Stacks of stories

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/05/2024 (853 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Most fans of this newspaper’s books section likely have their own story of some special book that changed their lives. Through either a chance encounter in a bookshop or library, or acting on a recommendation from a bookseller or a librarian, they read a book that sparked a new interest, sent them on a new career path or changed their outlook on life.

In The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians we glimpse numerous snapshots of the other side of such stories, in which individuals who have dedicated their working lives to sharing their love of books — either through private businesses or public (or school) libraries — relate their encounters with grateful readers. Written by the booksellers and librarians themselves, Secret Lives is a testament to the profound relationship that exists between ourselves and the printed word — and, furthermore, to how books connect us.

Essays range from the charming to the touching to the emotionally powerful, and will surely resonate with many readers. While most named authors will probably only be familiar to those working in these trades, at least one—notably retired author turned bookseller Judy Blume — is a household name.

While some of the stories are heartwarming, others are resolutely political, with several librarians relating their struggles against organized community campaigns to challenge controversial books in their libraries — most often aimed at children — and the personal costs involved. There is a note on the copyright page indicating that some names and personal details have been changed; one suspects that this may be why.

Others point out that libraries are about much more than books; Florida librarian Beth Jerrell, in recounting how her library helped local residents recover from Hurricane Ian in September 2022, quotes one resident as saying, “Thank God… the library feels normal.”

That the book is a collection of personal essays naturally leads the reader to wonder as to the nature of the involvement of credited authors James Patterson and collaborator Matt Eversmann. Patterson is of course one of the world’s most prolific and highest-paid writers, being well-known for operating a fiction “factory” in which he provides an outline of a plot to collaborators, who compose the manuscripts for Patterson to edit. In this way, he has managed to publish some 200 novels under his name.

Eversmann is a respected military veteran whose work collecting the narratives in the 2004 book The Battle of Mogadishu: First-Hand Accounts from the Men of Task Force Ranger probably stood him in good stead here.

Secret Lives definitely shares the formula Patterson has put to such great effect in his novels: each essay is no more than 5 pages long, making the book a very quick — and easily interruptible — read. While the book is divided nominally into five parts, there is no discernable thematic organization to these stories, with those by librarians and booksellers being mixed together.

The book could definitely have benefited from some kind of introduction from Patterson and Eversmann explaining the origin and purpose of the book, but as it is leaves unexplained how all these booksellers and librarians came to offer up their personal narratives in the first place.

Questions of provenance and structure aside, Secret Lives is a love letter to books and their power to bring us together. As contributor McKenna Jordan writes of her job, “I love doing this. I love reading a great book, and recommending something that people haven’t heard of before, getting to have interesting conversations with customers. And once they’ve read and loved it, they come back.”

Michael Dudley is a librarian at the University of Winnipeg, who also loves his job.