take her all over the city, she finds herself drawn to Greenwich Village’s new bohemia, where she discovers the Heterodoxy Club—a radical, all-female group in which women are encouraged to loudly share their opinions on suffrage, birth control, and women’s rights. Soon, Laura finds herself questioning her traditional role as wife and mother. But when valuable books are stolen back at the library, threatening the home and institution she loves, she’s forced to confront her shifting priorities head-on…and may just lose everything in the process. Eighty years later, in 1993, Sadie Donovan struggles with the legacy of her grandmother, the famous essayist Laura Lyons, especially after she’s wrangled her dream job as a curator at the New York Public Library. But the job quickly becomes a nightmare when rare manuscripts, notes, and books for the exhibit Sadie’s running begin disappearing from the library’s famous Berg Collection. Determined to save both the exhibit and her career, the typically risk-adverse Sadie teams up with a private security expert to uncover the culprit. However, things unexpectedly become personal when the investigation leads Sadie to some unwelcome truths about her own family heritage—truths that shed new light on the biggest tragedy in the library’s history.
The Bodies in the Library
Marty Wingate
2019
Hayley Burke has landed a dream job. She is the new curator of Lady Georgiana Fowling’s First Edition library. The library is kept at Middlebank House, a lovely Georgian home in Bath, England. Hayley lives on the premises and works with the finicky Glynis Woolgar, Lady Fowling’s former secretary. Mrs. Woolgar does not like Hayley’s ideas to modernize The First Edition Society and bring in fresh blood. And she is not even aware of the fact that Hayley does not know the first thing about the Golden Age of Mysteries. Hayley is faking it till she makes it, and one of her plans to breathe new life into the Society is actually taking flight—an Agatha Christie fan fiction writers group is paying dues to meet up at Middlebank House. But when one of the group is found dead in the venerable stacks of the library, Hayley has to catch the killer to save the Society and her new job.
The Giver of Stars
Jojo Moyes
2019
Set in Depression-era America, a breathtaking story of five extraordinary women and their remarkable journey through the mountains of Kentucky and beyond, from the author of Me Before You and The Peacock Emporium Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically. The leader, and soon Alice’s greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who’s never asked a man’s permission for anything. They will be joined by three other singular women who become known as the Horseback Librarians of Kentucky. What happens to them—and to the men they love—becomes a classic drama of loyalty, justice, humanity, and passion. Though they face all kinds of dangers, they’re committed to their job—bringing books to people who have never had any, sharing the gift of learning that will change their lives. Based on a true story rooted in America’s past, The Giver of Stars is unparalleled in its scope. At times funny, at others heartbreaking, this is a richly rewarding novel of women’s friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond.
The Starless Sea
Erin Morgenstern
2019
Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a rare book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues—a bee, a key, and a sword—that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to a subterranean library, hidden far below the surface of the earth. What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians—it is a place of lost cities and seas of honey, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also those who are intent on its destruction. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a beautiful barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly-soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose—in both the rare book and in his own life.
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek: A Novel
Kim Michele Richardson
2019
In 1936, tucked deep into the woods of Troublesome Creek, KY, lives blue-skinned 19-year-old Cussy Carter, the last living female of the rare Blue People ancestry. The lonely young Appalachian woman joins the historical Pack Horse Library Project of Kentucky and becomes a librarian, riding across slippery creek beds and up treacherous mountains on her faithful mule to deliver books and other reading material to the impoverished hill people of Eastern Kentucky. Along her dangerous route, Cussy, known to the mountain folk as Bluet, confronts those suspicious of her damselfly-blue skin and the government’s new book program. She befriends hardscrabble and complex fellow Kentuckians, and is fiercely determined to bring comfort and joy, instill literacy, and give to those who have nothing, a bookly respite, a fleeting retreat to faraway lands.
The Library Book
Susan Orlean
2018
On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, “Once that first stack got going, it was ‘Goodbye, Charlie.'” The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who?
Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.
In The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries across the country and around the world, from their humble beginnings as a metropolitan charitable initiative to their current status as a cornerstone of national identity; brings each department of the library to vivid life through on-the-ground reporting; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; reflects on her own experiences in libraries; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago.
Along the way, Orlean introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters from libraries past and present—from Mary Foy, who in 1880 at eighteen years old was named the head of the Los Angeles Public Library at a time when men still dominated the role, to Dr. C.J.K. Jones, a pastor, citrus farmer, and polymath known as “The Human Encyclopedia” who roamed the library dispensing information; from Charles Lummis, a wildly eccentric journalist and adventurer who was determined to make the LA library one of the best in the world, to the current staff, who do heroic work every day to ensure that their institution remains a vital part of the city it serves.
Brimming with her signature wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research, The Library Book is Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks that reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country. It is also a master journalist’s reminder that, perhaps especially in the digital era, they are more necessary than ever.
