The Library Book
- ISBN-10
- 1476740194
- ISBN-13
- 9781476740195
- Series
- The Library Book
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 336
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2019-10-01
- Publisher
- Simon & Schuster
- Author
- Susan Orlean
Description
Susan Orlean’s bestseller and New York Times Notable Book is “a sheer delight…as rich in insight and as varied as the treasures contained on the shelves in any local library” (USA TODAY)—a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries. “Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book” (The Washington Post). On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand 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 “delightful…reflection on the past, present, and future of libraries in America” (New York magazine) that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before. In the “exquisitely written, consistently entertaining” (The New York Times) 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; brings each department of the library to vivid life; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago. “A book lover’s dream…an ambitiously researched, elegantly written book that serves as a portal into a place of history, drama, culture, and stories” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks 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.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
The Library Book
Using memoir, history, polemic and some short stories too, The Library Book celebrates 'that place where they lend you books for free' and the people who work there.
-
The Library Book
In the introductory essay, Manguel considers the story of the library in America, its evolving architecture and cultural role, and how the American model reflects the archetypal idea of the universal library.
-
Library Book, The: Design Collaborations in the Public Schools
By Anooradha Iyer SiddiqiThe L!brary Book concludes with the chapter How to Make a Library which shows how community organizers and architects can pursue similar initiatives in their own communities.
-
A Library Book for Bear
By Bonny BeckerFeatures an audio read-along! Bear does not want to go to the library. He is quite sure he already has all the books he will ever need. Yet the relentlessly cheery Mouse, small and gray and bright-eyed, thinks different.
-
The Little Free Library Book
By Margret AldrichTraces the story of the grassroots initiative to promote literacy and encourage community through front-yard book exchanges, chronicling how the movement expanded throughout 70 countries. 10,000 first printing.
-
The Midnight Library: A Novel
By Matt HaigOne 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.
-
The Library of the Unwritten
By A. J. HackwithIn the first book in a brilliant new fantasy series, books that aren't finished by their authors reside in the Library of the Unwritten in Hell, and it is up to the Librarian to track down any restless characters who emerge from those ...
-
When I Went to the Library: Writers Celebrate Books and Reading
By Debora PearsonA collection of stories brings to the life the traditions of the library, from a boy who finds solace against the impending death of his grandmother to a young Chinese woman who uses books to escape from her life.
-
The Monk of Mokha
By Dave EggersThe Monk of Mokha is the exhilarating true story of a young Yemeni American man, raised in San Francisco, who dreams of resurrecting the ancient art of Yemeni coffee but finds himself trapped in Sana’a by civil war.
-
Lost in the Library: A Story of Patience & Fortitude
By Josh Funk"Patience, one of the New York Public Library lions, is missing and Fortitude, the other lion, searches the building from top to bottom seeking him"--Provided by publisher.