AbeBooks loves librarians. Librarians love AbeBooks. (And we think everyone else loves librarians too aside from the bean-counters who keep cutting their budgets.) This email salutes those great lovers of books, literacy and reading - the world’s librarian community - and we’re highlighting some wonderful books written by librarians themselves.
Who but a person surrounded by books could be better qualified to write? Many an author has been born and developed in the stacks. The list does not feature the following librarian/writers - John Braine, Lewis Carroll, Archibald MacLeish, Nancy Pearl, Kit Pearson, Benjamin Franklin, Christopher Okigbo, Marcel Proust, and Ina Coolbrith - but we could easily have included their books.
Top 10 Books Written by Librarians
The Less Deceived
Philip Larkin
The 1955 poetry collection that made his name - Larkin was a librarian at the University of Hull.
The Aleph and Other Stories
Jorge Luis Borges
The Nobel Prize winner was a municipal librarian in Argentina - this 1949 collection is one of his best.
Star Man's Son
Alice Mary Norton
A post-apocalyptic tale from 1952 - Norton was a librarian in Cleveland and the Library of Congress.
The Accidental Tourist
Anne Tyler
This former librarian won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1985 with this novel.
A Wrinkle in Time
Madeleine L’Engle
Her 1962 sci-fi/fantasy classic (rejected by many publishers) - L’Engle worked as a librarian in New York.
Little Big Man
Thomas Berger
This 1964 novel became a movie in 1970. Berger worked as a librarian and journalist.
Out Stealing Horses
Per Petterson
An ex-librarian AND bookseller, Petterson’s novel was one of the NY Times’ books of the year in 2007.
The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot
Angus Wilson
A librarian in the British Museum, Wilson’s 1958 novel won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
Eagle in the Snow
Wallace Breem
Breem was a legal manuscripts librarian in London - a Roman General is the hero of this historical novel.
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