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The Library Book
Susan Orlean's bestseller and New York Times Notable Book is "a sheer delight…as rich in insight and as varied as the treasures contained on the shelves in any local library" (USA TODAY)-a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries. "Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book" (The Washington Post).
On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand 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 "delightful…reflection on the past, present, and future of libraries in America" (New York magazine) that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.
In the "exquisitely written, consistently entertaining" (The New York Times) 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; brings each department of the library to vivid life; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago.
"A book lover's dream…an ambitiously researched, elegantly written book that serves as a portal into a place of history, drama, culture, and stories" (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), Susan Orlean's thrilling journey through the stacks 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.
On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand 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 "delightful…reflection on the past, present, and future of libraries in America" (New York magazine) that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.
In the "exquisitely written, consistently entertaining" (The New York Times) 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; brings each department of the library to vivid life; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago.
"A book lover's dream…an ambitiously researched, elegantly written book that serves as a portal into a place of history, drama, culture, and stories" (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), Susan Orlean's thrilling journey through the stacks 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.
Editorial Reviews
"Moving . . . A constant pleasure to read . . . Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book. . . . Orlean, a longtime New Yorker writer, has been captivating us with human stories for decades, and her latest book is a wide-ranging, deeply personal, and terrifically engaging investigation of humanity's bulwark against oblivion: the library. . . . As a narrator, Orlean moves like fire herself, with a pyrotechnic style that smolders for a time over some ancient bibliographic tragedy, leaps to the latest technique in book restoration, and then illuminates the story of a wildly eccentric librarian. Along the way, we learn how libraries have evolved, responded to depressions and wars, and generally thrived despite a constant struggle for funds. Over the holidays, every booklover in America is going to give or get this book. . . . You can't help but finish The Library Book and feel grateful that these marvelous places belong to us all."
-Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"A sheer delight. . . . Orlean has created a book as rich in insight and as varied as the treasures contained on the shelves in any local library."
-Chris Woodyard, USA Today
"Exquisitely written, consistently entertaining . . . A loving tribute not just to a place or an institution but to an idea . . . What makes The Library Book so enjoyable is the sense of discovery that propels it, the buoyancy when Orlean is surprised or moved by what she finds. . . . Her depiction of the Central Library fire on April 29, 1986, is so rich with specifics that it's like a blast of heat erupting from the page. . . . The Library Book is about the fire and the mystery of how it started-but in some ways that's the least of it. It's also a history of libraries, and of a particular library, as well as the personal story of Orlean and her mother, who was losing her memory to dementia while Orlean was retrieving her own memories by writing this book."
-Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times
"Captivating . . . A delightful love letter to public libraries . . . In telling the story of this one library, Orlean reminds readers of the spirit of them all, their mission to welcome and equalize and inform, the wonderful depths and potential that they-and maybe all of us, as well-contain. . . . In other hands the book would have been a notebook dump, packed with random facts that weren't germane but felt too hard-won or remarkable to omit. Orlean's lapidary skills include both unearthing the data and carving a storyline out of the sprawl, piling up such copious and relevant details that I wondered how many mountains of research she discarded for each page of jewels."
-Rebekah Denn, Christian Science Monitor
"A flitting a...
-Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"A sheer delight. . . . Orlean has created a book as rich in insight and as varied as the treasures contained on the shelves in any local library."
-Chris Woodyard, USA Today
"Exquisitely written, consistently entertaining . . . A loving tribute not just to a place or an institution but to an idea . . . What makes The Library Book so enjoyable is the sense of discovery that propels it, the buoyancy when Orlean is surprised or moved by what she finds. . . . Her depiction of the Central Library fire on April 29, 1986, is so rich with specifics that it's like a blast of heat erupting from the page. . . . The Library Book is about the fire and the mystery of how it started-but in some ways that's the least of it. It's also a history of libraries, and of a particular library, as well as the personal story of Orlean and her mother, who was losing her memory to dementia while Orlean was retrieving her own memories by writing this book."
-Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times
"Captivating . . . A delightful love letter to public libraries . . . In telling the story of this one library, Orlean reminds readers of the spirit of them all, their mission to welcome and equalize and inform, the wonderful depths and potential that they-and maybe all of us, as well-contain. . . . In other hands the book would have been a notebook dump, packed with random facts that weren't germane but felt too hard-won or remarkable to omit. Orlean's lapidary skills include both unearthing the data and carving a storyline out of the sprawl, piling up such copious and relevant details that I wondered how many mountains of research she discarded for each page of jewels."
-Rebekah Denn, Christian Science Monitor
"A flitting a...
Readers Top Reviews
Joe BatheltCal Peter
According to the blurb, this book is about the library fire in Los Angles in the 1980s. However, it is about much more than that. The author explores the history of libraries across the ages with the L.A. Central Library as a case example. The book highlights what libraries changed across the ages, how they reflected the aspirations and biases of the societies that created them, how they were valued, and how they had to adapt. The book also depicts the life of the individuals that played a key role in the history of the LA library, including pioneering women who resisted their unfair dismissal, eccentric directors that promoted the library to a place of general public interest, and the man who may have started the fire in the LA library. I found the book extremely rich in its description of libraries and their evolution across history. The books seemed exceptionally well researched and touched on many different aspects. The author also managed to keep the book engaging, which is challenging given the sometimes dry history of libraries. My only criticism would be that the book sometimes feels like a piece of extremely long-form journalism that collects different aspects of the library topic but does not fully integrate them. Still, this book is a great read for any bibliophile or bibliotheekophile.
Hande Z
This is a fascinating story of the library, not just a library, but the library as an institution across the world and across time. Orlean tells us the history of the early libraries and their destruction. The Library of Alexandria has a mythical reputation, but in truth, no one knows how it finally disappeared from the earth. It was rebuilt after many early attempts to burn it down, and each time it was rebuilt. How it was finally destroyed is a matter of speculation. The story of John Szabo runs parallel to the story of Harry Peak. The latter was the suspected arsonist who burned down the Los Angeles Public Library in 1986. Szabo was the man who rebuilt it. The story of the great Los Angeles fire underpins Orlean’s book, and following it makes the reader wonder at times to think she was writing a crime thriller. Orlean knows that one cannot tell the story about the library, which is the body, without discussing the soul within – the books. She also weaves into this book, books about books and libraries, and one of them is the biopic of Ray Bradbury and his novel about the burning of books, ‘Fahrenheit 451’; and, of course, about librarians. The most prominent being John Szabo, aka ‘Conan the Librarian’. Orleans takes us through the burning of libraries in war, but reminded us that ‘libraries burn during peacetimes too’. There are, she says, about 200 library fires a year in America alone. As if to contrast the work and person of John Szabo, Orleans intersperse the Szabo-Peak story with the story of Charles Lummis and the scandals that followed, notably, the appointment of a unusual person, known as C J K Jones, to head a special department of reading. Jones had a collection of more than 200 books on the cultivation of citrus farming. He was paid a fat salary and given the title of ‘The Human Encyclopedia’. When he was eventually forced to take a civil service test to ascertain his fitness for the job, he flunked. But what of Harry Peak? That should remain the highlight of this book. The CD version is read passionately by the author herself.
I got reading this book through Reeces Sunshine Book Clud. I would not have chosen it otherwise. I wanted to give up reading it on multiple occasions because I found it slow, information dense and boring. But I challenged myself to stick it out and be present with why I was experiencing it as "boring". I've got to say, I struggled through the entire book - right to the last page... But I've also got to say I learnt things I would never have learnt, on topics I would never have been interested in learning anything about, it has completely broadened my general knowledge (on topics and words because she writes beautifully with such an array of palpable words) while also opening my mind to exploring the unknown and opening myself up to another world. Thanks to this book I have decided I want to try more things I would not normally try and I'll definitely be reading a whole bunch more books I would not usually read.
Steve Gross
I would have never believed that libraries could be so fascinating. In addition to informing us of all the library’s multi-faceted dimensions, Orlean tells the riveting story of the fire that destroyed the LA Library and the search for who or what started it. Beautifully written.
