Madeline Martin, The Booklover’s Library

Steve Thomas: Madeline, welcome back to the podcast.

Madeline Martin: Thank you so much, Steve. It’s lovely to be here.

Steve Thomas: So your previous books, including the one that you were on the show for before, The Librarian Spy, features librarian protagonists, and your new book also features somebody working in the library, though she’s not a spy in the same way, but can you talk about why you like setting your books in bookstores and libraries and just with a book atmosphere?

Madeline Martin: Yeah, sure, and there was also a book in between that was The Keeper of Hidden Books that I released last year, and that was based off of the journals found by Warsaw’s public librarians about their efforts to save books during the Nazi occupation.

I do love to write about books and bookstores and librarians, and I think for me, being such a reader is such a huge part of that. Books have always been such a ubiquitous part of my life where I feel like I’m either thinking about a book that I’ve read or that I’m reading or that I want to read or possibly even write. And sometimes it could be, I see something that reminds me of a book or I meet someone that reminds me of a character that I read in a book, so it’s kind of fun for me to get to incorporate that aspect of my love of reading and books into my characters and my plots and my stories. And you know, also I really do enjoy talking about classic fiction. And so getting to incorporate some of those books that have meant something to me in my life into these stories, it really is, it’s just fun.

Steve Thomas: And one of the fun things is that, like you said, the classics that some of them since it’s historical fiction, sometimes they’re fiction for them, but they’re classics to us. Like, there’s some mentions of like Murder on the Orient Express. It’s this new thing from this author, Agatha Christie, and it’s like the, but it’s brand new published at the time.

Madeline Martin: Yes, actually, it’s, it’s very, very fun to write some of those little things in there, knowing, oh gosh, she ends up being so huge and there she’s like this new author, and it’s fun to talk about that, yeah.

Steve Thomas: Can you give the basic idea behind The Booklover’s Library, what it’s about?

Madeline Martin: Yeah, so The Booklover’s Library is set in Nottingham, England at the start of World War II, and we have a widow named Emma Taylor, and she has to send her daughter away during the mass evacuation of children in England during World War II to ensure that her daughter remains safe. This is something that has always really struck a chord with me specifically because as a mother, I can’t imagine sending my child away for an indeterminant amount of time to an unknown location with people that I’ve never met before, and actually this ended up being over six years that some of these children ended up being gone for.

 I was doing research because I wanted to figure out where I wanted to set something like this, and I discovered this lovely little lending library that was called the Booklover’s Library, which I mean, what a great name, right? These were actually set up in chemist’s shops in the Boots Chemist’s shops, and there was this like little almost oasis in the middle of a drugstore, where it was like just little libraries with thick pile carpets and stained glass windows. This was also during the time that they had the marriage bar going on, so when women got married, they had to give up their jobs and apparently working at the Booklover’s Library with such a delight that the librarians there had a statistically longer engagement than other areas of employment because they didn’t want to give up their jobs, which I thought, “Oh, that sounds like such a lovely place to work.”

And through my research, I actually found a lot of fun, quirky characters that I was able to incorporate into the plot as well. So some of these characters that are customers of the Booklover’s Library are actually based off of real customers who used to go there, so it’s a real fun kind of heartwarming home front read.

Steve Thomas: I think a lot of people in the U. S. don’t know about that, except in this case of, “Oh, I guess that’s why the children are being sent away in the Narnia books.”

Madeline Martin: Right. Yeah. Right.

Steve Thomas: The last time you were on the podcast, you talked about how you research and your love of history, but for this particular story, was there any specific story or detail that sparked the idea for Emma and Olivia’s journey? Learning about the Booklover’s Library is maybe the push for the whole thing, but for the part of the book that’s about Emma and Olivia, or is that just how it came as you were thinking through the whole Booklover’s Library idea?

