Book Review: THE LIBRARY BOOK (2018)

5/5 ⭐️

Last week I finished reading THE LIBRARY BOOK by Susan Orlean (2018) on a recommendation from my friend Don.

If you’ve not yet read this book, do so immediately! Orlean gives a fantastic, in-depth account of the tragic Los Angeles Central Library fire of 1986 that happened just days after the Chernobyl disaster - so fears of fires and mass destruction were incredibly high. This structure fire was the largest in LA’s history and hundreds of thousands of the library’s 2 million book collection were destroyed or damaged.

Not only does this book take a deep investigative journalistic dive into the fire and what (or who) caused it, Orlean gives us a history of the the LA library and it’s notable former directors - some of which are quite the characters. Orlean takes us on a bit of her own journey as a lover of books and libraries and shows us how valuable our public libraries are.

I give this book 5 stars ⭐️ and encourage anyone who likes books, history, and/or true crime to read this book asap!