This book is billed as true crime, and while it does cover the mysterious fire (arson? maybe) in the LA Central Library in 1986, it reads more as a love letter to libraries. As a library lover, I found the glimpse into the history and inner workings of the LA Public Library system fascinating. Orlean is a fantastic writer, who blends the story of the fire with the history and future of the library seamlessly. This is well worth a read if you have any interest in libraries at all.

Thank you to NetGalley for the review copy of the book.

THE LIBRARY BOOK is a great read. Ostensibly about the Los Angeles Central Library fire in 1985, and the single named suspect who never told the same story twice to investigators, or anyone else for that matter. In actuality, it is the story of the Los Angeles Public Library and how that history fits in with the history that is libraries. I can't help but mention another book I read not long ago about a fictional library THE MAD LIBRARIAN, by Michael Gillebeau. There are sections of THE LIBRARY BOOK that explain and expand on the points made about a fictional library and a harried librarian. I am a book person through and through, so when one book leads so directly to another, I just have to talk about it.

Like the author, I had never heard about the library fire in Los Angeles because I too was living on the east coast. The fire would not have been in the east coast papers because they had already gone to press. The next days brought only stories of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. As I read Ms. Orlean's description of the fire, I had tears running down my face. Alongside the senseless taking of life, I can think of nothing more heartbreaking than destroying a book, so the devastation of a library is akin to the mindless bombing of a city.

Libraries are so much more than repositories for books, so much more than a place to read and do research. In their quiet way, they are the lifeblood of community. Where do you go to be with other people? Where do you call for help with a crossword puzzle? Who do you turn to when you have no idea how to deal with something critical in your life? If you are not thinking library, you should be. Libraries help the homeless, help the unemployed and serve as a community centers for everyone. Anyone who thinks libraries have outlived their usefulness needs to read this book.

THE LIBRARY BOOK is not a feminist treatise, but it does point out the ups and downs for both men and women in the library system. An article written in 1876 suggested that highly educated women could be hired for less money than a man thus saving money for the city or town employing them in a public library. At one time, I would have found it strange to see such a blatant expression of sexism; today, I look at it as women caving to male dominance even at a time when most women did not work outside the ho9me. Reading this goes a long way toward explaining why it took so long for women to be allowed to vote, to own property, and why the Equal Rights Amendment has never been passed. I really wish someone could logically explain why women have always kowtowed to men and continue to do so today. It seems that everything I read, fiction and non-fiction alike, contains references to a particular male minority running everything.

I could go on and on singing the praises of this book, but I will end by saying SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY.

This was a bit of a rough read for me. I love the subject, and the Orlean is obviously a very talented writer. However, I did not love how the author would switch between topics with each chapter. Sometimes it was about the actual fire, sometimes it was about how the Los Angeles library runs in the present day, sometimes it was about the history of the library and libraries in general, etc. And while I love libraries, I think that being a librarian has hindered my enjoyment of this book. If I wasn't someone who already knows the inner workings of a library, I would be fascinated. However, being that I am a librarian, those chapters left me bored.

Overall, this would be an enjoyable book for all patrons, though perhaps not those who work in libraries. This is why I'm giving the title four stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Susan Orlean, and Simon & Schuster for sending me the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Library and book lovers will find this expertly delivered book enlightening

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

SUMMARY
On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Central Library. The patrons and staff that had been cleared out of the building soon realize this was not the usual fire alarm. This fire was intense and disastrous. It reached 2,000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished it had consume 400,000 books and damaged 700,000 more. Investigators descended on the scene immediately, but more than 30 years later the mystery remains: did someone purposely set fire to the library, and if so, who? Librarians remember seeing a blond young man who was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, a closed section of the library. But since all evidence was consumed the investigators found it very difficult to prove arson.

“Usually, fire is red and orange and yellow and black. The fire in the library was colorless. You could look right through it, as if it were a sheet of glass. Where the flame had any color, it was pale blue. It was so hot that it appeared icy.”

