The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections: A Novel

I was in New York City and my husband introduced me to The Strand Bookstore. As we were leaving I randomly picked up this book from the Strand value table. The title drew me in, I was curious a book about books. That sounds flat, but I was curious. It begins with the director of the department immediately removed from the story with a severe stroke, leaving his team and colleagues in a kerfuffle of a tiresome nature for the president of the university. Liesl Weiss long working in the shadow of the overpowering personality of Christopher Wolfe must navigate the personality landmine of her colleagues while at the same time coming into her own as a leader who has to make hard choices that yank her out of her safe little box. There are times I was frustrated with Liesl, I absolutely had an opinion about the president of the university. And with what little time we have with the detective, I wanted more time with him. He was a nice compliment to Liesl. The book was slow in places where the author spent time in the weeds, but when I look back, those sections seem to give texture to the story. I am not sure I would have fully appreciated the conclusion without the detail..The ending hails the hero librarian and reminds us they are very human. Responsible for books that range in historical charm to whimsy and precious artifacts of our human history. What is a book to you. Read this book. You will appreciate the dark side of the library 😊. I want to be a librarian! Hah! Read well, characters were clear individuals each with their own complex personality, no one character was alike. The author managed multiple characters, but I feel for me there were 'soft' gaps in who some of the main characters were; what is HIS story? I am on the fence if I had enough about the characters to polish off the story. There were two characters for sure I wanted to know more about. But they might have compromised the storyline. So read it and tell me what you think!

I gave it the old college try, but after 120 pages I gave up. Slow pacing, poorly developed plot, unlikable protagonist in the form of Liesl Weiss, who unexpectedly is in charge of this Dept of Rare Books and Special Collections at a prestigious college when the boss has a stroke. When their most valuable and recently acquired rare book turns up missing, with donors waiting to see it, Liesl clumsily and haltingly begins a search.

At the same time, a younger colleage, Miriam, whose behavior has been odd (but "odd" was never really spelled out) goes missing, immediately after she urgently tried to speak to Liesl, who "forgot" to get back to her. Could Miriam have stolen the volume? Who knows? And unfortunately, who cares? We don't feel the stakes are all that high, and Liesl's anxiety over the missing volume isn't matched by any strategic plan to question her co-workers or do any of her own sleuthing. She does, however, hit the Dewer's Scotch when checking the stacks in case this rare volume was mis-shelved.

The author also gives Liesl a wooden husband character named John, whom she avoids and with whom she has a cool, distant relationship, but even after 100 pages we don't know why. There are only hints that become exasperating. Another example of a book that was so overhyped but underbaked.

Very enjoyable, rated it slightly lower because it could have finished sooner. It dragged on a bit and lost momentum a few times. Overall very readable.

It was OK. A librarian discovers a valuable book is missing and she tries to recover it.