Libraries Week takes place every October, showcasing all the creative, innovative, and diverse activities that UK libraries have to offer.
It’s about discovering the range of things you can do at your library, from play and learning for children, to managing your health, to accessing WiFi and games, to finding a hobby or getting creative with new technology. And it's not just public libraries – libraries of all kinds in schools, colleges, archives and universities have amazing services that help us all.
Immerse yourself in libraries this month. Starting with this list of books that feature libraries or librarians in some way. Click the links to reserve them from the Library today!
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Fiction
- The Starless Sea – Erin Morgenstern (CD audiobook, book)
When Zachary Rawlins stumbles across a strange book hidden in his university library it leads him on a quest like no 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.
- The Giver of Stars – Jojo Moyes (book)
Set in Depression-era America, a breathtaking story of five extraordinary women and their remarkable journey through the mountains of Kentucky and beyond, bringing books to the isolated and vulerable.
- The Book That Wouldn’t Burn - Mark Lawrence (ebook)
Two strangers find themselves connected by a vast and mysterious library containing many wonders and still more secrets
- The Personal Librarian – Marie Benedict, Vicotria Christopher Murray (book)
The remarkable, little-known story of Belle da Costa Greene, J. P. Morgan's personal librarian—who became one of the most powerful women in New York despite the dangerous secret she kept in order to make her dreams come true.
- Public Library & Other Stories - Ali Smith (book)
Why are books so very powerful? What do the books we've read over our lives - our own personal libraries - make of us? The stories in Ali Smith's new collection are about what we do with books and what they do with us.
- The Telephone Box Library - Rachael Lucas (book)
Lucy, hoping to foucs on her writing having escaped to a quiet village in the Cotswolds, gets caught up in a plan to turn the dilapidated telephone box at the heart of the village into a volunteer-run library.
- A Discovery of Witches – Deborah Harkness (book)
When historian Diana Bishop opens an alchemical manuscript in the Bodleian Library, it's an unwelcome intrusion of magic into her carefully ordered life.
- The Last Library – Freya Sampson (book)
Lonely library assistant June is much more comfortable with books than people. When her mum - the beloved local librarian - passed away, June stepped into her shoes. But shy June has always felt that she could never live up to her mum's legacy. Instead, she's retreated into herself, surviving on takeaways-for-one and her favourite stories.
When the library is threatened with closure, June is distraught. Yet when a ragtag band of eccentric but dedicated locals establish the Friends of Chalcot Library campaign, June is forbidden from joining their cause.
- Mobile Library - David Whitehouse (book)
Books are a lifeline as two lonely children hijack a local authority vehicle for an action-packed tale of expanding horizons.
Non fiction
- The Library: a Fragile History – Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen (book)
An exploration of the contested and dramatic history of the library, from the famous collections of the ancient world to the embattled public resources we cherish today.
- An English Library Journey – John Bevis (book)
John Bevis is a writer and book-lover on an eccentric quest: to obtain a membership card from every library authority in England. In a ten-year mission criss-crossing the country - from Solihull to Slough, from Cleveland to Cornwall - he enrols at libraries of all shapes and size
- The Library: a World History – James W.P Campbell (book)
Telling the story of the library as a distinct building type, all around the world and from the beginnings of writing to the present day.
- The Library Book – Susan Orlean (ebook)
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?
- Syria’s Secret Library – Mike Thomson (book)
Daraya, Damascus. While the streets above echoed with rifle fire, deep beneath lay a secret library - a haven of peace with books lining almost every wall. Many people had risked their lives to save these precious titles from the devastation of war.
- The Library Book – various authors (book)
From Alan Bennett's Baffled at a Bookcase, to Lucy Mangan's Library Rules, famous writers tell us all about how libraries are used and why they're important.
Children and young people
- Escape from Mr Lemoncello’s Library – Chris Grabenstein (book)
Luigi Lemoncello, the most notorious and creative gamemaker in the world, just so happens to be the genius behind the building of the new town library.
Lucky Kyle wins a coveted spot to be one of the first 12 kids in the library for an overnight of fun, food, and lots and lots of games. But when morning comes, the doors remain locked. Kyle and the other winners must solve every clue and every secret puzzle to find the hidden escape route. And the stakes are very high.
- The Treehouse Library – Anna James (book)
The Secret Garden, the Jabberwock and Robin Hood all play their part in the enthralling penultimate part of the fantasy series for all young bookworms, as the Bookwanderers track down the Alchemist's sworn enemy.
- Fizzlebert Stump: The Boy Who Ran Away From the Circus (and Joined the Library) – A.F Harrold (book)
Fizzlebert Stump lives in a travelling circus. But although he gets to hang around with acrobats and put his head in a lion's mouth every night, he's bored. But then Fizz decides to join a library, and life suddenly gets a lot more exciting
- Ink and Bone – Rachel Caine (young adult book)
Here, Rachel Caine re-writes history, creating a dangerous world where the Great Library of Alexandria has survived the test of time.
- Dewey: The True Story of a World Famous Library Cat - (book)
A heart-warming story about the library cat who inspired the lives of those around him as well as people across the world.
- The Librarian of Auschwitz – Antonio Iturbe (young adult book, ebook) reimagining in graphic novel format
Based on the experience of real-life Auschwitz prisoner Dita Kraus, this is the incredible story of a girl who risked her life to keep the magic of books alive during the Holocaust.
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