TerilynTeresa Ralaba
I cannot express how hard I tried to like this book! After all the stellar reviews, I thought I was missing something, that the problem was perhaps me. Ever hopeful, I plowed forward trying to be entertained, enlightened, educated or engaged... none of the above. I did finish it, but I actually regret the time wasted. I should have listened to my Aunt Georgie (a librarian) who likes to say, "You should always put a book down if it hasn't grabbed you by chapter 3." My apologies to her, and her sage advice.
Short Excerpt Teaser
The Library Book 1.
Stories to Begin On (1940)
By Bacmeister, Rhoda W.
X 808 B127
Begin Now-To Enjoy Tomorrow (1951)
By Giles, Ray
362.6 G472
A Good Place to Begin (1987)
By Powell, Lawrence Clark
027.47949 P884
To Begin at the Beginning (1994)
By Copenhaver, Martin B.
230 C782
Even in Los Angeles, where there is no shortage of remarkable hairdos, Harry Peak attracted attention. "He was very blond. Very, very blond," his lawyer said to me, and then he fluttered his hand across his forehead, performing a pantomime of Peak's heavy swoop of bangs. Another lawyer, who questioned Peak in a deposition, remembered his hair very well. "He had a lot of it," she said. "And he was very definitely blond." An arson investigator I met described Peak entering a courtroom "with all that hair," as if his hair existed independently.
Having a presence mattered a great deal to Harry Omer Peak. He was born in 1959, and grew up in Santa Fe Springs, a town in the paddle-flat valley less than an hour southeast of Los Angeles, hemmed in by the dun-colored Santa Rosa Hills and a looming sense of monotony. It was a place that offered the soothing uneventfulness of conformity, but Harry longed to stand out. As a kid, he dabbled in the minor delinquencies and pranks that delighted an audience. Girls liked him. He was charming, funny, dimpled, daring. He could talk anyone into anything. He had a gift for drama and invention. He was a storyteller, a yarn-spinner, and an agile liar; he was good at fancying up facts to make his life seem less plain and mingy. According to his sister, he was the biggest bullshitter in the world, so quick to fib and fabricate that even his own family didn't believe a word he said.
The closeness of Hollywood's constant beckoning, combined with his knack for performance, meant, almost predictably, that Harry Peak decided to become an actor. After he finished high school and served a stint in the army, Harry moved to Los Angeles and started dreaming. He began dropping the phrase "when I'm a movie star" into his conversations. He always said "when" and not "if." For him, it was a statement of fact rather than speculation.
Although they never actually saw him in any television shows or movies, his family was under the impression that during his time in Hollywood, Harry landed some promising parts. His father told me Harry was on a medical show-maybe General Hospital-and that he had roles in several movies, including The Trial of Billy Jack. IMDb-the world's largest online database for movies and television-lists a Barry Peak, a Parry Peak, a Harry Peacock, a Barry Pearl, and even a Harry Peak of Plymouth, England, but there is nothing at all listed for a Harry Peak of Los Angeles. As far as I can tell, the only time Harry Peak appeared on screen was on the local news in 1987, after he was arrested for setting the Los Angeles Central Library on fire, destroying almost half a million books and damaging seven hundred thousand more. It was one of the biggest fires in the history of Los Angeles, and it was the single biggest library fire in the history of the United States.
Central Library, which was designed by the architect Bertram Goodhue and opened in 1926, is in the middle of downtown Los Angeles, at the corner of Fifth Street and Flower, on the downslope of a rise once known as Normal Hill. The hill used to be higher, but when it was chosen as the site of the library, the summit was clawed off to make it more buildable. At the time the library opened, this part of downtown Los Angeles was a busy neighborhood of top-heavy, half-timbered Victorians teetering on the flank of the hills. These days, the houses are gone, and the neighborhood consists of dour, dark office towers standing shoulder to shoulder, casting long shafts of shade across what is left of the hill. Central Library is an entire city block wide, but it is only eight stories high, making it sort of ankle-height compared to these leggy office towers. It projects a horizontality that it probably didn't in 1926, when it debuted as the high point in what was then a modest, mostly four-story-tall city center.
