I grew up in really rural Indiana, so rural that you couldn’t see another house from our house, and we were so isolated my sister and I used to ride our ponies to the local library. We’d fill up our saddlebags with books, then read up in the hayloft of the barn behind our house.
Our little town, more like a village back then, still had posts to attach our ponies’ reins, and we would take turns going inside so Cadet and Sable were not alone. If I had one wish right now, it would be that I could remember the librarian’s name, or envision her face — but I clearly remember thinking that she had probably read every single book in the library. How else, I wondered, could she present to me, every week, exactly the books I would love?
When I asked her about that, she pointed me to the little numbers on the outside of each book and told me they were like a code for discovering what kinds of books you would like. And that you could find absolutely everything if you knew the code. The code! Even back then, it seemed like the key to something. As she pointed me to Edward Eager and Jane Langton, and to Narnia and the Mushroom Planet, and then to Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I knew the code was working.
And she must have been magic, too, because it truly felt as if she recognized the reader-ness in me. I devoured everything and read every book she gave me. And it did seem that if you had the library, you could answer any question, talk to any person, and travel to any place in the universe. Including some that existed only in our imaginations.
My new thriller, All This Could Be Yours, is partly a love letter to libraries. My main character, debut author Tessa Calloway, is on a nationwide book tour that’s turned into a deadly cat-and-mouse chase. She’s lauded by fans, but stalked by a dangerous someone out to ruin her career and destroy her family back home. To solve the deadly mystery, Tessa takes us inside the Des Moines Public Library, and the Philadelphia Public Library, and more, and there, with the help of savvy, smart research librarians, uncovers the secrets to the terrifying and heartbreaking mystery of her own life. Is a Faustian bargain she once made about to come due?
It’s super-meta, I admit, and I must confess how much fun it was to make librarians into hero detectives. Just like they are in real life. Librarians saved me as a kid, and now, in fiction, get to save my main character. Like I said. Meta.
And I can tell, in some of my favorite books, that their authors must have felt the same way about libraries. The affection in their words, the undercurrent of magic that twines through their pages, the recurring theme of books as portals and doorways and connections. Think of it — how many answers are in the library? All of them. You just have to know what questions to ask.
And who knows what secrets may be discovered in those shelves! See if your local library has these — and you don’t even have to ride your pony to get them.
The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill
Not for the faint of brain! This meta-twisty, supremely smart and witty mystery seems to be about a woman writing a novel with the help of a distant pen pal. But truly, it’s a mystery within a mystery, and if I tell you more, it won’t be fair to you or the author. But the brilliant Gentill captures the Boston Public Library perfectly, and Boston perfectly, and this book is a gem.
The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections by Eva Jurczyk
Quirky and biting and unexpectedly (and thought-provokingly) heartbreaking. A valuable manuscript has gone missing — but this isn’t just a “where’s the old book?” caper. It’s a layered look into the hierarchy of academia, the agendas of philanthropy and a touching study of the role of women. Plus, it’s a terrific mystery, and the multi-meaninged title is a completely perfect indication of its voicey sensibility.
The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
People sometimes talk about books as transformative, and this one truly is. Gorgeously researched and beautifully written, we see the world through the eyes of the personal librarian to J. Pierpont Morgan — one who is assigned to amass the greatest literary treasures of the Gilded Age world. But things are not what they seem, and profound secrets — secrets that must stay hidden — will inform everyone’s lives and actions. A powerful study of literature and racism and how our own vision of history depends on who is telling it. You will never look at the world the same way.
The Lions of 5th Avenue by Fiona Davis
A secret apartment in the New York Public Library! Instantly irresistible. But Fiona Davis’s genius with this book is not just about architecture and geography, but about the passions that drive readers, and how books can bring us together. Oprah says “this is a book written for book lovers” — and I agree. Every time you see those stone lions, Patience and Fortitude, guarding the front doors, you will be drawn back into this wise and beautiful book.
Witches of Dubious Origin by Jenn McKinlay
McKinlay has staked a claim on her brilliant genre: cozy fantasy. Librarian Zoe Ziakas inherits her family’s grimoire, uh-oh, and now must solve the murders of her mother and grandmother. Who to ask for help? Research librarians, of course. With help from the magical curators of the Books of Dubious Origin library and one extremely nosy raven, Zoe searches the arcane collection for answers while outrunning ghost pirates, undead Vikings, and a murderer who wants that grimoire even if it means our Zoe has to die. Just like in your own local library. It could happen, right?
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
I completely remember when I first read this, so many years ago, and I totally remember thinking: I want more books exactly like this! Of course, there are no more books exactly like this: a medieval whodunit set in a monastic library in 1327. It’s about meaning, and murder, and power, and complexity and philosophy. I remember half the time I didn’t understand it, and then somehow, I did. It’s the very definition of thought-provoking — exactly what a mystery is meant to be.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
If you’re ever haunted by what might have been, or whether you made the right choice, or how you wound up where you are, please just read this book. Of course, the Midnight Library has a very special section, it is full of — and this is not a spoiler — books that let you see what your other lives might have been, and where your roads untraveled would have taken you. I will confess I stalled in reading this book, thinking it can’t be as good as everyone says it is. But everyone was right. I will confess, too, that it made me rethink the concept of regret. And I am still grateful.
I will be visiting the Des Moines Public Library (and others in my new book!) on my book tour this fall. I’ll be an author with a book called All This Could Be Yours, speaking to readers in the very places that my fictional character visits for her book, also called All This Could Be Yours.
Thank you, my childhood librarian, for setting me on this path. I do not remember your name, but I still treasure your gift.