Death Overdue (Haunted Library Mystery, Book 1)
Allison Brook
2017
Carrie Singleton is just about done with Clover Ridge, Connecticut. Then she’s offered a job as the head of programs and events at the local library—which comes complete with its own ghost. Her first major event is a program presented by retired homicide detective Al Buckley, who claims he knows who murdered Laura Foster, a much-loved part-time library aide who was bludgeoned to death fifteen years earlier. As he invites members of the audience to share stories about Laura, he suddenly keels over and dies. He was poisoned—and Carrie feels responsible. She’s convinced he was murdered by the same man who killed Laura all those years ago. Luckily for Carrie, she has a friendly, knowledgeable ghost by her side.
Books Can Be Deceiving (A Library Lover’s Mystery, Book 1)
Jenn McKinlay
2011
Lindsey is getting into her groove as the director of the Briar Creek Public Library when a New York editor visits town, creating quite a buzz. Lindsey’s friend Beth wants to sell the editor her children’s book, but Beth’s boyfriend, a famous author, gets in the way. When they go to confront him, he’s found murdered—and Beth is the prime suspect. Lindsey has to act fast—before they throw the book at the wrong person.
Murder Past Due (A Cat in the Stacks Mystery, Book 1)
Miranda James
2010
Everyone in Athena, Mississippi, knows Charlie Harris, the good-natured librarian who walks his rescued Maine coon cat, Diesel, on a leash. Godfrey Priest, famous author of gory bestsellers and Charlie’s former classmate, is the pride of Athena. Charlie remembers him as an arrogant jerk, and he’s not alone. Godfrey’s homecoming as a distinguished alumnus couldn’t possibly go worse: by lunch, he’s put a man in the hospital. By dinner, Godfrey’s dead.
Juvenile Nonfiction
Our Library
Lisa J. Amstutz
2020
The library is a very important place in our community. Lots of community helpers work at libraries. Readers will learn about who works at a library, what the workers do, and what makes a library special. Simple, at-level text and vibrant photos help readers learn all about libraries in the community.
Libraries
Emma Bassier
2020
Vivid photographs and easy-to-read text introduce readers to the purpose, people, and layout of libraries. Early readers will learn the correct way to interact with librarians and how to use the libraries resources. Features include a table of contents, an infographic, fun facts, Making Connections questions, a glossary, and an index. QR Codes in the book give readers access to book-specific resources to further their learning. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards.
Find a Book!
Shannon Miller
2018
Finding the right book in a large library can be intimidating. But tips from a friendly librarian, along with catchy lyrics and colorful illustrations, present basic library search functions in a simple, kid-friendly manner. This hardcover book comes with a CD and online music access.
Nonfiction Adult
Moving Archives
Linda M. Morra
2020
The image of the dusty, undisturbed archive has been swept away in response to growing interest across disciplines in the materials they house and the desire to find and make meaning through an engagement with those materials. Archival studies scholars and archivists are developing related theoretical frameworks and practices that recognize that the archives are anything but static. Archival deposits are proliferating, and the architects, practitioners, and scholars engaged with them are scarcely able to keep abreast of them. Archives, archival theory, and archival practice are on the move.
But what of the archives that were once safely housed and have since been lost, or are under threat? What of the urgency that underscores the appeals made on behalf of these archives? As scholars in this volume argue, archives-their materialization, their preservation, and the research produced about them-are moving in a different way: they are involved in an emotionally engaged and charged process, one that acts equally upon archival subjects and those engaged with them. So too do archives at once represent members of various communities and the fields of study drawn to them.
Moving Archives grounds itself in the critical trajectory related to what Sara Ahmed calls “affective economies” to offer fresh insights about the process of archiving and approaching literary materials. These economies are not necessarily determined by ethical impulses, although many scholars have called out for such impulses to underwrite current archival practices; rather, they form the crucial affective contexts for the legitimization of archival caches in the present moment and for future use.
Syria’s Secret Library: Reading and Redemption in a Town Under Siege
Mike Thompson
2019
Daraya lies on the fringe of Damascus, just southwest of the Syrian capital. Yet for four years it lived in another world. Besieged by government forces early in the Syrian Civil War, its people were deprived of food, bombarded by heavy artillery, and under the constant fire of snipers. But deep beneath this scene of frightening devastation lay a hidden library. While the streets above echoed with shelling and rifle fire, the secret world below was a haven of books.
Long rows of well-thumbed volumes lined almost every wall: bloated editions with grand leather covers, pocket-sized guides to Syrian poetry, and no-nonsense reference books, all arranged in well-ordered lines. But this precious horde was not bought from publishers or loaned by other libraries—they were the books salvaged and scavenged at great personal risk from the doomed city above.