Madeline Martin: One part of their relationship was actually inspired by a reader who had read The Last Bookshop in London, and she had loved the book so much, and she said that she actually had lived through the Blitz when she was a little girl, and she had been sent away. She had several sort of bad experiences, and there was one part of her experience that I thought, “Oh my gosh, this girl is so plucky and brave,” and I love this idea, and it influenced a certain scene in the Booklover’s Library, which I don’t want to go into detail on because I don’t want to reveal any spoilers, but I do actually reference it in my author’s note at the end, so if people read the book, they can still see exactly which scene that was.

But the other part of it too was just inspired by being a mother. I was actually a single mother for several years. And it was difficult this day and age. I truly can’t imagine how difficult it would have been in the forties. And so I incorporated a lot of my personal experiences into Emma and Olivia and not just even the bad part, because of course there are prejudices and assumptions and rudeness, but also all of the really wonderful parts of being a single parent, which I know it probably seems like, “Oh, you know, being a single parent is hard, what’s wonderful?” But having that one on one connection with just your children really is such a beautiful thing.

So I went through and I looked at pictures of my daughters when they were seven because I wanted to make sure that I was getting the age right. And I was thinking, “Oh gosh, I hope I can remember what they were like when they were seven.” And when I looked at those pictures, all of those memories just came rushing back and just the full force of their personalities. Olivia is actually sort of a blend between my two girls at that age, and I think that writing this book just was so much more precious to me because Olivia was basically my daughters, and the relationship really was so much based off of my own relationship with my girls. So this is probably actually the most personal book that I’ve ever written.

Steve Thomas: Are there other parts of Emma that you feel like are like you other than love of books and the parental relationship. But are there other parts of you that you feel like you put into Emma?

Madeline Martin: Well, probably the mom guilt, because I think that’s completely inescapable as a mother. So it’s some of the mom guilt and of course the aspect of being a reader.

Steve Thomas: So you mentioned the marriage ban, but it also applies just to the fact that like she’s not married because her husband had passed away, but the fact that she has a child means that she’s not really supposed to have a job either. So she has to hide the fact that she has a child. Even if the child is sent away, it doesn’t matter because she has a child and she’s not supposed to have a job, but she luckily falls in with some people who are willing to look away from it, basically, and pretend like that’s not happening to give her the job.

Madeline Martin: Absolutely. It was so ridiculous because women who had kids now the marriage bar, it really applied more toward what would be considered more elegant jobs of that time period. So like women in factories, for example, really didn’t have that same rule applied to them. This was more for women who were shop assistants, librarians, secretaries, that kind of a role that, that was kind of scrutinized a little bit more from a socioeconomic perspective. And so it was one of those things where, because she was a mother, her job was to have a child, and really what society expected her to do was to get a new husband.

That was pretty much what she was expected to do, which is crazy, but with Emma, she was very lucky because her husband had put money aside for her to receive a pension for herself and her daughter. Not every widow was so lucky. If they didn’t receive a pension, they literally had no money, and this was a really difficult situation for many widows that they were unable to find a job or that the jobs that they had didn’t make enough money to support them so oftentimes, yeah, marriage was the only option whether they wanted to or not.

Steve Thomas: A lot of your books are set in London during the wartime period. What is it about that period and London in particular, maybe that draws your love and your interest?

Madeline Martin: Well, first of all, I think London is really just such a cool place. I’ve been fortunate to have gone back to visit it several times. So The Booklover’s Library is actually set in Nottingham, but there is a part that they do go back to London, and I confess, when she went back to London because I was trying to think about The Last Bookshop in London and how I might tie these books together because that was such an enjoyable book to write, and I love those characters as well. And I think even for readers, it’s always kind of fun when you get to revisit an old friend with some of those characters. I know that with the Booklover’s Library, the staff were often sent to different locations to complete their training. And I thought, oh, how lovely if she goes back to London and we have an opportunity to get to see the Primrose Hill Bookshop from the Last Bookshop in London, and we get to revisit with those characters. So that has a lot to do with it, a lot of the fondness.

As far as England, I have to say the research is significantly easier to do in a language that I speak. My other research has been with the Librarian Spy, was Portuguese and French, and then Warsaw was Polish, so it is a little bit more difficult when you’re in a different language.

