Sometimes you want to visit a city because of its library. If you are a bibliophile, that is. I haven’t been in Los Angeles yet, but one of the main reasons to visit the city, would be the public library in downtown Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Public Central Library is one of the most beautiful libraries in the world.

The Central Public Library has a long history, stretching back to the 1870s. In 1926, the library moved to its current place, in downtown Los Angeles, in an eccentric and very interesting building created by the proto-modernist architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue.

On the morning of April 29, 1986, the Library caught fire and burned. It was one of the most challenging and destructive fires in the history of the Los Angeles Fire Department. It turned out to be the largest single library fire in the history of the United States. The loss was devastating. 400,000 books, a big part of the periodicals collection, historic maps, art prints, photographs and microforms were left destroyed—either burned in the fire, or soaked by the water used to extinguish the blaze. And the remaining books, about 700,000, were damaged by water or smoke, and threatened by rot.

In The Library Book, Susan Orlean writes about the Los Angeles Central Library and its history and particularly about the 1986 devastating fire. The book is also a tribune to libraries everywhere, why a library is a vital institution, and what libraries mean to her and to our communities.

The libraries came to my life when I moved from the small village I was born, to Athens, Greece. In the village, back then, having books at homes was not normal, but somehow I developed a passion for books. I’ve been an avid reader for as long as I remember. When I moved to Athens, the Public National Library became a second home. My visits were never long enough for me. It was a magical place, a place that welcomed everyone.

There is a quality in libraries. And it is this quality that Susan Orlean brings to this book. The library is a remarkable repository, not just of books, but also stories. She started spending time with the city librarians-some of them are truly fascinating figures- who had run the library over the years and found herself drawn into this amazing place. She decided to write about the library and the fire that almost destroyed it when one of librarians who was giving her a tour, pulled one of the books of the shelf and took a deep whiff of the book, saying “You can still smell the smoke.” It was then that she learned about the big fire of 1986 that closed the library for seven years.

The narrative in The Library Book is not a traditional one. Basically, it is a book with two stories. The first is a huge and meticulous research about the fire itself. It has been widely accepted that it was an arson but Susan Orlean suggests that, most probably, it was the result of a tragic accident. The second story is a fascinating history of Los Angeles Central Library. It is about the librarians, the patrons, the present life and the future of the library, about the importance of libraries. If you are a book lover, if you are a libraries lover or if you just want to read a compelling story, you would love this book.