Bath and North East Somerset Libraries

Are you lost or are you exploring? When Zachary Rawlins stumbles across a strange book hidden in his university library it leads him on a quest unlike any other. Its pages entrance him with their tales of lovelorn prisoners, lost cities and nameless acolytes, but they also contain something impossible: a recollection from his own childhood.

Determined to solve the puzzle of the book, Zachary follows the clues he finds on the cover – a bee, a key and a sword. They guide him to a bibliophile masquerade ball, to a dangerous secret club, and finally through a magical doorway created by the fierce and mysterious Mirabel. This door leads to a subterranean labyrinth filled with stories, hidden far beneath the surface of the earth.

After the tragic death of his beloved musician father, 14-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house – a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn’t understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain.

When his mother develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow more clamorous. At first Benny tries to ignore them, but soon the voices follow him outside the house, onto the street and at school, driving him at last to seek refuge in the silence of a large public library, where objects are well-behaved and know to speak in whispers.

Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is a labyrinthine library of obscure & forgotten titles that have long gone out of print. A man brings his 10-year-old son to the library & allows him to choose one book to keep. But as he grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find.

Lucy Hull, a young children’s librarian in Hannibal, Missouri, finds herself both kidnapper and kidnapped when her favourite patron, ten-year-old Ian Drake, runs away from home. The precocious Ian is addicted to reading, but needs Lucy’s help to smuggle books past his overbearing mother, who has enrolled Ian in weekly anti-gay classes.

When Lucy finds Ian camped out in the library after hours with a backpack of provisions and an escape plan, she allows herself to be hijacked by him and the pair embark on a spontaneous road trip. But is it just Ian who is running away? And should Lucy really be trying to save a boy from his own parents?

Carolyn’s not so different from the other human beings around her. She’s sure of it. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. She even remembers what clothes are for. However, she and a dozen other children found themselves ‘adopted’ and raised by a man they learned to call Father. In the years since Father took her in, Carolyn hasn’t gotten out much. Instead, she and her adopted siblings have been raised according to Father’s ancient Pelapi customs.

They’ve studied the books in his library and learned some of the secrets behind his equally ancient power. Sometimes, they’ve wondered if their cruel tutor might secretly be God. Now, Father is missing. And if God truly is dead, the only thing in all of creation that matters is who will inherit his library – and with it, power over all of creation.

One after the other, half a dozen monks are found murdered in the most bizarre of ways. A learned Franciscan who is sent to solve the mysteries finds himself involved in the frightening events.

Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, which harvests fiction from different realities. And along with her enigmatic assistant Kai, she’s posted to an alternative London. Their mission – to retrieve a dangerous book.

But when they arrive, it’s already been stolen. London’s underground factions seem prepared to fight to the very death to find her book. Adding to the jeopardy, this world is chaos-infested – the laws of nature bent to allow supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic.

When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change. The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently.

With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren’t always what she imagined they’d be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger. Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?

Paris, 1939. Odile Souchet is obsessed with books, and her new job at the American Library in Paris – with its thriving community of students, writers and book lovers – is a dream come true. When war is declared, the Library is determined to remain open. But then the Nazis invade Paris, and everything changes. In Occupied Paris, choices as black and white as the words on a page become a murky shade of grey – choices that will put many on the wrong side of history, and the consequences of which will echo for decades to come.

Montana, 1983. Lily is a lonely teenage desperate to escape small-town Montana. She grows close to her neighbour Odile, discovering they share the same love of language, the same longings. But as Lily uncovers more about Odile’s mysterious past, she discovers a dark secret, closely guarded and long hidden.

Librarian Martha Storm has always found it easier to connect with books than people – though not for lack of trying. She keeps careful lists of how to help others in her superhero-themed notebook. And yet, sometimes it feels like she’s invisible. All of that changes when a book of fairy tales arrives on her doorstep.

Inside, Martha finds a dedication written to her by her best friend – her grandmother Zelda – who died under mysterious circumstances years earlier. When Martha discovers a clue within the book that her grandmother may still be alive, she becomes determined to discover the truth. As she delves deeper into Zelda’s past, she unwittingly reveals a family secret that will change her life forever.

‘What are you looking for?’ asks Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi. She is no ordinary librarian. Naturally, she has read every book on her shelf, but she also has the unique ability to read the souls of anyone who walks through her door. Sensing exactly what they’re looking for in life, she provides just the book recommendation they never knew they needed to help them find it.