Steve Thomas: And is there anything about the World War II period that’s of interest?

Madeline Martin: I think there’s a lot of aspects of it. The first being that I feel like that was a time of such bravery for some people where they were willing to risk everything, including their children, including their parents, every part of their lives, sometimes to save people that they didn’t even know. And I really truly think that that kind of selflessness is just absolutely beautiful. But also finding out the ways that people worked around to not only skirt these ridiculous rules that were in place sometimes and having to work around a ration, but being able to even still find hope in these incredibly dark times. It’s like the adage of “you can’t have happiness if you don’t feel sad.” I feel like having such desolation creates such an opportunity for such immense hope and being able to tell these stories of these people, these men and women, it really is such an amazing thing.

Steve Thomas: And can you talk about the library itself? Cause it’s not what maybe you might think at first. I mean, it’s a subscription library, not just a public library available to anybody. So how did the library work?

Madeline Martin: It’s interesting because they did have public libraries back then, but the public libraries back then were not what they are today. You didn’t have like a lot of the popular novels that were available. It was a lot more academic. And then the books that they had there that weren’t academic, it was almost kind of seen as like a place of germs, right? That everyone just touched all these books.

So with the Booklover’s Library and other lending libraries, because you did have several others that were in existence as well, you basically could purchase a yearlong membership for essentially the cost of a paperback book. You had class A subscribers and your class B subscribers, and of course the class A subscribers paid more and they expected the world at their feet as a result., but the librarians were there to be able to offer almost like a guided support through whatever books you wanted to read. And of course, the more you paid, the more curation that you received from these women but it was a really great opportunity for people to be able to have accessible books for themselves without having to break the bank, especially during a war.

And you know, lending libraries aren’t really a thing anymore per se. However, when I did go to Nottingham for research, they had a place called Bromley House, which is a lending library that is still in existence today. The staff there were so warm and friendly, and they let me come in. They gave me a tour. They let me stay there for the day. I got to do research. It was just such a magical place. It had texts that went all the way back to, I think, the 1600s that you could actually take out and read through. It had so many rooms that I got completely lost at one point. They even had this really cool little children’s area that was set up, speaking of Narnia, that was set up like the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. When you opened it, when you open the door, there is this fur curtain, and when you moved to the side, they had painted the room to look like Narnia. It really was so magical. It was a really, really cool experience getting to go and see that.

Steve Thomas: Yeah, I think just as public libraries developed, I think they just kind of took over that market of like we did start getting more popular materials and librarians became more interactive with people. And so that we were doing that advisory kind of stuff with people.

Madeline Martin: Right.

Steve Thomas: But yeah, but I know the whole concept, I think, we always put back to Benjamin Franklin of starting subscription libraries and lending libraries like that, but that’s really what started that whole thing. Cause before, the books were always just locked up in an academic college somewhere, and that’s where all the books were. And then even if you had to pay for it, I mean, obviously we like the public library concept of free to everybody, but just the fact that “lending books to each other” became a thing and it builds community, which I think also is something that’s in your book. There’s a lot of community building. She has her community at the bookstore, at the library, and she has her community in her home. Can you talk a little bit about some of the characters that she interacts with, you know, at the library and then at her home?

Madeline Martin: Yeah.

Steve Thomas: Some quirky people there.

Madeline Martin: Yes. Yeah. Definitely. Some quirky people there. So I’ll talk about the library first since I kind of touched on that a little bit earlier, but some of these characters when I was doing my research about the Booklover’s Library, I found that there really were some very real life quirky people and I thought, Oh, these people are just way too fun to not put into my book and just make very colorful, and so I did exactly that. But you know, she also meets some friends there. So we have Margaret, and of course I had to incorporate the fact that Margaret had a fiancé that she loves dearly, but that she loves her job so much, she just doesn’t want to get married just yet because she wants to keep working, especially when he gets shipped off to war, and that really was to be indicative of the general woman who worked there, who really just loved her job and didn’t want to give it up.

