For the month of January we’re reading The Library Book by Susan Orlean.

Bibliophiles will love this fact-filled, bookish journey. An engaging, casual history of librarians and libraries. It’s the story of the Los Angeles Public Library and what happened to it on April 29, 1986: It burned down. The fire raged “for more than seven hours and reached temperatures of 2000 degrees…more than one million books were burned or damaged.” Orlean reminds us that library fires have been around since the Library of Alexandria; during World War II, “the Nazis alone destroyed an estimated hundred million books.” Orlean visited the current library and talked to many of the librarians, learning about their jobs and responsibilities, how libraries were a “solace in the Depression,” and the ongoing problems librarians face dealing with the homeless.