Tom and Maggie, the protagonists of our story are awesome characters. The storyline, details, other characters and the fact that The Library is an important part of the books makes it a reader's heaven! An introverted sixteen year old boy meets an introverted seventy two year old woman at the library, both of them live fairly solitary lifestyles, each one seeking some sense of solace and inclusion without the commitment required of normal social interaction. Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes or filled with bean bags and children's drawings - the history of the library is rich, varied and stuffed full of incident.

The Library is a charming contemporary fiction novel about the friendship between a lonely teenager and a stoic old lady. It’s not my usual reading fare, but I do like the occasional heartwarmer in between all the thrillers, and this one hit all the right notes. And this is exactly when libraries the way we think about them today were born. The libraries housed in monasteries or universities as well as the subscription libraries made way to the public libraries that allowed access to all citizens, who could either read there or take a book home. A principle which has remained the same ever since. In other words, libraries need to adapt to survive, as they have always adapted to survive, a feat very successfully accomplished in recent years in France, with its network of Médiathèques, albeit with a huge commitment of public funds. University libraries, responding to student demand, are now social hubs as much as places of work, the cathedral silence that once characterized the library a thing of the past."This is a contemporary fiction by English author Bella Osborne, featuring 16 year-old Tom Harris who seeks refuge from the difficulties of his life in the Compton Mallow Library where he meets the quirky 72 year-old Maggie Mann. Tom is struggling to get through his GCSE exams and avoid a looming future working in the dog food factory. His grieving alcoholic father seems not to see his distress or to understand his dreams. Gradually Maggie and Tom become friends, enriching both of their lives. Along with his high-school crush, Farah Shah, Tom and Maggie band together to rescue the library from imminent closure. I wanted to end this review with a picture of the state library of Stuttgart (capital of my state) but when I showed it to a friend of mine and asked what he thought of it, he said it reminded him of a mall bookstore. I asked him if the US / Canada actually had bookstores that big and he said "several". Then he told be of the library of Chicago with its 7 stories and GARGOYLES. I feel … very small now and shall refrain from showing the picture. *lol* Such as the famed Library of Alexandria that burned down not just once but three times. Alas, while the book mentioned it, it was very brief and only about one of the fires. I imagine the authors had to trim down the history and therefore had to cut corners. And let's not forget that royal patronage was as essential to the scholar as to the ruler (a kind of symbiosis) since the ruler profited from insights or even scientific breakthroughs that meant they could establish or even expand their rule while the scholar had the means to pursue the sciences and in relative safety. Her interaction with others is mostly limited to her sharing some jobs with her grumpy but reliable old neighbour in return for the occasional assistance on some other job too big for one.

In addition to loaning books, music and movies, some libraries have a library of things, which enable people to borrow items such as sewing machines or specialty tools, which they wouldn't ordinarily have access to. As a big reader and user of libraries, this book called out to me. I was worried it might be a little too saccharine, but it wasn’t.

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Throughout the story, there are plenty of references to novels – and I cheered when I had read so many of these that Osborne includes. (My ‘To Be Read’ pile can sigh with relief!) The characters that centre around the library are entertaining and I found Christine’s solution of making a poster for every crisis to be especially funny. The library becomes synonymous to the community and is a stark reflection of the reality of our own community libraries. I did wonder how the fate of the library would be decided and could not foresee how Osborne would resolve this, especially as it appeared inevitable that the actions of the community cannot prevent its closure. However, if I am honest, I became more invested in Tom and Maggie’s stories, forgetting a little bit about the library and what would happen. I think this is because I loved their characters so much. Tom Harris is 16 and about to sit his GCSEs, he’s invisible and likes it that way. His mum died when he was in year two and now it’s just him and his dad and he’s spiralling down so their home is not a happy place. Tom likes Farah Shah, she is a popular girl, out of his league but he decides one day to go to the library in the hope of clapping eyes on her. When Tom‘s dad ‘kills his Xbox’ the library and books becomes his solace. Maggie is 72, she is a pivotal member of the library book club and a mugging on her way home from the club brings Tom to her rescue and thus begins a burgeoning across the age divide friendship and a fight to save the library from closure. A bibliophiles dream bound in a single edition! And while undoubtedly scholarly and historical this is the sort of book that can also be perused in small doses by any lover of books and libraries, whether they are regularly in pursuit of knowledge or entertaining escapism in their choice of reading material. **Thank you so much to both NegGalley and Basic Books/Hachette for an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review! I loved it so much I bought a hardcover copy the day it came out.** The story is told to us in alternating perspectives of Tom and Maggie. This gives an equal focus to both these lovely characters who are sure to make their mark on your heart. My old regret is that the author chose to write Tom in first person and Maggie in third person. Alternating between the voices again and again is tedious and too abrupt at times. The book would have flowed much better for me had both the characters been voiced the same way, whether first or third.