And then of course with Emma, she starts off with this trauma where her father had owned a bookstore that burned down. And so for her, there’s actually some trauma associated with books because it was always a bond that she and her father had shared, so these quirky characters end up really being able to help her through some of that as well.

And then at home, she has, of course, an irascible neighbor, a grumpy old man and then the landlady who kind of has her nose in everyone’s business, and there is a little dog named Tubby, and he is just absolutely the cutest thing. I think so because, I mean, I made him up, but I love animals and so I love when I get to incorporate animals into books. And also for people out there who are bleeding hearts like me, don’t worry. Nothing happens to Tubby. He stays completely safe the entire time.

Steve Thomas: That’s good. You can kill as many people off as you want, but don’t ever hurt the dogs.

Madeline Martin: Yes, exactly. I love thrillers. And every now and then there’ll be like some kind of animal thing and I’m like, “…and I’m done!”

Steve Thomas: Yea, and part of Margaret’s struggle, the one who’s engaged, is that if he goes off to war and they’re not married, she doesn’t get a pension. But if they were married, she would get a pension if he died during the war so she’s giving up that possibility.

Madeline Martin: Right. And for her, she would rather just keep her job. But for him, it gives him a peace of mind knowing that if something were to happen to him, that she would be cared for.

Steve Thomas: I love the, I’m sorry, I’m blanking on his name, the guy who secretly loves mysteries, but can’t admit that he loves mysteries.

Madeline Martin: Mr. Beard.

Steve Thomas: Yes, yes, and I think anybody who’s worked with the public knows that there’s always quirky people like that, and I think he was my favorite of the quirky people. And there’s obviously to all these characters, you know, there’s more to their stories and everything, even the grumpy guy she lives with, there’s more to that.

But there’s an even better job. I thought Librarian Spy was the best job, but then in this one, there’s Library Detectives!

Madeline Martin: And apparently the library detectives were actually real people who made sure that when it came to the Booklover’s Library that everybody was on the up and up, that there were no books being stolen, and even the whole scene where there was a break in actually really did also come from historical fact. So, yeah, I love to try and throw in little facts everywhere that I can because I feel like it just brings the story to life in such a more real way.

Steve Thomas: And when you’re doing your research, are you just making notes of lots of little things that you think is neat and then you just work them in as you can? How do you work that kind of thing in?

Madeline Martin: So when I’m doing my research, I spend about a good 10 months’ worth of research and in that 10 months’ timeframe, I usually also get to go and visit on site. So like I got to go and visit Nottingham, and I basically just have multiple spiral bound notebooks. I don’t usually keep track of them, but for whatever reason I did keep track in the Keeper of Hidden Books, and I had over 15 spiral bound notebooks and somebody once asked me how much of that ends up making it into the book, and I realized, I think it’s like 30%.

So I take down tons and tons and tons of notes and I’m totally old school. I love the paper and pen approach, but I feel like whatever doesn’t make it into the actual book, it’s still for me what paints that picture and makes it real for me. When I’m writing my book, I usually only have about like a month and a half or two months to write the book before it’s due, but at that point, the whole setting is so incredibly real that it’s like a movie playing in my mind, and like, I am the lead actress and I’m writing all of everything that I’m experiencing.

Steve Thomas: That’s very cool. And you can tell her once in a while, it’s like, “Oh, I bet she researched that to make sure that that was right.” Like if there was something that happens and it’s just like, Oh yeah. Like again, Mr. Beard not only does he have that quirk, but he’s writing everything down, and there’s a reason: it’s because he’s recording. There are people who were diarists who were just recording the time.

Madeline Martin: Yeah, it was called Mass Observation, which is what he was a part of. It was this initiative that actually started during the abdication of the king, because he was having an affair and possibly wanting to marry an American divorcee. That’s Wallis Simpson. And so they wanted people to write in journals and diaries every single day, sort of recording how the general population was feeling, and this was almost sort of seen as an invasion of people’s privacy because, of course, people are writing about their neighbors and their friends who have not necessarily consented to have their opinions and names put into these journals.