Every borrower in her library is at a different crossroads, from the restless retail assistant – can she ever get out of a dead-end job? – to the juggling new mother who dreams of becoming a magazine editor, and the meticulous accountant who yearns to own an antique store. The surprise book Komachi lends to each will have transformative consequences.

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in Harvard’s library. He knows not to ask too many questions, stand out too much, stray too far.

For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve ‘American culture’ in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic – including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret.

Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is drawn into a quest to find her.

Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon. One morning on his daily walk he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior centre that is her home. Hoping to fill the void he’s known since retiring, he begins volunteering there. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed.

Behind Bob Comet’s straight man facade is the story of an unhappy child’s runaway adventure during the last days of the Second World War, of true love won and stolen away, of the purpose and pride found in the librarian’s vocation, and the pleasures of a life lived to the side of the masses.

Chris works as a librarian in a small-town library in the south of England. This is the story of the library, its staff, and the fascinating group of people who use the library on a regular basis.

Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes or filled with bean bags and children’s drawings – the history of the library is rich, varied and stuffed full of incident.

Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen explore the contested and dramatic history of the library, from the famous collections of the ancient world to the embattled public resources we cherish today. Along the way, they introduce us to the antiquarians and philanthropists who shaped the world’s great collections, trace the rise and fall of fashions and tastes, and reveal the high crimes and misdemeanours committed in pursuit of rare and valuable manuscripts.

Allie Morgan is a woman in crisis. Having recently dropped out of her dream career due to mental illness, she’s decided that life is no longer worth living and is set to end it when she receives a phone call from the local library, offering her a job. There and then she decides to postpone suicide and give the role a try.

What Allie doesn’t expect is for a simple part-time job to become a passionate battle for survival, both her own and for the library. As the year unfolds, she sees an attempted murder, becomes a target for a drugs gang and finds herself the last hope for people in desperate poverty. Hers is the story of how one person can go from rock bottom to becoming a crucial part of her local community. Recounted with immense wry humour and disarming charm, ‘The Librarian’ is an eye-opening account of a strange but wonderful community hub and a library that changed a life.

Explore 50 of the most unique libraries located in unknown spaces across the world in this beautiful book for travel-loving bibliophiles. From China’s lonely library on a secluded beach to a roving military tank filled with 900 novels in Buenos Aires, this inspirational guide celebrates the great lengths humans will go to to assure access to books.

Ten years in the writing, this is a witty, impassioned tour of England’s libraries by a writer and book-lover who made it his mission to to enrol at every library authority in England. As interested in the people he finds as he is in the buildings, this will appeal to anyone who has ever visited a public library.

ew of us consider the order of the alphabet for long after we first learn it as children. Yet it is alphabetic order, its role in organization, that allows us to access centuries of thought, of knowledge, of poetry, literature, scientific discovery and discourse.

Alphabetical order allows us to locate the information we need, and disseminate it further. Without alphabetical order, all the knowledge in the world would lie in great unsifted stacks of books, unfindable, unread, unknown.

This book traces the beginnings of alphabetization, as we understand it, moving from the development of what was, in effect, a sixteenth-century proto-card catalogue, to a London bookseller who made a revolutionary breakthrough when he alphabetized his books, not by lumping all the ‘Thomases’ together (Thomas More, Thomas Smith, Thomas Elyot), but by ‘sirname’.

After moving to Los Angeles, Susan Orlean became fascinated by a mysterious local crime that has gone unsolved since it was carried out on the morning of 29 April 1986: who set fire to the Los Angeles Public Library, ultimately destroying more than 400,000 books, and perhaps even more perplexing, why?

With her characteristic humour, insight and compassion, Orlean uses this terrible event as a lens through which to tell the story of all libraries – their history, their meaning and their uncertain future as they adapt and redefine themselves in a digital world. Filled with heart, passion and extraordinary characters, ‘The Library Book’ discusses the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives.

Books; reading, collecting and the physical housing of them has brought the book-lover joy – and stress – for centuries. Fascinated writers have tried to capture the particular relationships we form with our library, and the desperate troubles we will undergo to preserve it.

With Alex Johnson as your guide, immerse yourself in this eclectic anthology and hear from an iconic Prime Minister musing over the best way to store your books and an illustrious US President explaining the best works to read outdoors.

