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8 Kick-Butt Books That Take Place in Libraries

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Steph Auteri

Senior Contributor

Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her more creative work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, under the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and other publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, "The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart," published in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She also writes bookish stuff here and at the Feminist Book Club, is the author of A Dirty Word, and is the founder of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring at the birds in her backyard feeder. You can learn more at stephauteri.com and follow her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.

Just last month, I did up a list of nine great novels set in bookstores because my love for bookshops—local indies, especially—is strong. But if I’m honest, these days, the majority of books I read come from the library.

Once upon a time, I rarely passed through the doors of my local library, except for my weekly Toastmasters meetings. My library card languished in my wallet. I was convinced I should own every book I read. But owning every book ever gets expensive, and it takes up a lot of space. This was something that became evident when my husband and I moved from our condo to our forever home and were forced to take my eleventy billion boxes of books out of storage and transport them to our new house.

Can we say “back pain?”

These days, I find myself at my local branch just about every other day of the week, dropping off the stack of books I just finished and picking up hold items that have finally come in.

By this point, everyone there knows me. In fact, a library staffer once called me just before a holiday weekend to let me know some hold items of mine had arrived, even though I would have received an alert email the next morning. “I had a feeling you wouldn’t want to wait for them,” she said.

Bless this woman.

So I appreciate a good book set in a library.

I appreciate libraries, period.

In honor of libraries, check out this list of fun novels set in these grand palaces of reading.

cover of Shadow of the Batgirl by Sarah Kuhn & Nicole Goux

Shadow of the Batgirl by Sarah Kuhn and Nicole Goux

This might seem like a weird choice with which to start this list, but when I think of this graphic novel about a teenage assassin living in a Gotham where Batgirl has gone missing, I think of the library. That’s because Cassandra Cain—on the run from the crime boss who raised her—takes refuge in Gotham’s library, where Barbara Gordon happens to be working as a librarian. Overhearing Barbara’s stories about all the good Batgirl has done for the city, Cassandra wonders if she could fill Batgirl’s shoes. Could she carve out a new life for herself, one that revolves around helping others rather than hurting them?

cover of The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

I love how completely bonkers Gentill’s books are. Have you read The Mystery Writer yet?? That wild ride aside, The Woman in the Library was the first book of Gentill’s I read, and it was a fun time. Four strangers are sharing a table at the Boston Public Library (one of my favorite places) when a bloodcurdling scream pierces the quiet. It seems someone has been murdered, and now, all of them are suspects. They decide to solve the crime together, but each of them has secrets, and one of those secrets just might be killer.

How Can I Help You by Laura Sims book cover

How Can I Help You by Laura Sims

There’s a new librarian at the local library, but she’s hiding a shady past. It turns out she’s actually an “angel of death”—a nurse with a craving for killing her patients—who’s hoping a new life among the stacks might help her quell her obsession. And that’s the starting point. This book hopscotches back and forth between the secret serial killer’s point of view and the point of view of another librarian who’s developed a dangerous fascination with her new coworker. With everything that’s at stake, things probably won’t end well.

The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka - book cover

The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka

I’m not quite sure how to categorize Pokwatka’s books except to call them quirky. In her first novel, Self-Portrait with Nothing, an artist’s paintings summon their subjects’ doppelgangers from alternate dimensions. I mean… what?!? In her sophomore book, a group of people become stuck in their hometown library when tens of thousands of murderous owls descend upon the building. Again… what!? Resources eventually begin to run out, and the folks who are trapped are getting desperate, especially once they realize their town has abandoned them. Can they find a solution to their dilemma and make it out alive?

Suggested Reading by Dave Connis - book cover

Suggested Reading by Dave Connis

This YA novel is actually about a high school library that has recently been targeted by a wave of attempted book bans. Horrified by her principal’s “prohibited media” hit list, our bookish protagonist creates an underground library that she runs out of her locker. But with high school graduation on the horizon and her entire future at stake, the pressures of peddling contraband around campus start to become too much to bear. This book was a delight that I couldn’t put down.

Love in the Library book cover

Love in the Library by Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Yas Imamura

I’m a fan of Tokuda-Hall’s Squad, which is how I stumbled upon this book for younger readers. This story takes place after the bombing of Pearl Harbor when many Japanese Americans were forced to live in “war relocation centers.” The protagonist of this book works in her prison camp’s small library, where she finds solace in the books that line its shelves. Eventually, she begins to wonder if her most regular library patron isn’t there for the books but for her. This book is based on the real-life love story of Tokuda-Hall’s grandparents. I’m not crying; you’re crying.

cover of The Cartographers

The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

The action in this book kicks off in my other favorite city library, the New York Public Library. When the protagonist’s father, a legendary cartographer, is found dead in his office at the NYPL, he leaves behind a map that he once insisted to his daughter was completely worthless. But she realizes there’s more to the map than she ever suspected, and she’s soon hot on the tail of some dark family secrets that could very well put her in danger.

cover of The Library Book by Susan Orlean

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

This last title isn’t a novel, but I loved it, and I love Susan Orlean’s work in general, so it has to be here. In this work of narrative journalism, Orlean pays homage to libraries, showing readers how these institutions are far more than just repositories for books. Rather, they are essential community centers, the beating heart at the center of towns the world over. Orlean’s book starts with a mystery—did someone purposefully set fire to the Los Angeles Public Library on the morning of April 29, 1986?—but she and the reader soon discover that there are far more important things to discover.


Did making your way through this list make you crave more library-focused reads? Me, too! Luckily, you can explore this list of cozy fiction titles set in libraries, a quiz to help you determine which novel set in a library you should read next, and a roundup of the best books about libraries.

To our hold lists!