So as the whole scandal was ensuing, it actually kind of led into the beginning of World War Two, and so they thought, let’s just keep this going. So it continued into World War Two, through World War Two, and even after the fact. And so you have this wealth of information that people have recorded about not just events that are transpiring, but also people’s reaction to it. And also the weather for some reason, because everybody loves to start their journal entry off with what the weather is doing that day. So whenever I write about this, like the weather is pretty spot on, which is hilarious. But it really is such a wealth of information to go through all of these diary entries and read what people are saying about these particular time periods and be able to incorporate that into the book. And so, yeah, when Mr. Beard brings that up, it’s very tongue in cheek because I thought, “Oh, well, this is almost like my hat tilt to everything that I’ve been able to use out of the Mass Observation recordings.

Steve Thomas: Yeah, that’s really cool. I’ve never heard of it before, but it’s such a great resource just for history in general. I mean, for you as a writer, but just for history in general, just to have that record of the time.

Madeline Martin: Yeah, I’m like a huge history nerd, so it’s like the coolest thing in the world to me. Like I wish everybody in every time period has done this.

Steve Thomas: Mm hmm.

The books that Emma had saved from the bookstore are very precious to her and she has to occasionally sell them just to make money and that obviously pains her but do you see that as one of the ways that ties her back to her father and her life before?

Madeline Martin: Absolutely. When the bookshop burned down that her father had owned, not only was it the bookshop itself, but it also was their home on top of the bookshop. So in that one night, she lost literally everything. Then all of a sudden, she finds this box of books that that was being sent to them, and this is basically the only memory that she has left, like tangible item of her father that’s left. And so it’s incredibly valuable to her. So when it starts off and she’s trying to sell this first edition copy of… oh gosh, now I don’t remember the name of it. It’s Alice in Wonderland, but it wasn’t called Alice in Wonderland… the Adventures of Alice, I think. Anyways. So when she goes to sell this first edition, the most important thing to her, even more than the memory of her father, is her daughter, and I think that is so important to know about Emma. I feel like when you read a book, the first chapter should tell you what is the most important thing to that character. And this is so blatantly obvious that it is definitely Olivia, even more than this memory of her father.

Steve Thomas: Yeah, and it is the pain of having to give that up, but it’s a sacrifice that she needs to make for the thing that is more important to her. And do you see, not only in that sense, but that literature can help people through difficult times? Cause you mentioned the usage of the libraries went up a lot during the war. Is that a message that you’d like to get through in your books as well?

Madeline Martin: Oh, absolutely. And you know, there’s so many aspects of that. First of all, it’s just a complete distraction from your current life. If you’re having a difficult time, it is the opportunity to kind of travel in somebody else’s shoes and leave your shoes off for a little bit because they can feel a little worn sometimes. I feel like there’s also this sort of comfort of knowing that, if it’s a well written book, it has a resolution at the end. So you have that comfortable insulated environment of knowing that no matter how bad it gets, it’s going to end up okay at the end. And I think that that is one of the things that makes books such a wonderful escape when you’re going through something difficult.

Steve Thomas: So you mentioned before we were recording that you just turned in another book. Can you give any kind of hint as to what’s coming up in that next book?

Madeline Martin: Yes. So actually I’m going back to London, so you weren’t necessarily wrong about my affinity with London, and this one is also about books. So it’s actually called The Secret Book Society, but I’m not writing in World War Two this time. I’m actually going to Victorian England. And it’s about women who have had their reading materials suppressed because it was believed at that time that women shouldn’t read because, there were some people who felt this way, it took them away from being a mother and a wife and there’s a lot of other reasons.

 So it starts with this woman who has been widowed three times. She is a countess and she owns an extensive library, and she reaches out to these women and she cordially invites them to the Secret Book Society. But instead of having these banal conversations over tea about gossip and other boring things like that, they have a little bit more clandestine conversations and some subterfuge and all of that.

