I read The Librarianist with an advanced readers copy from Netgalley.com. The book tells the story of a retired librarian who volunteers at a senior living center. In many ways I felt the protagonist shared traits with Frederik Backman's "Ove." In this instance, the protagonist, Bob Comet is a bibliophile who other than a short marriage in which his wife ran off with his best friend, has lived a solitary life. The novel tells a story of Bob's experiences at the senior center, then flashbacks to his young adulthood and marriage and its unraveling. At one point the book flashes back in an extended sequence to when Bob was eleven and ran away from home. This section of the book was both interesting to read, and yet also confusing in it wasn't really clear how it fit or why it was necessary for the ultimate resolution of the story.

All this said, the book was well written and enjoyable to read.

The Librarianist could have been a treacly, sentimental fable about the wisdom of age, found family, and altruism; but deWitt offers instead a story that retains its sweetness without being cloying. The novel is structured as a deep character study with events in the protagonist’s life revealed within two timelines. Bob Comet numbly follows his routines and seeks only modest comforts, content to immerse himself only in the company of books. On one of his regular trips to the store, he sees a confused woman in a catatonic state near the freezer section. Despite Bob’s introverted nature, the retired librarian feels compelled to help the woman, returning her to her proper home. From this one small act, the novel illustrates how Bob rediscovers the latent yearning for connection and adventure from his youth. The reader becomes intimately acquainted with the septuagenarian, learning about some of his formative relationships and adventures, providing a deeper understanding of the man’s true nature. DeWitt treats his elderly cast with respect and humor: although he does occasionally resort to familiar stereotypes, especially with some of the book’s side characters. Charming, witty, and well-balanced: the Librarianist is a balm for modern cynicism. Bob is richly rewarded for the daring disruption of his insular and well-worn path, and with this skillful depiction, the reader is as well.

Thanks to the author, Ecco/Harper Collins and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

Loved this so much! I can’t wait to read more by this author! I hope they continue to keep making more and more books like this one.

Bob Comet is a 71-year-old retired librarian. One day he comes across a non-verbal woman in a convenience store. When he reads the tag around her neck he guides her back to the Gambell-Reed Senior Center, from which she has run away.


Bob tours the Senior Center and thinks he would like to volunteer there. First he tries reading to the residents but they don’t seem interested:


“He understood that he was going to work his way towards visibility, to earn the right to be seen by these people, which he believed was fair, and correct.”


Bob tries again taking a more philosophical approach in a lecture about literacy:


“‘Why read at all?….There is an element of escape…but also we read as a way to come to grips with the randomness of of our being alive. To read a book by an observant, sympathetic mind is to see the human landscape in all its odd detail, and the reader says to him or herself, Yes that’s how it is, only I didn’t know it to describe it.’”


Bob gives up the reading idea and becomes instead a friendly and stable helper at the center.


Through a series of flashbacks we learn that Bob had a difficult childhood. Once he ran away from home and for 4 days had an exciting adventure with two women performers who took him in as part of their act.


In another series of flashbacks we learn that Bob had once been married, but that his wife Connie had run away with his best friend, Ethan, who was more dynamic than he was.


“There had been whole eras of Bob’s working life where he knew a lamentation at the smallness of his existence.”


Bob makes a disturbing discovery about one of the residents at the Senior Center that causes him to stop volunteering for awhile. When he meets the resident’s son, it leads to a sense of outrage and finally a sense of closure for Bob.

“Was it not too late in the game to make a change to one’s own personality? To suddenly begin action in a new way?”

The Librarianist was written by Patrick deWitt, a Canadian author known for his black comedy style in his previous titles French Exit and Sisters Brothers. In The Librarianist, deWitt explores what it is to be an introvert, with empathy and humor. Full review at RipeReads.net - book by and about adults 50+

Hardcover 354 pages, Audiobook 10 Hours

I must admit, having high expectations from French Exit, I was disappointed by this one. Usually I appreciate an out of order timeline, however with this one the 1945 section of the novel completely derailed and ruined the narrative for me. This section was mildly important for developing Bob as a character however, given how interwoven the other sections were I believe this one could have been completely removed or at least used to start the novel.

Loved Bob, loved the character study. So charming. I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time.

A sweet and satisfying story based on a premise we’ve seen many times before.

I didn’t mind this but prefer deWitt’s previous work, which was equally well written but also much more original and thought provoking.

This feels a bit tropey and follows the trend of feel good reads about an older person finding new purpose late in life. As a theme this is fine and if you particularly enjoy this type of narrative you’ll certainly like deWitt’s version, which reads well and employs some clever notes.

As themes go this one doesn’t do much for me though, and while I didn’t mind reading it, I felt it lacked originality. The humor isn’t as good as it is in some of deWitt’s other novels, and his spin on the subject isn’t anything new.

