Tom is an awkward UK teenager who is at a major crossroads in his life. He needs to start thinking about his future which is difficult with no guidance. His mother died when he was eight, and his father is an alcoholic. Maggie is a seventy-two year old woman who is struggling with living alone on her farm. These two bump into each other at the local library which is slated to be closed. Can the library be saved? How will things turn out for these two? It's not like what I read was a complete waste of time: I'm glad to know that as a consequence of the printing press, handwritten manuscripts in jewel-encrusted bindings lost a lot of their prestige as displays of wealth, so rich Italians in the sixteenth century instead showed off how rich they were by commissioning buildings, statues, and paintings, which after all are a lot more durable than ink on leather. And let's not forget that royal patronage was as essential to the scholar as to the ruler (a kind of symbiosis) since the ruler profited from insights or even scientific breakthroughs that meant they could establish or even expand their rule while the scholar had the means to pursue the sciences and in relative safety.

This is the first book I've read by Bella Osborne and I thoroughly enjoyed it. This book kept me engaged throughout. It is about a friendship between 16 year old Tom and 72 year old Maggie who met at the village library. Tom's mother died and he's living with his Dad, who is an alcoholic. Maggie lives alone on a farm and enjoys it. Tom has a crush on Farah, who enjoys romance novels, so Tom goes to the library in hopes of either seeing Farah there or learning more about women by learning about romance novels. Maggie goes to the library once a week for book club as a way of interacting with others. When the small library is under threat of closure, Tom and Maggie help to rally the community to save the library. That's just the highlights - the really interesting part of this story is the relationships among the characters, most especially Tom and Maggie. The Nazis weren't the last to burn books and authors, their publishers and translators are still at mortal risk (as can be seen by Salman Rushdie's story that claimed several lives already). Not to mention the new rise of censorship, even or especially in 1st-world-countries that really should know better. There is a particularly good section that discusses the rise in women readers as well as the popularity of romance novels. Considering how little respect the romance genre and romance readers do seem to get from various histories and commenters on books, it was a nice nod to see two authors highlight the positivity of the genre. 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.This is not a cursory glance or an overview. It is a caring, in depth exploration into the history of collecting words on whatever material was used by human kind. And then how these collections of materials containing words were organized or managed, be it in a box, a trunk or, eventually a shelf or shelves or a room or a building. This book is a different approach to history.

This was such a heartwarming novel. It effortlessly balances heavy topics with moments of hilarity. Initially, I wasn’t invested in this story, but when the pair’s storyline intersected I couldn’t get enough of these two. This was a lovely, heartwarming story about the families we make and not being afraid to rely on others. A library lover's dream! Full of history, from the beginning of the beginning, and a careful tour through the libraries that have shaped our written record of humanity. An encyclopedic read, wrapping a reader roundabout with all those hours of research, the many crooks and crannies investigated and historical detective-diving obvious in every chapter.I paired my reading with the wonderful audio narration by Julia Franklin and Harry Lister Smith who made the story and the characters come alive. Alter, Alexandra (September 22, 2019). "It's a Fact: Mistakes Are Embarrassing the Publishing Industry". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 25, 2019 . Retrieved September 25, 2019. I recived a copy of The Library from NetGalley and Aria & Aries in exchange for an honest review, Bella Osborne's book is beautifully written, it made me cry in a good way, my heart feels full of hope, and five big stars from me. I read two-fifths of this before succumbing to the facts that 1) I have to return it to the library because another patron has a hold on it and 2) I don't want to read it, I just want to have read it. I care passionately about larger issues like literacy and access to information and book production, acquisition, and preservation, but I really do not give a shit about so much of the material Pettegree and der Weduwen marshal as support for their claims. I understand the basic point that manuscripts and books are fragile and that not everyone cares about that. After so many examples, I no longer care that this obscure monastery owned X number of manuscripts on such and such a date, after which they were lost or destroyed. I no longer care how many books this or that obscure lawyer, professor, or merchant owned at his death, after which the books were sold at auction.