REVIEW
Susan Orlean skillfully transports us to the library stacks where we can still smell the smoke and feel the intense heat from the flames. THE LIBRARY BOOK showcases the history of the building as well as many of the notable past and current librarians who have help make the library vital and relevant. New York Times best-selling author SUSAN ORLEAN’s detailed research is evident in the stories about the library, it’s history and it’s past champions. The writing was smart and all library and book lovers will find this one enlightening. One of my favorite parts was when, as part of her research, Orlean decides to burn a book. As a book lover she found this to be a difficult task. She profoundly states:

“The pages burned so fast that they barely crackled; the sound was soft, like a sizzle, or the crinkly light sound of water spraying out of a shower. As soon as it was over, I felt like I just jumped out of an airplane, which is perhaps the natural reaction to doing something I’d resisted so mightily—there was the elation at overriding my own instincts, elation at the fluid beauty of fire, and terrible fright at the seductiveness of it and the realization of how fast a thing full of human stories can be made to disappear.”

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.


Publisher Simon & Schuster
Published October 16, 2018
Review www.bluestockingreviews.com

In April, Entertainment Weekly said “Susan Orlean’s next book will be a passionate love letter to libraries.” Indeed it is.


Orlean grew up with a love of her mother and her weekly trips to the library.
"Together we waited for the librarian at the counter to pull the date card out and stamp it with the checkout machine - that loud chunk-chunk, like a giant fist of time thumping the card, printing a crooked due date underneath a score of previous crooked due dates that belonged to other people, other times.
Our visits to the library were never long enough for me. The place was so bountiful. I loved wandering around the bookshelves, scanning the spines until something happened to catch my eye. Those visits were dreamy, frictionless interludes that promised I would leave richer than I arrived."
But, like so many of us, as she got older, she stopped going to the library. She had a burning (no pun intended) desire to own books, not just read them and give them back. "I wanted to have my books around me, forming a totem pole of narratives I'd visited." When her son was young, though, she found herself rediscovering libraries when she began taking him to them; and when she learned about the fire at Los Angeles' Central Library her love of libraries and her investigative journalism career made the perfect match.


I would imagine my husband is very happy that I’m finished reading this book, given the number of times a day I interrupted whatever he was doing to read him passages. I read to him about Ray Bradbury, who never got a college education but read his way through the Central Library. I read to him about the number of books and libraries destroyed during World War II, including the German group which was tasked with burning dangerous books and which inspired Bradbury. I read to him about some of the real characters who have headed the Los Angeles library, including Charles Lummis who walked from Ohio to Los Angeles when he accepted the job. And I read to him about Bertram Goodhue, who designed both the Central Library and the Nebraska State Capital, a building we both love. Being so familiar with the Capital building gave me a good idea of what the Central Library building looked like even before I looked up pictures.


There is nothing dull or dry about this book. Orlean's writing is vivid, bringing history to life.
"Usually, a fire is red and orange and yellow and black. The fire in the library was colorless. You could look right through it, as if it were a sheet of glass. Where the flame had any color, it was pale blue. It was so hot that it appeared icy."
"In the building, the air began to quiver with radiant heat. Crews trying to make their way into the stacks felt like they were hitting a barricade, as if the heat had become solid. "We could only stand it for ten, fifteen seconds," one of them told me...The temperature reached 2000 degrees. Then it rose to 2500. The firefighters began to worry about a flashover, a dreaded situation during a fire in which everything in a closed space - even smoke - becomes so hot that it reaches a point of spontaneous ignition, causing a complete and consuming eruption of fire from every service."
Did you know that fire could be colorless, that it could become so hot it cause spontaneous ignition, and have you heard of a stoichiometric condition (when a fire achieves the perfect burning ratio of oxygen to fuel)? I'm sure I would not have believed I could be so interested in reading about fire.

