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  1 The Library Book
Author: Orlean, Susan
    Series: Reese's book club
 
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Class: 027.4794
Age: Adult
Language: English
LC: Z679.2
Print Run: 150000
ISBN-13: 9781476740188
LCCN: 2018022454
Imprint: Simon & Schuster
Pub Date: 10/16/2018
Availability: Out of Stock Indefinitely
List: $28.00
  Hardcover
Physical Description: 317 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm H 9.25", W 6.25", D 1.1", 1.38 lbs.
LC Series:
Brodart Sources: Brodart's Blockbuster List
Brodart's Insight Catalog: Adult
Brodart's TOP Adult Titles
Bibliographies: Booklist High-Demand Hot List
LibraryReads List
Los Angeles Times Bestsellers List
New York Times Bestsellers List
New York Times Bestsellers: Adult Nonfiction
Public Library Core Collection: Nonfiction, 17th ed.
Awards: BookPage Best Books
Booklist Editors Choice
Booklist Starred Reviews
Booklist Top of the List
Indies Choice/E.B. White Read-Aloud Book Award Winners and Honors
Library Journal Starred Reviews
New York Times Notable Books
Starred Reviews: Booklist
Library Journal
TIPS Subjects: Social Sciences/Sociology
Disasters
Crime/Law Enforcement
Pacific Region--U. S.
BISAC Subjects: HISTORY / General
HISTORY / Social History
HISTORY / United States / 20th Century
LC Subjects: Arson, California, Los Angeles, History, 20th century
Los Angeles Public Library, History, 20th century
Los Angeles Public Library., Central Library, Fire, 1986
Los Angeles Public Library., Central Library, History
Public libraries, California, Los Angeles, History
Public libraries, California, Los Angeles, History, 20th century
SEARS Subjects: History
Social change, History
United States, History, 20th century
Reading Programs:
 
Annotations
Brodart's TOP Adult Titles | 07/01/2018
Publisher Annotation: Susan Orlean, hailed as a “national treasure” by The Washington Post and the acclaimed bestselling author of Rin Tin Tin and The Orchid Thief, reopens the unsolved mystery of the most catastrophic library fire in American history, and delivers a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution—our libraries. 336pp., 150K
Starred Reviews:
Booklist | 08/01/2018
Libraries pulse with stories and not only those preserved in books. When creative nonfiction virtuoso Orlean (Rin Tin Tin, 2011) first visited Los Angeles' Central Library, she was "transfixed." Then she learned about the 1986 fire, which many believed was deliberately set and which destroyed or damaged more than one million books and shut the library down for seven years. Intrigued, Orlean embarked on an all-points research quest, resulting in this kaleidoscopic and riveting mix of true crime, history, biography, and immersion journalism. While her forensic account of the conflagration is eerily mesmerizing, Orlean is equally enthralling in her awestruck detailing of the spectrum of activities that fill a typical Central Library day, and in her profiles of current staff and former head librarians, including "brilliant and forceful" Tessa Kelso, who ran into censorship issues, and consummate professional Mary Jones, who was forced out in 1905 because the board wanted a man. Orlean widens the lens to recount the crucial roles public libraries have played in America and to marvel at librarians' innovative and caring approaches to meeting diverse needs and cutting-edge use of digital technologies. She also attempts to fathom the truth about enigmatic Harry Peak, the prime arson suspect. Probing, prismatic, witty, dramatic, and deeply appreciative, Orlean's chronicle celebrates libraries as sanctuaries, community centers, and open universities run by people of commitment, compassion, creativity, and resilience. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Orlean's best-sellers have long lives, and this well-publicized praise song to libraries will have special book-lover appeal. Donna Seaman. 336p. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2018.
Library Journal | 09/15/2018
In this lively and multilayered portrait of the Los Angeles Public Library by Orlean (The Orchid Thief), the author describes a source as "electrified by everything he told me about the library." The same can be said for Orlean, whose enthusiasm and affection for the nearly 150-year-old institution is contagious. As in previous books and essays, Orlean assembles a panoramic profile from an array of fascinating details, from the library's earliest days as a reading room to its current thriving community presence as a provider of English classes, sheet music for orchestras, services for the homeless, and more, including sketches of its charismatic--sometimes eccentric--directors, staff, and patrons. This sweeping, cheerful history revolves around a singular terrible event: the 1986 fire that ravaged the Central Library, destroying some 400,000 books. Orlean's affecting account of the tragedy and its painful aftermath, as well as the many people it touched, points to a suspect who was never indicted. But the overall tone is warm and engaging, offering a love letter to libraries everywhere. VERDICT Orlean's fans, library lovers, and readers of eclectic nonfiction will enjoy this entertaining, informative account. [See Prepub Alert, 4/9/18; "Editors' Fall Picks," LJ 8/18.]. Lisa Peet, Library Journal. 336p. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2018.