The story of this extraordinary place and the people who found purpose and refuge in it is one of hope, human resilience, and above all, the timeless, universal love of literature and the compassion and wisdom it fosters.
Spreading the Gospel of Books : Essae M. Culver and the Genesis of Louisiana Parish Libraries
Florence M. Jumonville
2019
In 1925, Essae Martha Culver, a California librarian, arrived in Louisiana to direct a three-year project funded by the Carnegie Corporation that aimed to introduce public libraries to rural populations. Culver purchased a round-trip ticket, but she never used the second half. Instead, she stayed in Louisiana the rest of her life, working tirelessly to see libraries established in every parish by 1969.
In Spreading the Gospel of Books, Florence M. Jumonville chronicles the impressive, colorful history of Louisiana parish libraries and the State Library of Louisiana. She draws upon Culver’s journals and library reports, in addition to correspondence, scrapbooks, and State Library internal documents, and includes photos from five decades, many never before published. The campaign to persuade individual parishes to financially support a library of their own was a long, uphill pull through poverty and politics, flood and famine, discouragement and depression, war and bureaucracy, ignorance and prejudice. Culver credited success to the citizens, whose thirst for books and embrace of the idea of a library inspired perseverance.
In time, Culver’s Louisiana plan served as an exemplar of library development elsewhere in the United States as well as abroad. Culver touched the lives of generations of Louisianians who have never heard her name. Spreading the Gospel of Books is her story, along with that of colleagues and supporters, of making the dream of library service come true for all.
Leading From The Library
Shannon McClintock Miller and Bass William
2019
The modern school library supports education in a variety of ways. One essential role librarians play is that of a leader who works collaboratively to build relationships, mold culture and climate, and advocate for the needs of students and the community.
In this book, a librarian and an education leader team up to reflect on the librarian’s ability to build connections in two ways. First, they discuss the benefits of bringing the outside world into the library through the use of social media, videoconferencing and other tools that allow librarians to partner with others. Then they expand upon these connections by addressing how librarians can lead in the greater educational community by sharing resources and strategies, and partnering with school leaders to tell the story of the school community.
Through this book, librarians will discover the influence they can have on the school community as the library becomes the heart of the school, a place where problems are solved, content is explored, connections are made and discovery happens.
Getting Your Book Into Libraries
Eric Otis Simmons
2019
In “Getting Your Book Into Libraries,” Simmons lays out the methodology and strategy he developed to successfully get his self-published books into 85 libraries, including 7 of America’s largest, in less than two years, and without paying for expensive book reviews!
Based on Simmons’ article, “How To Get Your Books Into Libraries,” posted by Joanna Penn from TheCreativePenn.com, that generated 4,061 interactions, from readers in thirty (30) countries not long after its posting, and became the top Google search result, out of 1 billion, on the subject.
– The first known book on the topic of how Authors can get their books into libraries!
The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders
Stuart Kells
2018
Libraries are much more than mere collections of volumes. The best are magical, fabled places whose fame has become part of the cultural wealth they are designed to preserve. Some still exist today; some are lost, like those of Herculaneum and Alexandria; some have been sold or dispersed; and some never existed, such as those libraries imagined by J.R.R. Tolkien, Umberto Eco, and Jorge Luis Borges, among others.
Ancient libraries, grand baroque libraries, scientific libraries, memorial libraries, personal libraries, clandestine libraries: Stuart Kells tells the stories of their creators, their prizes, their secrets, and their fate. To research this book, Kells traveled around the world with his young family like modern-day “Library Tourists.” Kells discovered that all the world’s libraries are connected in beautiful and complex ways, that in the history of libraries, fascinating patterns are created and repeated over centuries. More important, he learned that stories about libraries are stories about people, containing every possible human drama.
The Library is a fascinating and engaging exploration of libraries as places of beauty and wonder. It’s a celebration of books as objects, a celebration of the anthropology and physicality of books and bookish space, and an account of the human side of these hallowed spaces by a leading and passionate bibliophile.
The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures
Library of Congress
2017
This is THE book for book lovers! Straight from the Library of Congress, it’s a charming treasure trove celebrating the magic and nostalgia of books and libraries. A visual celebration of the Library of Congress card catalog system, as well as rarely seen treasures in the collection, features images of original catalog cards, first edition book covers, and photographs from the library’s archives.
DVDs
The Public
2019
Emilio Estevez directs and stars as Stuart, a librarian who helps a group of local homeless people take refuge from a brutal winter night by staging a sit-in at the free public library. As Stuart and his co-worker Myra (Jena Malone) work to get these “patrons,” led by Jackson (Michael K. Williams), situated, the library’s security team calls the police. A misunderstanding combined with the eagerness of a politician (Christian Slater) and a TV reporter (Gabrielle Union) to advance their own agendas leads to their noble act being confused for a hostage situation.
We have more book lists for you to browse at your leisure!
– Lillian, Reference Department