In all, a perfectly fine light read, though I would recommend French Exit instead for those who would like to experience deWitt at his best.

A character study, or rather a study of several characters. At the center, Bob Comet, 71, a retired librarian in Portland, Oregon, who spends his days reading, cleaning, taking long walks. He is a man alone, a long-ago ex-wife, he never remarried, has no children, has had no close friend since those long-ago days when another young man named Ethan made Bob his friend, but Bob, despite his solitude, is self-sufficient, and seemingly never lonely. One day, on his long walk, he enters a convenience store and helps a catatonic woman in front of a drinks display case back to where she lives, a nearby retirement center, and ends up volunteering. Despite Bob being a librarian and loving books, books aren't at the center of this novel. Indeed, when Bob offers to volunteer by reading stories or bits of novels to the residents of the center, they are not interested at all. It is when Bob learns the identity of the woman he returned to the care home that the story shifts back in time - Bob as a young man, and then further back again, to Bob at eleven. Characters abound, at the care center, when Bob is a young man and Ethan makes him his friend, when Bob falls in love with Connie and marries her, when Bob, at 11, runs away from home where he lives with his single mother and has an adventure with two elderly traveling actresses. A quiet tale, and while Bob's lamentation for his life is not the focus of it, it is there, wended into the fable. For me, though, the notion that Bob is an old man at the age of 71 didn't feel right. 71 these days is not old at all.

Thanks to Ecco and Netgalley for an ARC.

Sadly, I didn't enjoy this book. It started out really interesting with an older man volunteering at an adult daycare facility. Then there were flashbacks to his early adult years and the bulk of the book was spent in the past. I just couldn't get into it and never grew to care about the characters.

A heartwarming story about Bob Comet, a retired/divorced librarian who starts volunteering at a small nursing home and because of a fall ends up living there. There’s a lot more to this story which is like reading a Mitch Album book. I really enjoyed it.

This book felt like a love letter to librarians and introverts. For those that prefer the company of a good book to party. It also recognized that such introverted book people still have relationships and still enjoy other people.

Bob Comet is a simple man who enjoys the basic routine of life and being a librarian. As he gets older and retires he thinks back in his life. He thinks about his ex-wife who left him for his best friend. Bob doesn't replace either of them with new people. He just finds solice in his books.

One quote from the book explained perfectly why people read.

"Why read at all? Why does anyone do it in the first place? Why do I? There is the element of escape, which is real enough—that’s a real-enough comfort. But also we read as a way to come to grips with the randomness of our being alive. To read a book by an observant, sympathetic mind is to see the human landscape in all its odd detail, and the reader says to him or herself, Yes, that’s how it is, only I didn’t know it to describe it. There’s a fraternity achieved, then: we are not alone."

It's a quick read. We see different periods of Bob's life, his present, parts of his childhood, and his early adulthood. The connection between the childhood and the rest of the book doesn't really work for me, but I thought of those chapters as a nice vignette.

In the childhood chapters a character explains that a vignette is "a story that’s too small to be called a story, so you call it a vignette. By pretending you’ve made it small on purpose, you avoid the shame that accompanies culpability.”

Overall I enjoyed this more than French Exit and will likely keep a copy for my book themed airbnb. A good book for book peoole.

Any true bibliophile can't resist a book about books, and should run to The Librarianist. Bob Comet is maybe my favorite character I have read all year. He's a quiet man and this a quiet book that spoke right to my soul. Bring some Kleenex!

Patrick deWitt’s The Librarianist sounds like the perfect book for booklovers. To a limited extent, it is. Book-loving Bob Comet must learn the importance of life beyond books.

DeWitt divides his new novel into four multi-chapter parts. Consisting of nine chapters, Part 1 introduces seventy-one year-old Bob, a retired Portland librarian, who spends part of his time walking through life, but mostly reading about it. When he encounters Chip, a lost elderly woman in a convenience store, and returns her to the Gambell-Reed Senior Center, he falls into a volunteer job to help fill his time. What could be better than to call upon his literary expertise to entertain the residents by reading to them? And what could be better at Halloween than than a tale by Edgar Allen Poe? Just as his own failures and employee Maria’s advice start teaching Bob a thing or two about volunteering and as he begins befriending Linus and Jill, two difficult residents, Bob learns something that temporarily calls a halt to his time at Gambell-Reed.

Parts 2 and 3 fill in Bob’s backstory. Part 2 (chapters 10-26) covers Bob’s life from 1942 to 1960. Readers learn about his childhood, his mother, his decision to become a librarian, his friend Ethan, his wife Connie, and about the fateful red string. In Part 3 (27-40), deWitt takes readers back to childhood event about which Bob had dreamed on the opening page of the book—about days eleven-year-old Bob spent at Hotel Elba after running away from home.

