The most recommended books about librarians

I love this book because it has everything, believable, engaging characters, a riveting plot, a vivid setting, and a cause. Larger-than-life Margery O’Hare and lady-like Alice are unlikely friends, but friends they become in this great story.

When I first saw photos of those "librarians on horseback," the wonderful women who responded to Eleanor Roosevelt’s call to take books to the rural poor of Kentucky in the depressed 1930s, I longed to know more. Jojo Moyes gives us lots more. There’s an array of well-drawn characters, but it’s Margery and Alice who drive the story forward, defying the odds to achieve their aims and find men who love and appreciate them.

Yes, it’s a love story, too, and a whodunnit? Perfect!

The first Library Lover’s Mystery, Books Can Be Deceiving is set in a small New England town where the main character, Lindsey, has recently taken over as director of the public library. She takes on the role of amateur sleuth to help her friend and co-worker, a children’s librarian, who has been accused of killing her boyfriend after they broke up. Clues lead Lindsey to discover some secrets in the murdered man’s past that now pose a threat to her safety. I liked the way the suspense was built and how the characters were portrayed. As a librarian at a public library, I also identified with the way the library and its staff were described. 

I liked the unique addition of a library ghost in this book. The main character, Carrie Singleton, is hired as a program director in the small town of Clover Ridge, Connecticut. During her first event at the library, she witnesses a murder and is later aided by the library ghost in discovering the killer. I enjoyed the mystery, the characters, and, as a cat lover, I also loved Smoky Joe, the library cat who “adopts” Carrie and also helps her. Great start to a fun, paranormal cozy series.

I love my local library and its bookmobile. This cozy mystery series has both. Even better, it has a clever cat. I enjoy getting a behind-the-scenes look at library operations.

Eddie, the cat, begins as a stowaway on the Michigan bookmobile and quickly becomes a huge attraction for library patrons. Minnie Hamilton and Eddie are in a unique position to discover bodies on their rural bookmobile route. There is a long romance arc in the series that slowly builds to a sweet conclusion. In a unique living situation, Minnie lives on a houseboat during the summer and in her aunt’s B&B during the winter.

I like how Eddie is involved with uncovering the mysteries in a perfectly logical way, considering he is a cat.

All those numbers on the spines of library books? This book tells the story of the man who invented the first widely-used library cataloguing system: Melvil Dewey. Sometimes biographies gloss over difficult personalities, but this one doesn’t pretend Dewey was always admirable. Instead, it suggests that his bull-headedness might have been part of the reason his decimal cataloguing system was ultimately adopted. And Fotheringham manages to make a book about books lively and fun in the illustrations.

I love libraries and books about books. What reader doesn’t? There are a lot of shenanigans and mysteries contained within this first in a series where librarians travel to other worlds to find books to add to the one true Library. There are werewolves, dragons, and the wittiest fae imaginable. And through them, all clever focused Irene consistently uses her smarts before she reacts to the conflict. Amid the chaos, she’s quick thinking which I love. You can’t trust just anyone to retrieve a good book and she makes it clear that a proper librarian is the universe's best option. 

I’m a school librarian, so I couldn’t pass up a book about a librarian who works in an island school! This is set on Galveston Island, and the Texas culture there definitely brings its own flavor to the story.

The friendly community feel of the school and town really appealed to me and gave this book a cozy dimension despite its darker themes. A new principal arrives and immediately begins ruining the happy librarian’s life with new rules that she fights at every step—so naturally, the two begin to fall in love. I loved the animals in this book. I couldn’t stop smiling when I finished this one.

If you don’t have much time to read, this is the one for you. Offill is known for her brevity - her 2014 novel Dept. Of Speculation (equally worth your time) is similarly short, and similarly shot through with humor - and for the punch she can pack into a limited space. In Weather, she brings together the mundane grind of daily life with the larger existential terror many of us experience when we think about climate change, and bridges that gap, forcing her characters to confront how their daily lives are in fact not separate from these bigger concepts at all.

I loved the characters—especially the strong women—and didn't want to stop reading.

The plot with the dual timeline was fascinating. I learned about the hidden apartment in the New York Public Library, which is already a place I love, and it made me want to go back there to explore.

The relationships in the book were complex and well-drawn, like characters I love to write and like people I enjoy talking to in real life.

It's a great book and a compelling story!

I re-listen to this one on audiobook every year while I bake my Christmas cookies and walk the dog, and every year, it helps conjure joy via the two men realizing they’re right for each other despite some missteps. Thanks to some dire events, the main character, Toby, learns how to both stand up for himself and finally declare what it is he wants out of life—which happens to be Mr. Miggles, the town librarian (and also his boss).

Tristan Wright takes an already wonderful story and makes it entirely engrossing via his performance, and I have multiple “Yes!” fist-pumping moments throughout (which, if I’m walking the dog, makes people stare at me on the street). Also, Toby and his love interest, Mr. Miggles, are librarians, and this story has so much library love in it I felt like I was getting a warm hug.