Although, The Library Book is never heavy handed, Orleans touches on the ways libraries have had to deal with homelessness, immigration, and politics in order to remain relevant and to achieve their missions. Reading this book is about learning about so much more than just one fire in one library. Through it all, though, books remain at the heart of any library and their value is beyond measure.
"Book are a sort of cultural DNA, the code for who, as a society, we are, and what we know. All the wonders and failures, all the champions and villains, all the legends and ideas and revelations of a culture last forever in its books. Destroying those books is a way of saying that the culture itself no longer exists; its history has disappeared; the continuity between it's past and its future is ruptured."
This book makes me happy that I'm again a card carrying library patron.

As a librarian, the title of this book grabbed my attention. As soon as I read the blurb, I knew it had to go to the top of my TBR list.

I first want to say, loved the format of the chapters. The beginning of each chapter listed a number of books (with accompanying Dewey number) related the the chapters subject matter. I actually identified a number of titles I was familiar, plus added a few titles to my ever growing TBR list. For a book about libraries. I thought this was a fascinating addition.

I have to admit I was not aware of the Los Angeles Public Library fire when it occurred in 1986. I was a sophomore in high school and didn’t pay much attention to the news. I loved reading about the history of the library, the various leaders, and the innovations over the years.

Not only am I a librarian, my father and husband are as well, so libraries have always been a huge part of my life. Orleans provides an excellent view into the behind the scenes part of the library most people will never see.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an ARC of this book!

I've read several non-fiction books lately, and as much as I am interested in the subject matter, I always find myself giving them 3 stars or sometimes less. And I was kind of starting to feel like that's just what non-fiction books are for me, informative, I learn a lot, at the end I'm glad I read them, but I didn't really feel that pull to keep reading like a fiction book.

Well Susan Orlean has officially changed my mind. Apparently my problem is not with non-fiction books but that I just haven't been reading very well-written ones. This read like a novel and even though it was never anything exciting or action-packed, I kept wanting to read and read and read.

I really learned a lot from this book. My favorite parts were about the fire that happened at the Los Angeles Central library in the 80s, as well as the investigation of Harry Peak and whether or not he set the fire, but I also enjoyed reading about the history of this particular library and about libraries in general. It made me want to go thank a librarian and also apply for a job as a librarian.

I really have nothing negative to say. The book was both informative and engaging the entire time, as I said Susan Orlean is an incredible author to take something as seemingly mundane as the history of a library and make it an unputdownable book. I'd definitely be interested in checking out some of her other books in the future.

4.5 stars
Hundreds of thousands of books were burned to nothing but ash and hundreds of thousands of books were damaged - enough to bring chills up the spine of any book lover reading this book about the fire at the Los Angeles Public Library that occurred on April 29, 1986. The research and the writing here are impeccable. The descriptions of the fire, the librarians’ reactions, and the many, many volunteers who wanted to help - it’s as if it’s being reported in real time. The book, however, covers so much more than the story of the fire, although it’s the main focus. It is in many ways a tribute to libraries and librarians and what they stand for and the importance of the library now and in the future. It is a personal testament to Orlean’s love of libraries and her early experiences going to the library as a young child with her mother. I loved her reminiscing because it made me remember my own history with the public library in the neighborhood where I grew up. I remember the hours I spent there and some of the books that I read and the fond memories of when I worked there as a library “page” in high school and through college.

This is also a fascinating history of the LA public library and the library directors, the City Librarians, over the years. It’s the story of the people who use the library. It’s the story of the volunteers who after the fire “worked for the next three days around the clock.....They formed a human chain, passing the books hand over hand from one person to the next, through the smoky building and out the door. It was as if, in this urgent moment, people, the people of Los Angeles formed a living library. They created for a short time, a system to protect and pass along shared knowledge, to save what we know for each other, which is what libraries do every day.” I was also struck by the stunning words of a librarian, Jill Crane who helped with the cleanup and wrote in a poem:

“We held charred and water soaked
chunks of books in our hands,
history, imagination, knowledge
crumbing in our fingers.
we packed what was left.”

