May Book Bug

Have you ever wished you could live inside a book? As a librarian, I might be biased, but I love the trend of books set in libraries and bookshops, now including The Astral Library by Kate Quinn. Here, books are not just objects, but doors to new worlds, new lives, and new futures.

Alexandria “Alix” Watson has learned one lesson from her barren childhood in the foster-care system: unlike people, books will never let you down. Working three dead-end jobs to make ends meet, Alix finds refuge in the reading room at the Boston Public Library, escaping into her favorite novels. Until the day she stumbles through a hidden door and meets the Librarian: the ageless, acerbic guardian of a hidden library where the desperate and the lost escape to new lives inside their favorite books. When a shadowy enemy emerges to threaten everyone the Astral Library has ever helped protect, Alix and the Librarian flee through book-worlds including Jane Austen and The Great Gatsby as danger draws inexorably closer.

For other stories that blend the world of reading with the real world, transporting their characters (and you, the reader) into secret worlds where they excitement, adventure, and solace, try The Book Witch by Meg Shaffer or The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown. You can request these books at the library in print, digital, or audio formats, or go online to find them through our catalogue: http://library.brucecounty.on.ca/