As a child, Lucy Mangan was reading all the time, using books to navigate the challenges and complexities of this world and many others. As an adult, she uses her new relationship with literature to seize upon the most important question: (how) do books prepare us for life?

‘Bookish’ picks up where ‘Bookworm’ left off: at the cusp of teenage, when everything – including the way we read – undergoes a not-so-subtle transformation. Revisiting the books of all genres, that ferried her through each important stage of life, ‘Bookish’ is a coming-of-age in books.

It’s an ode to our favourite bookish spaces – from the smallest secondhand bookstalls to libraries, glorious big bookshops and our very own book rooms – and a love story to how books not only shelter our souls through hard times and help us find ourselves when we feel lost, but also help us connect with the people we love through shared stories.

When a lion visits the library, no one knows what to do, there are no rules about lions in the library. Soon he is indispensable. One day the librarian falls and the only way the lion can get help is to roar, and that is breaking the rules. The next day the lion doesn’t come to the library, nor the next day, nor the next day.

Sam, the Library Mouse, and his friend Sarah’s adventures continue. When they wake to find the library under construction they go in search for a place to live. They build a variety of houses: a castle, an igloo, a yurt, even a geodesic dome–but none feel like home. Finally the renovation of the library is complete and they can move back home.

Thanks to Mouse, grumpy Bear discovers the joy of books in a hilarious story that fans will be eager to add to their own library.

Bear does not want to go to the library. He is quite sure he already has all the books he will ever need. Yet the relentlessly cheery Mouse, small and grey and bright-eyed, thinks differently. When Bear reluctantly agrees to go with his friend to the big library, neither rocket ships nor wooden canoes are enough for Bear’s picky tastes. How will Mouse ever find the perfect book for Bear?

This is a moment-by-moment account of a very young child’s visit to the local library. It presents a young child and her mum who read together because it’s enjoyable.

Quill, the mouse, is a dreamer! He longs to write stories and share them with children in his beloved library. But getting his words noticed seems impossible for such a small creature. Can he and his spider friend, Leggsy, find a way to make his voice stand out from the crowd – or will Quill’s stories remain forever unheard?

Little Lucy Lupin is sweet and dimpled – and a dreadful liar. The trouble is, it’s impossible not to believe her – she’s so perfectly cute. Not once, not twice, but three times the library is evacuated when Lucy says there’s a terrifying lion on the loose. But what will happen when Lucy’s lie comes true?

Luna loves library day: that’s the day she spends with her dad. Exploring the shelves they find magic, mystery and even start to mend their own history. This is an inspiring story from one of the UK’s greatest up-and-coming poets for children, captured in all its flights of fancy by illustrator Fiona Lumbers.

Otto is a Book Bear and nothing makes him happier than when people read his book. But he also has a very special secret – when no one is looking he can come to life and explore the house. But one day something terrible happens: Otto’s book is left behind when the family moves away, and now there is no one to read Otto.

Lola loves books – but when she finds out that someone has borrowed her favourite book of all, she is naturally distraught. Charlie tries everything to placate her, although nothing seems to work. But when Charlie finds ‘Cheetahs and Chimpanzees’, Lola decides that this is her new best book.

George isn’t happy doing the usual bear things like chatting and fishing. But what else is there? Then one day, he finds a book beneath a tree and knows, more than anything, he wants to learn to read! But, arriving in town, George soon discovers that it’s not easy to be a bear at school! If only he could find someone to teach him the alphabet and change his life forever. Perhaps a little girl called Clementine can help?

There once was a dog with a keen sense of smell. She was known far and wide as Detective Dog Nell. Peter’s dog Nell has an amazing sense of smell. Whether it’s finding a lost shoe or discovering who did a poo on the new gravel path, her ever-sniffing nose is always hard at work.

But Nell has other talents too. Every Monday she goes to school with Peter and listens to children read. So who better to have on hand when they arrive one morning to discover that the school’s books have all disappeared! Who could have taken them? And why? There’s only one dog for the job and Detective Dog Nell is ready to sniff out the culprit!

When Max meets Bird, Max thinks he’d like to be friends with Bird. He would also like to chase Bird and maybe eat him as a tasty snack. But that’s not what friendship is all about. Is it?

Some rabbits dream about lettuces and carrots, others dream of flowering meadows and juicy dandelions, but Ralfy dreams only of books. In fact, he doesn’t just dream about them, he wants to read them all the time. Soon his obsession sends him spiralling into a life of crime!