She also gives us Harry Peak’s story, arrested but never charged with starting the fire and describes the difficulty of proving arson and proving that he was responsible. So much is contained in the book and I felt at times that it was a little scattered moving from the fire to her experiences, to the history and then to the fire and the investigation. But ultimately it was an an emotional book for me as a retired librarian, although not a public librarian, but mostly as a book lover. The scenes described of the burned and damaged books got me in my gut and the coming together of volunteers to do what they could got me in my heart and then when several years after the fire, the library reopened. This fabulous book is an ode to librarians and the public library, which represents the fabric of our society in so many ways.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Simon & Schuster through NetGalley.

3 out of 5 stars.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I know this was supposed to be one of *those* books: all the bookworms want it, love it, have to have it, keep it in their green suitcase with their other books. So I feel like I missed something.

Perhaps it is because I prefer fiction books over non-fiction, memoirs over biographies, but this felt like one long article. I have to hand it to Orlean for taking on this project. You can tell that she spent countless hours on this - interviewing the family of Harry Peak, librarians, etc., spending time in the library watching people, talking to employees, reading articles about the Los Angeles Central Library fire. It must have been an enormous undertaking.

Parts of it feel like articles within articles. For example, Orlean spends many pages on John Szabo. This particular area also struck me as something that perhaps the author was not too emotionally involved it because a lot of the paragraphs started with his name: "John Szabo was in graduate school...," "Szabo was born in Orlando...," "At sixteen, Sazbo became a clerk for the circulation desk...," "In 2005, Szabo was hired..." I think you get the point.

Orlean spends a lot of time, also, telling her descriptions in this book as opposed to showing. From people to places, it felt a bit forced.

She does throw in some gems, though: "I have never been in a building as forlorn as this old library, with its bruised beauty, its loneliness."

I also have to admit that there was a lot of interesting tidbits of information in here, from the books she listed at the beginning of each chapter (that I eventually came to understand pertained to the subject of the chapter), to information on other libraries that burned, and how libraries work, particularly central libraries. I found it endlessly fascinating when she talked about the shipping department.

All in all, I felt the most engaging part of the book was at the very beginning when she went into detail about the day it burned, from the employees who thought it was just a routine fire drill or that the system malfunctioned (as it was wont to do), to their reactions when they realized what was happening, and the color of the fire or the volunteers who came out to help afterward.

It could have been a four star book, had it not felt so much like an article, and not a particularly emotionally invested one, either.

Sometimes I felt a bit odd as a librarian reading a book called Library Book in a library, but at least I didn't check it out from a library. It is a really nice mix of pro-library sentiment and history of the Los Angeles Library with the investigation into a fire.

This is one of my favorite books for 2018. I’m a librarian and my undergraduate degree is in history. I feel like this book was written just for me!

I was completely hooked with the first chapter. Ms Orlean writes about her early introduction to libraries and how she often accompanied her mother on weekly trips to check out books. This practice continued even when she was in high school. It seemed as though she was telling my story, too. For many years (and even after I graduated from high school) my father and I went to the library every week. I loved that time I spent with him.

The Library Book is also about the Los Angeles Public Library fire that occurred in 1986. It burned for over seven hours and destroyed an unimaginable number of books, rare collections, maps and documents. But The Library Book is so much more than just the story of this devastating fire. It is a book that explores the place libraries have in the history of our nation and the world. The importance of libraries and what they have to offer is very clear to anyone who reads this book. The author tells the reader about the battles that were fought, the programs that were introduced and the sanctuary that libraries have provided for generations.

Ms Orlean has written a book that is a tribute to libraries and librarians everywhere and she has managed to do it in a story teller’s voice, which makes it an easy book to read and a difficult book to put down.