The library opens at ten A.M., but by daybreak there are always people hovering nearby. They lean against every side of the building, or perch half on and half off the low stone walls around the perimeter, or array themselves in postures of anticipation in the garden northwest of the...
Stories to Begin On (1940)
By Bacmeister, Rhoda W.
X 808 B127
Begin Now-To Enjoy Tomorrow (1951)
By Giles, Ray
362.6 G472
A Good Place to Begin (1987)
By Powell, Lawrence Clark
027.47949 P884
To Begin at the Beginning (1994)
By Copenhaver, Martin B.
230 C782
Even in Los Angeles, where there is no shortage of remarkable hairdos, Harry Peak attracted attention. "He was very blond. Very, very blond," his lawyer said to me, and then he fluttered his hand across his forehead, performing a pantomime of Peak's heavy swoop of bangs. Another lawyer, who questioned Peak in a deposition, remembered his hair very well. "He had a lot of it," she said. "And he was very definitely blond." An arson investigator I met described Peak entering a courtroom "with all that hair," as if his hair existed independently.
Having a presence mattered a great deal to Harry Omer Peak. He was born in 1959, and grew up in Santa Fe Springs, a town in the paddle-flat valley less than an hour southeast of Los Angeles, hemmed in by the dun-colored Santa Rosa Hills and a looming sense of monotony. It was a place that offered the soothing uneventfulness of conformity, but Harry longed to stand out. As a kid, he dabbled in the minor delinquencies and pranks that delighted an audience. Girls liked him. He was charming, funny, dimpled, daring. He could talk anyone into anything. He had a gift for drama and invention. He was a storyteller, a yarn-spinner, and an agile liar; he was good at fancying up facts to make his life seem less plain and mingy. According to his sister, he was the biggest bullshitter in the world, so quick to fib and fabricate that even his own family didn't believe a word he said.
The closeness of Hollywood's constant beckoning, combined with his knack for performance, meant, almost predictably, that Harry Peak decided to become an actor. After he finished high school and served a stint in the army, Harry moved to Los Angeles and started dreaming. He began dropping the phrase "when I'm a movie star" into his conversations. He always said "when" and not "if." For him, it was a statement of fact rather than speculation.
Although they never actually saw him in any television shows or movies, his family was under the impression that during his time in Hollywood, Harry landed some promising parts. His father told me Harry was on a medical show-maybe General Hospital-and that he had roles in several movies, including The Trial of Billy Jack. IMDb-the world's largest online database for movies and television-lists a Barry Peak, a Parry Peak, a Harry Peacock, a Barry Pearl, and even a Harry Peak of Plymouth, England, but there is nothing at all listed for a Harry Peak of Los Angeles. As far as I can tell, the only time Harry Peak appeared on screen was on the local news in 1987, after he was arrested for setting the Los Angeles Central Library on fire, destroying almost half a million books and damaging seven hundred thousand more. It was one of the biggest fires in the history of Los Angeles, and it was the single biggest library fire in the history of the United States.
Central Library, which was designed by the architect Bertram Goodhue and opened in 1926, is in the middle of downtown Los Angeles, at the corner of Fifth Street and Flower, on the downslope of a rise once known as Normal Hill. The hill used to be higher, but when it was chosen as the site of the library, the summit was clawed off to make it more buildable. At the time the library opened, this part of downtown Los Angeles was a busy neighborhood of top-heavy, half-timbered Victorians teetering on the flank of the hills. These days, the houses are gone, and the neighborhood consists of dour, dark office towers standing shoulder to shoulder, casting long shafts of shade across what is left of the hill. Central Library is an entire city block wide, but it is only eight stories high, making it sort of ankle-height compared to these leggy office towers. It projects a horizontality that it probably didn't in 1926, when it debuted as the high point in what was then a modest, mostly four-story-tall city center.
The library opens at ten A.M., but by daybreak there are always people hovering nearby. They lean against every side of the building, or perch half on and half off the low stone walls around the perimeter, or array themselves in postures of anticipation in the garden northwest of the...
