That introduction of a life infused with literature signals a kind of Walter Mitty fantasy or perhaps a satire of fiction’s erroneous influence, like Jane Austen’s. . . . Overall, ‘The Librarianist’ presents us with a rather interesting character in Bob Comet. He embodies an unspoken sadness that infuses the majority of the novel. For example, we’re told early on that Bob’s wife ran off with his best friend when they were all young and he never remarried. Fine - but the entire middle of the novel is the story of how this happened. And guess what? Besides fleshing out the wife and best friend, to no effect, we get to read in excruciatingly dull detail what we already know. The wife and best friend run off and get married. So what’s the point? I really don’t know. I absolutely adored it. I loved Bob - his position over to the side of charisma and horribleness, out of the game, his notions and his demeanour ... This beautiful book took me far away from all my concerns. It's so wonderful, soothing and heartbreaking The Librarianist is about Bob, a seventy-one-year-old retired librarian. He's a placid, forgettable man, a loner, who supposedly prefers living life via novels

Many thanks to Ecco and NetGalley for the digital review copy of this novel. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. This novel is due to be released on July 4, 2023. Weird and hilariously deadpan in just the way you’d expect from the author of The Sisters Brothers and French Exit, this was the pop of fun my summer needed.

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He took her gently by the arm, pointing her in the direction of the center. Every ten or fifteen steps she paused and groaned, but her resistance was minor, and they made their plodding advancement against the weather. She wanted to go into every storefront they passed, and so Bob had to repeatedly correct her path; each time he did this she became tense and made further groaning noises. “Sorry, Chip,” he told her. “I wish we could stop and browse but they’ll be worrying about you, and we don’t want them to worry, do we? No, let’s keep on, we’re almost there.” When Bob is first introduced to the senior center, that section is too long, and there are too many characters. Behind Bob Comet's straight-man facade is the story of an unhappy child's runaway adventure during the last days of the Second World War, of true love won and stolen away, of the purpose and pride found in the librarian's vocation, and of the pleasures of a life lived to the side of the masses. Bob's experiences are imbued with melancholy but also a bright, sustained comedy; he has a talent for locating bizarre and outsize players to welcome onto the stage of his life. The Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. Please review our

We have 4 read-alikes for The Librarianist, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.How a nice quiet librarianist, who starts off helping a person, and then volunteers, and then becomes a part of something greater than himself, can actually be a sweet yet flawed imperfect, but readable story. The Canadian author of this novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2011 for his second novel “The Sisters Brothers” (which also won two Canadian literary prizes and some other nominations) - an offbeat, eccentric-character-populated Western-based novel which to me read more like a Coen brothers film script. I don’t know!” the cashier said. He was happy the woman was gone but also happy that something interesting had happened. Reading Paulette Jiles' revenge western Chenneville, it's easy to remember she's a poet. She plays ... Melancholy is the wistful identification of time as thief, and it is rooted in memories of past love and success. Sorrow is a more hopeless proposition. Sorrow is the understanding you shall not get that which you crave and, perhaps, deserve, and it is rooted in, or encouraged by, excuse me, the death impulse."

There is such a thing as charisma, which is the ability to inveigle the devotion of others to benefit your personal cause; the inverse of charisma is horribleness, which is the phenomenon of fouling the mood of a room by simply being. Bob was neither one of these, and neither was he set at a midpoint between the extremes. He was to the side, out of the race completely." However, some of that was buried in the next section. Bob runs away and meets a bunch of random characters that I didn’t connect with. This section seemed to drag on and on.

Because although we are told (a number of times) that is how Bob views the world we are not really shown it; as we instead see Bob in a series of rather dramatic incidents (the elderly lady rescue and sudden discovery, the three-way relationship and rapid marriage, betrayal by and then death of his best friend, the cross-country runaway and then in the final section a hospital trip and closing revelations) which are more novelistic in themselves. By contrast we get very little information on the books that Bob reads – which means that for us our true impression is that Bob lives rather then reads. Connie, who had been Bob’s wife, had sometimes asked him why he read quite so much as he did. She believed Bob was reading beyond the accepted level of personal pleasure and wondered if it wasn’t symptomatic of a spiritual or emotional deformity. Bob thought her true question was, Why do you read rather than live? As readers we are introduced to his ex-wife, Connie, and his best friend, Ethan, a fast-talking playboy who ends up stealing Connie away from him. We also see him in his job at the library, and meet the character of Miss Ogilvie, Bob’s first boss. Some of the excitement that takes place in this section remains peripheral to Bob and to the plot. I’ll admit another disappointment - not enough book talk. For a novel about a book lover, someone who devoted their life to books and was a voracious reader, there aren’t any actual titles mentioned (besides Crime and Punishment, twice). We’re just told he reads a lot. So don’t go expecting a book about books. This is about a solitary man who doesn't realize his life is impactful.