About this item
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "A constant pleasure to read ... Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book." - The Washington Post "CAPTIVATING ... DELIGHTFUL." - Christian Science Monitor * "EXQUISITELY WRITTEN, CONSISTENTLY ENTERTAINING." - The New York Times * "MESMERIZING ... RIVETING." - BOOKLIST (starred review) A dazzling love letter to a beloved institution - and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries - from the bestselling author hailed as a "national treasure" by The Washington Post.On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm.
About the Author
I'm the product of a happy and uneventful childhood in the suburbs of Cleveland, followed by a happy and pretty eventful four years as a student at University of Michigan. From there, I wandered to the West Coast, landing in Portland, Oregon, where I managed (somehow) to get a job as a writer. This had been my dream, of course, but I had no experience and no credentials. What I did have, in spades, was an abiding passion for storytelling and sentence-making. I fell in love with the experience of writing, and I've never stopped. From Portland, I moved to Boston, where I wrote for the Phoenix and the Globe, and then to New York, where I began writing for magazines, and, in 1987, published my first piece in The New Yorker. I've been a staff writer there since 1992.
