The Library Book

The Los Angeles Public Library had a fire alarm go off early on April 29, 1986. The customers and employees who had been ejected from the building realised as the seconds ticked by that this was not your typical fire alarm. "Once that first stack got going, it was 'Goodbye, Charlie,'" said one firefighter. The fire was terrible; it burnt for more than seven hours and reached a temperature of 2000 degrees. It destroyed seven hundred thousand books and devoured four hundred thousand by the time it was put out. More than thirty years after investigators arrived on the scene, the question of who set the library on fire on purpose still stands.

Award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean weaves her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire to create a mesmerising 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.

Orlean introduces us to a memorable cast of characters from the history of libraries, including Mary Foy, who became the first female head of the Los Angeles Public Library at the age of eighteen in 1880, Dr. C.J.K. Jones, a polymath, pastor, and citrus farmer known as "The Human Encyclopaedia," who wandered the library giving information, Charles Lummis, a wildly eccentric journalist and adventurer who was determined to make the L.A. library the best in the world, and the current staff, who heroically work every day to ensure that their institution remains a vital part of the city they serve.

The Library Book is Susan Orlean's exciting journey through the stacks that reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they continue to be an essential part of our nation's heart, mind, and soul. It is brimming with her trademark wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research. It is also a master journalist's reminder that they are more important than ever, maybe more so in the digital age.