So it was really, really fun actually writing it and it should be coming out September next year. And for people who do want to add it to their want to read, I actually did already put up a Goodreads post about it, so you can find it on Goodreads and add it to your “want to read” list and I update there with any kind of new information I have.

Steve Thomas: Excellent. And is that an extra part of just being an author these days that you have to do things like that? Goodreads and you have to do social media and things like that. Is that just part of the job now?

Madeline Martin: I think it is. Yeah. But you know, it is exciting getting to share. I know like with Goodreads, one of the things that I like to do is as the book is progressing in its creation because you know, really it takes like a year and a half to put these books together, so I like to actually go through and update and have a review on each of my books. I go in and I update as new things are happening with it to kind of let people follow me along on that journey. It’s fun to do it like that.

Steve Thomas: And when you have the new book coming out, do you have to go back through it and remind yourself about the book? Cause like you just finished the next book and just put it out, but now you’re starting this publicity tour for The Booklover’s Library, which you finished a year ago. Do you have to like reread it or something to remind yourself?

Madeline Martin: It definitely can be very difficult for sure. You know, I think what I have the most difficult time with is I meet with a lot of book clubs, I usually meet between three and four book clubs a week, I do a lot of zoom book clubs. So again, anyone listening, if you want me to join your book club, just shoot me a message on madelinemartin.com. But basically, when I meet with people who have read like, say, for example, the Last Bookshop in London, which came out in 2021, which I wrote in 2020, I can talk very much about that book, but when I pull up statistics, I think it’s that math part of my brain being like, “Oh gosh, we’re going there again.” But when I bring up statistics, sometimes my brain is like, “Oop, forgot what that number was.” But generally when it comes to the characters and the storyline with the exception of sometimes forgetting a name or two, I usually am able to stay on point for the most part, but yeah, the older the book is, the harder it is to talk about for sure.

Steve Thomas: All right. Well, I’m going to wrap up with a couple of questions that I ask all the authors that come on. The first one is what was your first favorite book?

Madeline Martin: Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Yeah.

Steve Thomas: And then the opposite of that almost, what’s the latest book that you’ve read that you’ve loved? What’s something that you would recommend people read?

Madeline Martin: Gosh, I’m going to look up my Audible really quick because that is usually where I get a lot of my books because it’s hard to always read. I ended up listening to a lot of them. You know, I’m actually going to say The Briar Club by Kate Quinn. I did an “in conversation” with her when she was in Tampa at the Oxford Exchange, and Kate has just such a really wonderful way of bringing characters to life and just really putting a heartbeat in them that you can feel and that book was no exception. And there were a lot of really wonderful recipes to try throughout, even though I’m a horrible cook. So, but they were still really wonderful and it made me someday, maybe want to try them.

Steve Thomas: It’s fun to read the recipes and think about how they might taste.

Madeline Martin: Yeah, exactly. I’m like, “Ooh, that sounds delicious!”

Steve Thomas: All right. Well, Madeline, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. I appreciate it. And I’m sure if you keep writing book related books, I’ll probably have you back on again in the future. So it’s always a pleasure to talk to you.

Madeline Martin: Thank you. It’s so great talking to you too. Take care.

Steve Thomas: Have a great day.

Madeline Martin: Thanks. You too.

***

Rebecca Vnuk: Welcome to this installment of the Circ Desk. I’m Rebecca Vnuk, the Executive Director of Library Reads.

Yaika Sabat: And I’m Yaika Sabat, a librarian working for Novelist.

Rebecca Vnuk: And today’s episode features Madeline Martin and her new book, The Booklover’s Library, and I have to say, I know Yaika and I probably both giggled a little bit to ourselves at this because there are some books that oh, it’s hard to find read-alikes for, you know, very niche, very whatever, and especially on the Library Reads list, we never quite know what’s going to pop up so sometimes I have a hard time. And as soon as I saw this one, I was like, “Oh, that’s gonna be easy!” The Library Reads list in particular is full of books about books, books about libraries, books about librarians, books about booksellers, books about bookstores. It feels like any time, if there’s “book” in the title, they’re going to vote for it. So yay, we love our books.

