The Paris Library

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As wanna-be librarian, I can’t believe it took me so long to read this book! I loved it. I think I put it off because I tend to read a lot of WWII novels and probably just needed a break.

The Paris Library is the story of two eras: the WWII Nazi occupation of Paris and 1980’s rural Montana. In Paris, Odile is a young woman hired as a librarian by the American Library in Paris, a place she and her aunt visited frequently when she was a child. She loves the staff, subscribers, books and papers in the American Library with her whole heart. She finds love with a Paris policeman who works with her overbearing, judgmental father and friendship with a unhappy American diplomats wife. The Nazi occupation puts the library, its contents, staff and subscribers at risk. Odile makes impulsive decisions that jeopardize her friends and library.

In Montana, Odile now lives quietly next door to Lily, a teenager who wonders about her odd, seclusive yet mysteriously elegant Parisian neighbor. After Lily’s mother passes away and needs more supervision than her father can supply, Lily and Odile form a friendship. However, Lily’s curiosity about Odile’s mysteries almost cost her the friendship.

More than a World War II novel, The Paris Library explores what it means to be friends and how trust, respect & honesty forge the basis of our relationships. It also provides a window into the hero librarians and custodians of culture who went to extraordinary lengths to protect their collections from Nazi’s bent on erasing non-Aryan culture. Janet Skeslien Charles researched the history of the American Library (and others) during the Nazi occupation, and several of the characters in the book are real cultural heroes.

A wonderful, page-turning story thank can be read in 2-3 days.

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