Type of read: Commuter Read.

What made me pick it up: Picked it up based on title. Clearly, I'm a book lover and the title combined with the vintage, simplistic cover pulled me in.

Overall rating: As a bibliophile, 'The Library Book' makes me incredibly sad and realize how much of a privilege access to my local library - and all of the books within - is. This is a nonfiction book based on a historical event. There are facts. There are figures. There are stats and "boring" information. If that is not your vibe, 'The Library Book' is absolutely not the book for you. There are very specific accounts of what people were doing, eating, thinking, and saying during the library fire of 1986, thorough is not enough of an inclusive word for what 'The Library Book' is. Additionally, there is information about how they came together and brought the library - and those who were involved with or affected by the fire - back to life. I have to give Orlean a huge amount of credit, the information that is packed into 'The Library Book' is absolutely astonishing. I love the inclusion of what was present in the library, what was lost in the fire, how all the pieces fall together, and how the human connection is woven throughout the pages.

While 'The Library Book' is focused around the library fire of 1986, it's a larger look at what burning books and destroying written records does to a culture and its people.

The narration is a bit cut and dry if I have to be nit-picky, but I think it lends itself well to a book of this nature.