The Dark Library

September 21, 2020
French writer and librarian Martinez (The Sleepworker) explores the purpose of libraries amid sweeping societal changes in this whimsical novel. An unnamed narrator visits his unnamed country’s Great Library to find something new to read. Before arriving, the narrator explains the library’s four towers: one for novels, one for sciences and humanities, one for rare items, and a fourth for “unclassifiables,” the intention for which is “obscure... and their language bizarre.” The narrator happens upon a title called the Angry Young Book, which literally begins speaking to him and tells a story about the Historian, one of the most dedicated literary minds in the country who donated his entire collection to the library, and then disappears. The Angry Young Book also shares its frustration over a general decline in readership and bemoans the gimmicky methods the library’s management has been using to lure visitors. The dutiful, unnamed Red Librarian takes over the narration when a horde of “contractual readers” hired by the library appear and begin requesting titles at a breakneck pace as part of a secretive, and ultimately shocking, plan to save the library. Martinez tempers his satire with wit and quirky characters. This will delight fans of absurdist fiction.

October 15, 2020
Books change, libraries change, and there's no reason for the readers not to change . In his novella, novelist, poet, and librarian Martinez asks: as readers reach more frequently for digital formats, will libraries and physical books fall by the wayside? A Reader is on their way to the Great Library to find a book to read. They know that a book is waiting for them, but will they choose the book or will the book choose them? Upon arriving at the Great Library, an Angry Young Book makes themselves known to the Reader. Out flow many stories: of the books and their lives in the library; of the Red Librarian and how they saved the Old Historian; of the Reading Room where gradually reading ceases. When the Contractual Readers are brought in to digitize the collection, does this spell the end for the Great Library? A poignant and shrewd commentary on changing readership demands, The Dark Library also shows an appreciation for those readers, and the librarians who serve them, too.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)