Clever little book with stream of consciousness thoughts from a librarian who's stationed in the history section of a basement library in a small town in France.
"As for men, I've given upon them. It's just impossible in a place like this, impossible. It's not exactly the sticks, but if you're a sensitive, cultivated soul like me, it's...well, it's very provincial. I need wider horizon. So, men, no, that's all over. Love, for me, is something I find in books. I read a lot, it's comforting. You've never alone if you live surrounded by books. They lift my spirit. The main thing is to be uplifted."
Who can argue with her? "When I'm reading, I'm never alone, I have a conversation with the book. It can be very intimate. Perhaps you know this feeling yourself? The sense that you're having an intellectual exchange with the author, following his or her train of thought, and you can accompany each other for weeks on end. When I'm reading, I can forget everything, sometimes I don't even hear the phone." ( )

Really wanted to like it. meh. ( )

Woah.......
So one morning a (very opinionated) librarian comes to work & finds a library patron that somehow managed to get locked in overnight & slept down in the basement. Cue the verbal diaorrhea lol!
This rather entertaining book is a short witty dialogue of the librarian who works in the geography section. This book is like having a conversation with a bookish person with ADHD lol! Bit of an oxymoron I know but bear with me, eg, 'I'd rather be down here peacefully than having to spend my whole time working alongside the snobs upstairs. When I see the kind of books they have to put on display every day. The books that get published these days, well, there's a bit of everything, but generally they're not worth reading. And if you spend your time with bad books, it doesn't improve your intelligence. So no surprises there. Have you never thought about it? What kind of literature is going to be produced in a society where there are no wars or epidemics or revolutions? I'll tell you what: badly written novels about nice girls & boys falling in love, who make each other suffer without meaning to, & spend all their time crying & saying they're sorry. Ridiculous'.
And it's pretty much like that for the whole book lol! Which is ok because it is very short & can be read in one sitting. Another plus since there are no chapters or paragraphs. It's a one sided conversation in the true sense of the phrase! But luckily it's a rather entertaining one! :O)

picked this up in the library as there was a national libraries day display. the author shows a really familiarity with public libraries, echoing a lot of the thing my wife (a librarian) had to say about them.

odd and not hugely stimulating, but amusing. one paragraph over 90 pages. could make an interesting one woman play. ( )

3.5 This is a slim volume, translated from the French, so some cultural anachronisms, but overall the love of books and appreciation of a free library system translates beautifully. (The book is dedicated to "all those men and women who will always find a place for themselves in a library more easily than in society." So there's that.) The "story" is actually a monologue (rant?) that takes place in the hours before the library officially opens, and the lower-level librarian, (literally, she works in the basement -- Geography section) has found someone that has spent the night there and responds with kindness and coffee and treats them as a captive audience for her views. She is a little embittered at her spinster lifestyle, though she has a crush on a young scholar named Martin -- information she has gleaned from stack stalking. She is also a little curmudgeonly on the state of culture/society today, but she makes some funny and valid points about the lack of interest in books and ideas. For example, the mayor never sets foot in the library. Rather germane to our American politics. I feel for the fictional person listening, because she is pretty negative overall. But behind that (and her OC tendencies) is her love for books: "Book and reader, if they meet up at the right moment in a person's life, it can make sparks fly, set you alight, change your life." (63) Hurrah! ( )