The Collector of Burned Books
In this gripping World War II historical about the power of words, two people form an unlikely friendship amid the Nazi occupation in Paris and fight to preserve the truth that enemies of freedom long to destroy.
Paris, 1940. Ever since the Nazi Party began burning books, German writers exiled for their opinions or heritage have been taking up residence in Paris. There they opened a library meant to celebrate the freedom of ideas and gathered every book on the banned list . . . and even incognito versions of the forbidden books that were smuggled back into Germany.
For the last six years, Corinne Bastien has been reading those books and making that library a second home. But when the German army takes possession of Paris, she loses access to the library and all the secrets she'd hidden there. Secrets the Allies will need if they have any hope of liberating the city she calls home.
Christian Bauer may be German, but he never wanted anything to do with the Nazi Party--he is a professor, one who's done his best to protect his family as well as the books that were a threat to Nazi ideals. But when Goebbels sends him to Paris to handle the "relocation" of France's libraries, he's forced into an army uniform and given a rank he doesn't want. In Paris, he tries to protect whoever and whatever he can from the madness of the Party and preserve the ideas that Germans will need again when that madness is over, and maybe find a lost piece of his heart.
Paris, 1940. Ever since the Nazi Party began burning books, German writers exiled for their opinions or heritage have been taking up residence in Paris. There they opened a library meant to celebrate the freedom of ideas and gathered every book on the banned list . . . and even incognito versions of the forbidden books that were smuggled back into Germany.
For the last six years, Corinne Bastien has been reading those books and making that library a second home. But when the German army takes possession of Paris, she loses access to the library and all the secrets she'd hidden there. Secrets the Allies will need if they have any hope of liberating the city she calls home.
Christian Bauer may be German, but he never wanted anything to do with the Nazi Party--he is a professor, one who's done his best to protect his family as well as the books that were a threat to Nazi ideals. But when Goebbels sends him to Paris to handle the "relocation" of France's libraries, he's forced into an army uniform and given a rank he doesn't want. In Paris, he tries to protect whoever and whatever he can from the madness of the Party and preserve the ideas that Germans will need again when that madness is over, and maybe find a lost piece of his heart.
- Stand-alone historical fiction from a bestselling, Christy Award-winning author
- A thought-provoking novel perfect for book clubs
- Includes discussion questions
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Community Reviews
Burning books “has always been a means for victors to control the cultures they defeat…a massacre–not of people, but of knowledge. Of the wealth of it. The preservation of it.” But who decides what literature is good? “Who decides what is to be censored, what is to be kept from our children, our impressionable, our easily swayed? The Church? The government?”
Even “the people could get so caught up in their own ideology that they forgot that the love of wisdom wasn't about being right.” Each person deserves the right to decide for themself. “If you're going to rail against injustice, then at least know what you what deserves your ire. Not that a few copies of books were burned, but that the people danced around the pyre.”
Christian is a German director of the university library in addition to being a professor. He serves on the committee that compiled the list of banned books. At first he tries to argue for so many books, so many authors, but “was it better to speak up and be permanently silenced or to work silently,” hidden among his enemies, saving books and saving people, too? “Sometimes the very act of bravery that writing represented was the noose one put around one’s own neck…The words they hoped would liberate, educate, and empower could be used as evidence against them.”
Corinne is “a lover of contraband, raised by a woman who was one of the library’s most dedicated patrons.” When this book-loving heroine/spymaster encounters the German bibliotheksschutz (library protector)/secret keeper, sparks fly. “She wasn’t just falling in love with the German professor–she was falling in love with his son, and this was bound to end poorly.” But my lips are sealed! “Because spoiling what came next in a book was surely an unpardonable sin. Jesus had overlooked naming it as such, but that was only because novels hadn't been invented yet.”
To Roseanna M. White for such a gorgeous and timely story, “Thank you. Two little syllables that couldn’t begin to hold all the gratitude” in your readers’ hearts!
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