Naturally, this book is choke-full of names and dates since it recounts history and has to cover one hell of a lot of it. However, the names and dates don't necessarily have to mean too much to you so you don't have to feel intimidated by them. So long as you keep in mind how long the written word and libraries have been around and marvel at the evolution of both, you'll be fine. This story is less about the library and more about Tom and Maggie’s friendship and their individual struggles. Tom feels anxiety whenever he is at home and tries to avoid his alcoholic father whose addiction is worsening everyday. Since losing her family, Maggie has built a fortress of walls around her and hardly allows anyone to get close to her. Most of all , by empowering the digital revolution, librarians have given up the one unique selling point which they defended so tenaciously for almost as long as we have had libraries: the right to apply their knowledge, taste and discrimination to assisting the choice of their patrons. This has been the key to understanding so much in this book: the idea that in an age of plenty there will always be helpmates to assist readers in making the right choice of book. Can the internet, in all its enormous variety, ever replace this reflective process of deliberation, the slow choosing the eager anticipation, the slow unfolding of plot?" (and while impressive algorithms have made it easy to find "more of the same" - "What if we want something different, rather than more of the same? What if we do not know that we want something different, but a chance encounter sparks our interests?") I wonder if there’s a term for comedy-dramas that are about finding friendship, rather than romantic love - chum-com? What is so delightful about Tom and Maggie is the way they not only bring out the best in each other but support each other through difficult times. Tom needs someone to care and nurture him and help him deal with his Dad while Maggie needs company and the joy of having a boy around, experiencing the delights of a farm for the first time. It was also lovely to see Tom open himself to learning new things, like yoga and discovering the joy of reading, to the point of becoming confident in talking about books with Maggie and others.Unfortunately, that was not my final takeaway. This is the sort of book that does not benefit from a straight cover-to-cover read. It would be better taken in pieces over a longer period of time. There is simply so much information to take in. It is apparent that the authors took great care in doing their research and they spared no detail. And I mean no detail. Therein lies my difficulty. As much as the subject appeals to me, and as much as I’ve enjoyed other books about similar subjects, this book bored me. Tom Harris lives with his widowed alcoholic father, and goes red whenever his gorgeous classmate Farah looks at him. One boring Saturday day he finds himself in the library, and discovers a passion for reading. Maggie lives alone on her farm with her sheep, and sees in young Tom the son she lost years before. When the council propose closing their local library, Maggie and Tom will rally together their small English village to help save it. Tom Harris. Sixteen. Dead mom. Drunk dad. Bullied at school. Lonely. Discovers that he enjoys reading romance novels, much to his embarrassment. The book's subtitle "A Fragile History" is especially poignant. The author really managed to show the difficulty of preserving books, especially entire collections through the ages. With all of the neglect, theft, war, elitism and censorship it is surprising there are any books older than 100 years left in the world. By the end I got a real sense of the libraries perseverance and the herculean effort needed to preserve them.

If you love reading, books, libraries and a story based around all these things then this book is for you We all judge a book by its cover. (Don’t deny it!) We also judge books by their titles at times. So if you see this book, you will certainly go for it because it is about the magical place we all love: the library. But does the content do justice to this title and cover? Not exactly. Much reference to wonderful food and baking and cakes and also fascinating snippets on farming life and lambing and puppies This was such a heartwarming novel. It effortlessly balances heavy topics with moments of hilarity. Initially, I wasn’t invested in this story, but when the pair’s storyline intersected I couldn’t get enough of these two.

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Tom is watching his once happy dad, Paul, spiral downward into alcoholism and debt, increasingly neglecting his duties as a father while pressuring Tom to give up his university dream to get a factory job. Maggie is maintaining a sheep farm by herself and dealing with the isolation and loneliness that can come with age and circumstance. She also has a secret from her past involving her son - the mystery of which plays throughout the story. Tom and Maggie find each other through the library, but their friendship grows as Maggie becomes a defacto mother to Tom during the worst of his father’s decline. Maggie has come to the library for her weekly book club meeting. She comes for the company and a chance to interact with others. She has always loved the library, it’s sense of calm and “somewhere safe and quiet to run to and the library had never let her down.” Maggie still runs a small farm and lives on her own. She attends the library for its Book Group where she gets to talk to people - a rare event in her everyday life. Tom is wishing he could get to know how to approach girls, especially Farah, and he visits the library to borrow romantic novels which he thinks will help him learn. Maggie is lonely and misses having someone to cook and care for. Tom lives with an alcoholic father and needs someone to look after him. Serendipity brings them together at this time, and when the library is threatened with closure Maggie, Tom and Farah all get involved in the efforts to save it. Eventually, newspapers, penny dreadfuls, book mobiles and more emerged and they all made reading cheaper, easier and generally accessible to the masses. Literature slowly but surely had made its way to every part of society (more or less, it still had ways to go). The written word had gone from mystic force to public resource.