8 Kick-Butt Books That Take Place in Libraries

This might seem like a weird choice with which to start this list, but when I think of this graphic novel about a teenage assassin living in a Gotham where Batgirl has gone missing, I think of the library. That’s because Cassandra Cain—on the run from the crime boss who raised her—takes refuge in Gotham’s library, where Barbara Gordon happens to be working as a librarian. Overhearing Barbara’s stories about all the good Batgirl has done for the city, Cassandra wonders if she could fill Batgirl’s shoes. Could she carve out a new life for herself, one that revolves around helping others rather than hurting them?

I love how completely bonkers Gentill’s books are. Have you read The Mystery Writer yet?? That wild ride aside, The Woman in the Library was the first book of Gentill’s I read, and it was a fun time. Four strangers are sharing a table at the Boston Public Library (one of my favorite places) when a bloodcurdling scream pierces the quiet. It seems someone has been murdered, and now, all of them are suspects. They decide to solve the crime together, but each of them has secrets, and one of those secrets just might be killer.

There’s a new librarian at the local library, but she’s hiding a shady past. It turns out she’s actually an “angel of death”—a nurse with a craving for killing her patients—who’s hoping a new life among the stacks might help her quell her obsession. And that’s the starting point. This book hopscotches back and forth between the secret serial killer’s point of view and the point of view of another librarian who’s developed a dangerous fascination with her new coworker. With everything that’s at stake, things probably won’t end well.

I’m not quite sure how to categorize Pokwatka’s books except to call them quirky. In her first novel, Self-Portrait with Nothing, an artist’s paintings summon their subjects’ doppelgangers from alternate dimensions. I mean… what?!? In her sophomore book, a group of people become stuck in their hometown library when tens of thousands of murderous owls descend upon the building. Again… what!? Resources eventually begin to run out, and the folks who are trapped are getting desperate, especially once they realize their town has abandoned them. Can they find a solution to their dilemma and make it out alive?

This YA novel is actually about a high school library that has recently been targeted by a wave of attempted book bans. Horrified by her principal’s “prohibited media” hit list, our bookish protagonist creates an underground library that she runs out of her locker. But with high school graduation on the horizon and her entire future at stake, the pressures of peddling contraband around campus start to become too much to bear. This book was a delight that I couldn’t put down.

I’m a fan of Tokuda-Hall’s Squad, which is how I stumbled upon this book for younger readers. This story takes place after the bombing of Pearl Harbor when many Japanese Americans were forced to live in “war relocation centers.” The protagonist of this book works in her prison camp’s small library, where she finds solace in the books that line its shelves. Eventually, she begins to wonder if her most regular library patron isn’t there for the books but for her. This book is based on the real-life love story of Tokuda-Hall’s grandparents. I’m not crying; you’re crying.

The action in this book kicks off in my other favorite city library, the New York Public Library. When the protagonist’s father, a legendary cartographer, is found dead in his office at the NYPL, he leaves behind a map that he once insisted to his daughter was completely worthless. But she realizes there’s more to the map than she ever suspected, and she’s soon hot on the tail of some dark family secrets that could very well put her in danger.

This last title isn’t a novel, but I loved it, and I love Susan Orlean’s work in general, so it has to be here. In this work of narrative journalism, Orlean pays homage to libraries, showing readers how these institutions are far more than just repositories for books. Rather, they are essential community centers, the beating heart at the center of towns the world over. Orlean’s book starts with a mystery—did someone purposefully set fire to the Los Angeles Public Library on the morning of April 29, 1986?—but she and the reader soon discover that there are far more important things to discover.