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The Library Book

The Library Book by Susan Orlean is a gripping piece of nonfiction. Using the 1986 Los Angeles Library Fire as a framing device, Orlean explores the mystery of how and by whom the fire was started as well as the history of the Los Angeles Public Library and how libraries today are changing to meet modern needs.

Orlean goes into detail about the fire itself, which makes for agonizing, informative, and emotionally gripping reading. The story of the lead suspect, Harry Peal, is also sad, and contains an enormous amount of homophobia (expressed in interviews by Pearl’s family members).

However, overall the book is inspiring rather than depressing. I loved the stories of LA’s first librarians and their different personalities and visions for the library. The stories and lists from past librarians are funny and often gently baffling, as when Orlean shares some of the questions the Reference Department answered on one day in 1937. Questions included “Burial customs of Hawaii,” “What Romeo looked like,” and “Whether immortality can be perceived in the iris of an eye.” I’m also fond of the unorthodox use of library books as messaging systems, as in this note in a library books from 1914:

Dear Jennie, Where are you keeping yourself? I have searched three cities for you and advertised in vain. Knowing that you like books, I am writing this appeal in every library book I can get ahold of in hope that it may come to your eyes. Write to me at the old address.

This book is an interesting look at the Los Angeles Library from its first opening to the present day, with some speculation about the future. I was impressed with the structure, which kept things moving quickly while still imparting information and a gripping story. It’s not a comprehensive look at libraries in general (for that, I recommend Library: An Unquiet History by Matthew Battles) but takes a single location and tracks it through time, which means we get the history of Los Angeles, the history of the people who work at and visit the library, and the history of the actual building. I felt a huge investment in the location by the time I finished the first couple of chapters, despite never having been there.

This book fell short for me because it included some material that I thought was unnecessary (for instance, Orlean describes setting fire to a book to see what it feels like) but not going in depth as much as I would have liked about other pieces of history. It can also be a frustrating book since it raises some questions that cannot be conclusively answered.

Overall, it’s an entertaining read. I’ll close with this passage, which describes efforts to rescue books from the library building, which was both burned and soaked with water. If any books were to be saved, then they needed to be removed from the building quickly:

The volunteers worked for the next three days around the clock. Most were strangers to each other, drawn together unexpectedly, and worked for hours, diligently and peacefully. They formed a human chain, passing 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, 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.

– Carrie S

A dazzling love letter to a beloved institution—and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries—from the bestselling author hailed as a “national treasure” by The Washington Post.

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 L.A. 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.