Journal Reviews
BookPage | 10/01/2018
The idea began with an interview. Susan Orlean's then 6-year-old son had a school assignment to interview a city employee in their new hometown of Los Angeles. A boy after his mother's own heart, he chose a librarian. As the pair walked through the doors of a nearby branch library, Orlean, the famed author of The Orchid Thief, was overcome by what she calls "a Proustian kind of moment" filled with memories of countless childhood visits to the library in Shaker Heights, Ohio, with her mother, who worked in a bank but frequently declared that she would've loved to have been a librarian. Now, years later, that moment has come full circle with the publication of Orlean's spellbinding love letter to this beloved institution, The Library Book, dedicated to her son (now a teenager) and late mother, who died from dementia as Orlean wrote her tribute. "I got very emotional, thinking, these are amazing places and my association with them is so profound," Orlean recalls, speaking by phone from Banff, Canada. "I love writing about places that I feel that I know very well but have never really examined. The library was exactly that sort of place." Nonetheless, when she casually mentioned to her publisher that she would enjoy spending a year in a library to see what goes on, she knew some sort of essential ingredient was missing from her pitch. "It felt a bit amorphous. I loved the idea of it, but it had a little bit of a saggy-baggy feel, and it didn't quite create a narrative." "I love writing about places that I feel that I know very well but have never really examined. The library was exactly that sort of place." It wasn't long before Orlean discovered--quite literally--the spark to enliven her account. She was invited on a personal tour of the Los Angeles Central Library, and at one point her librarian guide cracked open a book, held it to his face and "inhaled deeply," saying, "You can still smell the smoke in some of them." Orlean was puzzled, asking if patrons had been allowed to smoke in the building in the past. The librarian shot her a wary look, then proceeded to tell her about a disastrous fire that consumed the building on April 29, 1986, reaching 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and burning for more than seven hours, destroying or damaging more than a million books. Miraculously, there were no fatalities. "I just about fell off my chair," Orlean says. "It was such an amazingly interesting and complicated story, and it provided me with this other narrative thread to take me through this bigger story of writing about libraries in general." Adding to the narrative appeal, the fire's cause remains a mystery--arson was suspected. Orlean's account of the arson investigation reads like a whodunit. In her minute-by-minute account of the conflagration, she writes, "The library was spreading fluidly, like spilled ink." The stacks acted as fireplace flues, while the books provided fuel." One firefighter later told Orlean, "We thought we were looking at the bowels of hell." The main suspect was a young wannabe actor named Harry Peak, who died in 1993. An infuriating yet irresistible personality, Peak had a series of constantly changing alibis. After interviewing Peak's family and friends, Orlean concludes that as likable as he seemed to be, he was "mighty close" to being a pathological liar. She notes that he offered each of his changing alibis "with certainty and a full-throated delivery of, 'This is exactly what I was doing that day.'" That's very rare, Orlean explains. "A lot of people have an alibi for a crime. It's rare to have seven." She spent four and a half years researching, interviewing and writing. "I made a decision that I wanted to spend time in every department. Every piece of the... Review exceeds allowable length. Alice Cary. 336p. BOOKPAGE, c2018.
Kirkus Reviews | 07/15/2018
An engaging, casual history of librarians and libraries and a famous one that burned down. In her latest, New Yorker staff writer Orlean (Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend, 2011, etc.) seeks to "tell about a place I love that doesn't belong to me but feels like it is mine." It's the story of the Los Angeles Public Library, poet Charles Bukowski's "wondrous place," and what happened to it on April 29, 1986: It burned down. The fire raged "for more than seven hours and reached temperatures of 2000 degrees...more than one million books were burned or damaged." Though nobody was killed, 22 people were injured, and it took more than 3 million gallons of water to put it out. One of the firefighters on the scene said, "We thought we were looking at the bowels of hell....It was surreal." Besides telling the story of the historic library and its destruction, the author recounts the intense arson investigation and provides an in-depth biography of the troubled young man who was arrested for starting it, actor Harry Peak. Orlean reminds us that library fires have been around since the Library of Alexandria; during World War II, "the Nazis alone destroyed an estimated hundred million books." She continues, "destroying a culture's books is sentencing it to something worse than death: It is sentencing it to seem as if it never happened." The author also examines the library's important role in the city since 1872 and the construction of the historic Goodhue Building in 1926. Orlean visited the current library and talked to many of the librarians, learning about their jobs and responsibilities, how libraries were a "solace in the Depression," and the ongoing problems librarians face dealing with the homeless. The author speculates about Peak's guilt but remains "confounded." Maybe it was just an accident after all. Bibliophiles will love this fact-filled, bookish journey. 336pg. KIRKUS MEDIA LLC, c2018.
Library Journal Prepub Alert | 04/09/2018
On April 29, 1986, the Los Angeles Public Library went up in a blaze that would be the worst library fire in America's history, destroying more than 400,000 books and damaging many more. Who set the fire, and why? After moving to Los Angeles, Orlean, a New Yorker staff writer whose well-received books range from The Orchid Thief to Rin Tin Tin, decides to seek some answers. Barbara Hoffert. 336p. LJ Prepub Alert Online Review. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2018.
Publishers Weekly | 07/09/2018
New Yorker staff writer Orlean (Rin Tin Tin) doubles as an investigative reporter and an institutional historian in this sprawling account of the 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Central Public Library. On April 29, 1986, just before 11 a.m., a fire broke out in the stacks of the main branch and burned for seven hours, destroying 400,000 books and damaging hundreds of thousands more. Harry Peak, the man police believed started the fire, was arrested but never charged. Orlean's investigation into the fire--Was it arson? Why would Peak, a struggling actor and frequent patron of the library, want to burn it down?--leads her down the library's aisles of history, as she seeks out books on the flawed science of arson forensics along with titles from California serial killer Richard Ramirez's reading list to better understand the minds of psychopaths. Along the way, she introduces readers to California Public Library system staffers, among them Arin Kasparian, on the circulation desk; Kren Malone, director of the main branch; and Glen Creason, a senior librarian whose tenure spans "the fire the AIDS crisis, which killed 11 librarians." Midway through, Orlean reveals her own motivation for her return to long-form journalism: her mother's dementia has made her acutely aware of how memories are doomed to be forgotten unless they're recorded. This is a persuasive reminder of the importance of libraries, whose shared spaces house historical treasures built with the common good in mind. (Sept.). 336p. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2018.
9781476740188,dl.it[0].title
Review Citations
New York Times Book Review | 10/21/2018