Susan Orlean – Carol's Notebook

Author: Susan Orlean

Susan Orlean (born October 31, 1955) is a journalist and author. She has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992, and has contributed articles to many magazines including Vogue, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and Outside.

She is the author of several books, including 1998’s The Orchid Thief, which was adapted into the film Adaptation (2002). Meryl Streep received an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Orlean.

I should have loved The Library Book by Susan Orlean. It's both a love letter to libraries and a true crime story of the Los Angeles library fire of 1986; crime and books is often a great combination. While it didn't live up to my expectations, it was a good book. Orlean obviously loves libraries and we learn so much about them here, history, inner workings, the populations they serve and the needs they meet. We learn about the variety of librarians, their passions, their jobs, their backgrounds. She also visits OverDrive, which I didn't know is in Cleveland. I wonder if they offer tours of the facility? The true crime portion focuses on the Los Angeles library fire, which was deemed arson at the time, although Orlean speaks to at least one expert who thinks that was probably not true. As the blurb states, the fire was devastating, but I found the way the community pulled together to help save the...