The Library Book

In 1986 a fire burned for seven hours in the Los Angeles Central Library and destroyed or damaged a million books, and almost nobody outside the city remembers it. Orlean uses the fire, and the drifter accused of setting it, as a way into what libraries actually are: their staff, their budgets, their homeless patrons, their peculiar mission. Part investigation, part love letter, it is as much about why we keep books as about the day these ones burned.