Part 4 (41-46) brings the story back to Gambell-Reed Senior Center to which Bob has returned and where he is gradually coming to terms with his past and present lives. Readers wanting to learn more about Bob, Ethan, Connie, Chip, Linus, Jill, Maria, and life with all its insecurities and occasional humor will need to pick up a copy of The Librarianist.

My thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for an advance reader copy.

Shared on GoodReads and Barnes & Noble.

I was looking forward to this tale of a retired librarian, but was disappointed by the writing style. I found way too many instances of where current slang was used when the time period was the 1940s-1950s. Nothing pulls me out of a story quicker than these types of incongruencies. Unfortunately, the writing issues were multiple, with overgeneralizations of character, thoughts and actions which made the writing clunky, and many instances of telling when showing improves the prose.

The plot was okay, although it was slow it fit the story. It was simple really. The middle section of the main character Bob Comet during his childhood when he ran away briefly seemed to have a better quality of writing and saved the book for me to finish.

The Librarianist is award winning author Patrick deWitt's latest novel.

The life of Bob Comet is the heat of the plot. The timeline opens with Bob at seventy one years old, ruminating on his life. The next jump takes us back to Bob as young man, next a child, and finally, circling back to the end.

Bob, in his words and thoughts, lives a small life, and it is and has been enough in his opinion.

"Bob had long given up on the notion of knowing anyone, or of being known. He communicated with the world partly by walking through if, but mainly by reading about it."

I liked Bob immediately and enjoyed his observations of time, people and place. But I also felt sad for him - he seems so very alone. But that view is seen through my own filters and opinions. I loved the childhood time frame and the epic adventure he embarks on. I wanted him continue to grow that venturesome spirit. But on the flipside, his quiet, calm, thoughtful manner is very appealing. And his love for books is much appreciated by this reader.

deWitt's writing is quite different for me. The interactions, escapades, situations, thoughts and more took on the feel of vignettes. The dialogue is often funny, but I had to get used to the bantering, off center style. I quite enjoyed the ending. A bit implausible, but fitting.

If you enjoy character drawn tales, this is for you.

I found deWitt's writing style to be engaging and entertaining. Unfortunately I could not connect with the characters, and since this is a character-driven novel that wasn't a good sign. I loved the first part and wished that this would have just been a story of a retired librarian (or even an active librarian) volunteering. Once we started getting into the flashbacks, I quickly lost interest, and it never really picked up again.

I'm sad to be making this report, but I will be checking out more works from Patrick deWitt. I look forward to it.

Bob lives a quiet life, and that's the way he likes it. A chance encounter with a woman who had gone missing from a senior center leads him to reflect on his past. He had a satisfying career as a librarian, and a brief marriage to a woman named Connie, who left him in dramatic fashion. Bob's present-day life and his young adulthood captivated me, but the chapters about him as a young boy had me scratching my head a bit. I found myself speeding up to get back to the main story.

The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Bob Comet, a retired librarian who has led a life of adventure in reality and in his world of books. The story begins with Bob as he is becoming acquainted to his new life of leisure now that he retired. We follow Bob as he meets new acquaintances and begins the next chapter of his life. We are transported back in time from Bob meeting his ex wife to his childhood and his early days of his career.

I really enjoyed this book and quickly became interested in the variety of experiences Bob lived. I liked the quick and witty banter and how the characters were described so well! Several times in this book I audibly gasped from the neat plot twists. I highly recommend this book if you are looking for a gripping fiction novel!

Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco for this advanced reader’s copy!!! Congratulations to Patrick deWitt and thank you for sharing this novel with the world.

A beautiful novel filled with the full, well-lived life of Bob Comet, a lifelong librarian, now retired in his 70's, Bob is trying to fill his days as he approaches the end of them. told in three distinct parts, the story provides us glimpses of Bob's retirement, early adult life, and experience as an 11-year-old. Bob is a quiet but captivating protagonist who shows us that we can find an extraordinary life, no matter our lot.



Many thanks to Netgalley and Ecco for the eARC.

This was a nice character driven novel, but I don’t know that it worked overall for me in the end. I really enjoyed the first two sections - Bob in his retirement years and Bob in his early 20s - but struggled to find meaning in the third section focused on the 4 day runaway adventure in Bob Comet’s youth. It was entertaining in its way, but didn’t seem to do anything else for the rest of the story.

This was my first time reading deWitt, but I understand he’s known for his character work. There were some really fun characters in The Librarianist, too! Some, especially in that third section in his youth, were a bit over the top but the dialogue was still entertaining.

I was looking for more wrap-up to the different portions of the story in the final section of the novel, but that’s ok. Lastly, I really thought books or the library would be a bigger part of the story than it was! Bob Comet is s librarian, but other than him meeting a few key people while at work and some side mentions of his love of books…it doesn’t come into play much.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco Press for a digital arc to review. All opinions are my own.