Thank you Ms Orlean for a beautiful book. It makes me feel proud to be a librarian and it reminded me of why I chose this profession in the first place.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

The Library Book taught me for more than I ever thought I needed to know about the Los Angeles Public Library. The premise of the book is an investigation of the 1986 fire that shut the library down for months (the repairs and renovations weren't finished for years). To this day no one knows for sure what happened, but Susan Orlean follows the story of Harry Peak, the primary suspect. During her investigation, we learn about the history of the library and how the system operates today. The Library Book is not particularly fast paced, but it's good nonetheless.

Much to my surprise, <i>The Library Book</i> was a fascinating and unexpectedly entertaining read. Perhaps that’s because I rarely read nonfiction for pleasure but, more likely, it was due to the talents of Susan Orlean.

Reading this book was both enlightening and a trip down memory lane. Described as a “love letter to the institution,” Orlean covered a vast amount of territory beginning with well researched details of the Los Angeles Central Library fire of 1986 through to the reopening six and a half years later. This was all new territory for me which, as Orlean noted, isn’t surprising. This event escaped much national notice as it was buried behind headlines of the Chernobyl disaster. Her narrative meandered through the sights and sounds of the library portraying it almost as if she was describing a living element. Along the way she followed all the people who came and went either briefly as patrons, visitors, and tourists, or those who were much more involved including the staff, restorers, firefighters, and lawyers as well as the prime arson suspect

<i>The Library Book</i> also touched quite eloquently on the emotional aspects of the library/ reading/writing experience. Personally, I made number of connections with my own experiences with libraries and reading. One such connection was a childhood memory of all the trips I made to the public library in my hometown which was then located in an old house. Prompted by Orlean’s words, I even recalled the smells as walked in that door so many years ago. I remembered that proud and exciting day when I was finally old enough to have my own library card. And how, way back then before the technology of the past 30 years, we wrote our names in little boxes on cards located in pockets inside each book.

If you’re a reader, a writer, a lover of books and libraries, you won’t want to miss this celebration of one particular library- symbolic of libraries everywhere.

I never expected a book about a library fire to be unputdownable but it was. I was blown away by this effort by Susan Orlean.

Chock full of details surrounding the catastrophic Los Angeles library fire and fascinating info related to books and libraries, Orlean’s love for books is evident and she drew me in from the start. The book touched me in different ways and I ran the gamut of feelings amongst anger, sadness, joy and surprise. A few things that will stay with me include the heartbreaking loss of irreplaceable treasures, the surprising history of library burning, the fascinating and vast inner workings of a central library and a library’s broad reach within a community outside of its four walls.

Orlean’s story has renewed my love for libraries. One of my favorite books of the year.

For anyone who has ever loved books and libraries, this book is part mystery and part history, part elegy and part optimistic love story. It is only the most skilled writer who can take an event as unremarkable in the larger world as the LA Public Library fire of 1986--barely even covered in the media because of its cousin disaster the same week in Chernobyl--and make the reader care to follow along the journey from a century before its occurrence through the actual fire and beyond, connecting its cultural significance far beyond the obvious.

This was a truly spectacular amalgamation of the history of the LA Public Library, the fire that happened there in the 80s and its aftermath, and a bit of history and musing on libraries in general. It could have easily been awkward and choppy, but the author weaved together all of the pieces seamlessly. I recommend this to anyone who likes books or libraries, or just wants an engaging nonfiction read.

I’ve always considered libraries to be magical places.

My childhood was marked by eagerly-anticipated twice-monthly trips to the Bangor Public Library, where my voracious and omnivorous reading habits were readily sated. I’d spend hours wandering the shelves, putting together an impressive stack of books – one far larger than was generally allowed – and getting checked out with a smile and a “See you soon!”

Susan Orlean is a lifelong fan of libraries as well. Her latest book is “The Library Book,” yet another marvelous piece of writing from one of the best nonfiction authors of our time. Using a single foundational event – the massive fire that took place at the Los Angeles Public Library over 30 years ago – Orlean constructs a paean to libraries, leaning into LAPL-related specifics while also spinning off into thoughtful and celebratory musings on the intellectual, cultural, historical and political impact of libraries.