Yaika Sabat: Yes, we do.

Rebecca Vnuk: So I actually had to trim down. I could have come up with about 10 read-alikes. It’s a good thing. It’s a good thing to have things to choose from. So one of the things I wanted to mention, in finding the title read-alikes for this episode, is again, going back to the Library Reads archive, I just put in the latest list, which was September ’24, and we are now up to 1, 660 recommended titles over the last 11 years. I’m really excited by that.

Yaika Sabat: So many.

Rebecca Vnuk: Right?? I would love to take this opportunity to encourage folks to go to our archive and have fun with it. So what I did, honestly, to come up with books was I literally just did a keyword search on the word “bookstore” and, you know, 20 things come popping up. And then, as I tried to do a little bit of a deeper dive, I was like, “Oh, right. The stuff I’m finding is not necessarily a read alike in terms of the historical factor.” So then I thought to myself, “I really could sort this by genre” because that is one of our sortable columns in our archive. I could have sorted it to historical fiction and then just done my search there, but I figured I had so many titles that came up initially I wasn’t going to have to do that much work, which was nice.

Yeah. So I have a couple that I would like to recommend and the first one that we’ll go with is the Underground Library by Jennifer Ryan, and this came out, March of 2024, and Jennifer Ryan is actually one of our Hall of Fame authors. So we do not annotate the Hall of Fame titles any longer, but Yaika so helpfully steered me back to Novelist so I could use their annotation review for it. So the plot for this is, “When the Blitz destroys Bethnal Green Library in London, librarian Juliet Lansdowne, along with two other women, relocates the stacks to the local underground station where the city’s residents shelter nightly, determined to lend out stories that will keep spirits up, but soon tragedy after tragedy threatens to destroy what they’ve built.” So this of course has that wonderful book element to it, the helpfulness of people who love books, and then we’ve got our historical element there as well.

So the next Library Reads pick to match with this is the Bookshop of Second Chances by Jackie Fraser, and that was out in 2021. Our description of that comes from Katie Stover at the Kansas City Public Library, and she says, “Nothing like turning a page in an upended life to find a surprising plot twist, leading to a satisfying ending. That’s what readers will find in this warm and charming novel. The power of books to soothe and inspire a life in tumult will attract bibliophiles, but stay with a cup of tea for the lively banter of the romantic leads, the quirky local residents, and the brisk Scottish countryside.” And one of the things I really, really like about this annotation is that Katie has used a lot of those really great appeal terms that really let you know exactly as soon as she said warm and charming, I was like, bingo. Even if this isn’t historical, we have that kind of charming feeling to it, right? She also lets us know that it takes place in the brisk Scottish countryside. And I always am attracted to quirky characters, so I love that she said, “quirky local residents” and you can do so much matching of books, just with those kinds of keywords. That to me really stood out as this is a like perfect little encapsulation of what readers are going to enjoy about this book. So that was good.

And then my last one I’ll do is How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry, and that one came out in 2017. The description on that is from Carol Reich of the Hillsboro Public Library in Oregon. “When Amelia’s father dies, she returns to her small English village, takes over his beloved bookshop, and begins working through her grief and the myriad renovations and changes the store needs. The author weaves stories of multiple village residents and their romantic travails and triumphs. I admired the well-crafted nature of this story, with interwoven storylines offering wide variety without becoming scattered or straining to remain believably interrelated. All in all, just lovely.” That makes me want to curl up with a blanket and a mug of hot cocoa and just sit and read that book.

Yaika Sabat: Exactly. I love descriptions like that. It just gives you a sense of what the experience is going to be.

Rebecca Vnuk: Yes, the reading experience!

Yaika Sabat: Yes.

Rebecca Vnuk: I think sometimes we don’t, we don’t factor that in enough that sometimes our readers, I know I certainly, you’re looking for a book to put you in a kind of mood or maybe take you out of a kind of mood, right? Like, and that’s one of the great things that I love about Novelist is you folks, you really center on that in your descriptions and in the keywords that you can check off to find books.

Yaika Sabat: We are all about the reading experience at Novelist.

Rebecca Vnuk: I love it. I love it!

Yaika Sabat: And that is why we have our story elements. You know, we look at things like the genre, the themes, the appeals of a book because we want to understand what it is about reading that book that the reader enjoyed.

And so I did a few searches. First, obviously I looked at The Booklover’s Library and two of the big appeals that stood out are a hopeful mood and an unputdownable style. So unputdownable, you know, it’s gripping. You want to keep going. It’s the one where you’re like, “Oh, no, it’s 2 a. m. I was just supposed to read for 30 minutes before bed. I’m going to be tired tomorrow, but it’s worth it.” So I did a few searches. I have a couple, actually, I have three options and they each appeal to different elements of the book.

The first book I have to offer is The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles, which came out in 2021, and I went with this one because it is historical fiction set in World War II. It actually explores the relationship of a young girl in the 80s and her friendship that forms with an elderly neighbor through her teen years and the elderly neighbor as they’re sort of getting to know each other, she tells this young girl about her experience as a librarian at the American Library in Paris and her experience also joining the resistance when the Nazis arrived. So it gives you that insight into what life was like in World War II. It also has sort of that moving element and it’s got that focus on friendship that you’re going to get from The Booklover’s Library as well.

Now, the next one’s not historical, but I wanted something that was sort of hopeful, feel good, that again had libraries and friendship at the center, so if you want that sort of feel good aspect I would recommend The Reading List by Sarah Nisha Adams, which also came out in 2021.

Rebecca Vnuk: Yeah, good one.

Yaika Sabat: Yeah, it’s all about Alicia, who’s working at the local library and finds this secret list. She reads every book on the list, and it sort of allows her an escape from her difficult reality, the challenges in her real life, and she decides to pass the list to a lonely widower who is really trying to find a way to connect with his granddaughter who’s a big bookworm. And so this one, like The Booklover’s Library, is all about the power of literature, of community, of the way that books can sort of save people and help people in difficult times. It’s just not set in the past. But I feel like if you like The Booklover’s Library, it would be worth checking this one out.

Now, for the last recommendation, I decided to stick with the historical fiction angle, but then look for something with that unputdownable appeal, and I ended up with The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, which also came out… yeah, it came out in 2021. 2021, big year for books about books, all over the place. And this one is not set during World War Two. It’s actually, I believe, 1905, so early 20th century New York. And it is about the life of Belle da Costa Green, who was a woman that J. P. Morgan hired to curate his collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork. And this really made her one of the most powerful women in New York. But while she had this sort of amazing career and power, she was sort of struggling her whole life because she was hiding the fact that she was actually a Black woman who was passing. I believe a lot of the time she would say she was Portuguese or something along those lines, so this gives insight into life in the past, the experiences of women in the past, but also looks at things like the challenges of facing racism and how that can affect the day to day life and really put so much at risk for someone who’s in a high status position in society. So definitely unputdownable and connects to libraries. So I would say again, if you’re wanting that thing where you just aren’t going to be able to put down the book, check out The Personal Librarian.

Rebecca Vnuk: Excellent, excellent picks. So definitely if you are looking for books about books, it is very easy to find them in both Novelist and in Library Reads.

Yaika Sabat: Yeah. And you can actually search for books about books in Novelist. It’s a theme.

Rebecca Vnuk: It’s kind of fun, isn’t it? Every once in a while, I stop and I think, so like, do other professions, like are there books about architects that other architects, I feel sometimes like those of us who are book people, we’re a little, we’re set apart from the rest of the world a little bit, right?

Yaika Sabat: A little bit, yeah.

Rebecca Vnuk: We’re on our own little planet sometimes. And this is one of those nice factors of being on that planet is there are plenty of books that we can read to see ourselves in if you will. So, kind of fun, kind of fun. All right, well that I think wraps up this turn around the Circ Desk, so we will check you out later!