April 28, 1986, began much like any other at the Los Angeles Public Library, with patrons waiting outside for the official opening time so that they might be let into the building. However, everything changed that morning. A fire alarm went off – a not-uncommon occurrence in a building as behind-the-times as the Central Library. However, this wasn’t the usual false alarm – this was a catastrophe.

It turned out that this particular library was ideally suited for a conflagration unlike anything firefighters had ever seen. The combination of oxygen availability and a nigh-endless fuel supply meant that this fire reached unheard of temperatures – as high as 2000 degrees. Despite the best efforts of half the city’s firefighting force, the flames burned for some seven hours. All told, 400,000 books were destroyed and another 700,000 were damaged. Priceless, irreplaceable items – photographic archives, out-of-print books, huge special collections, rare manuscripts – were gone forever. It remains the largest library fire in United States history.

Orlean uses this tragic event as a jumping off point; it is the springboard from which she launches herself into her library deep dive.

And what a dive it is. She spends time with current LAPL staff, exploring every department with customary thoroughness and curiosity. From the director on down, Orlean talks to numerous people with powerful, long-standing connections to this particular library, including many who were there for the fire and its direct aftermath. There’s also exploration of the fire’s cause – including the wannabe actor who was the prime suspect – and the public’s reaction to what happened.

“The Library Book” also delves into Los Angeles Public Library history. We get a breakdown of the LAPL’s 19th century origins and the opportunity to meet some of its earliest directors, including Mary Foy – who at just 18 years old was named to lead the library in 1880 – and the iconoclastic eccentric Charles Lummis, a character among characters whose great accomplishments with regards to the library were offset by the aggressive strangeness of his personal life.

But it’s not all LAPL-specific. We also get the tangential exploration that Orlean is known for; we benefit from her willingness to follow threads as they capture her interest. A moment is taken to explore the impact of Andrew Carnegie’s devotion to library construction. There’s a look back at deliberate library destruction through the ages as a potent weapon of cultural warfare. She even goes out in her backyard to set a book on fire just to see what it’s like.

With “The Library Book,” Orlean once again demonstrates her transcendent talent for bringing her subjects to vivid, breathing life. Few can match her combination of voluminous research capabilities and exquisite narrative skill – and none exceed it. The readability of this book borders on the compulsive – it practically cries out to be consumed. Her voice echoes throughout, a whisper-shouted sermon on the evergreen importance of this particular cultural institution. Orlean’s passion burns white-hot, hotter even than the windowpane-transparent flames that tore through the bowels of the Central Library on that fateful day in 1986; there’s a certainty informing her every word.

To Susan Orlean, a library is more than a mere building. It is a concept, a great notion that should be celebrated. She notes the necessary evolution of the modern library in the digital age without devaluing the contributions that came before. What libraries are might change, our society’s need for them will never fade.

“The Library Book” is ideal reading for any bibliophile. Book lovers tend to be library lovers … and library lovers will recognize the kindred spirit residing on every single page of this book. I recognized my own deep-seated love of libraries in these words, a shared affection for an institution that had a fundamental impact on who I became.

Susan Orlean is one of the best there is … and this book is an outstanding illustration of that truth. Check it out for yourself.

This is an excellent book which threads together the mystery of 1986 Los Angeles Public Library fire and Orlean's love of the library as an institution. I enjoyed it throughout. Not only did it increase my love for books, but also for libraries and how they serve the public. Good stuff.

This could have been such a dull book. But the author’s skill made this a fascinating read. Libraries are such a wonderful place and this book really showcases that. Two thumbs up from me! Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the arc.

Really really enjoyed this one. The author was new to me. The research and storytelling were superb! She is a very gifted writer.

I will be telling my reader friends about this one for sure. Don’t pass this one up. It will be especially meaningful to book lovers. I suspect this will make “best of 2018” lists.