2024 book #14. 2021. The story moves between young Odile in Paris, living her dream of working at the American Library just as Nazis march in and much later, her living in 1983 Montana passing along her wisdom to a young Lily having home troubles. Read for book club. Good story. ( )

This book was really well done. It had a dual timeline, spanning from 1939 Paris to 1983 Montana, and I felt it was pretty easy to keep track of the plot. Both stories held up well on their own. I’ve never visited Paris and I had never heard of the American Library there, but I’m proud of the efforts everyone put in to promote reading and sending books to all the troops. Not a lot of focus was put on how the rest of the city or the Jews were faring during the occupation, but it was interesting to learn how the librarians struggled and adapted.

“After the darkness of war, the light of books.” (ALP’s motto) ( )

Wow! I enjoyed this book. ( )

Set partly during WWII and partly in the 1980s, this well researched historical fiction is ultimately as much a story of human failings and redemption as it is an exposition of the librarians who risked their safety to keep the American Library in Paris open throughout the Nazi occupation of Paris. Many of the book’s characters were actual figures in the real story, which I learned in the informative Author’s Note. ( )

A historical story about the people who ran and visited the American Library in Paris before, during and after WWII when the Germans occupied Paris. A sad, but heartfelt story well worth knowing. Kirkus: orld War II Paris during the German occupation forms the setting for an intelligent and sensuously rich novel of a young woman's coming-of-age.In 1939, Odile Souchet, the daughter of the captain of a police precinct, has just finished library school. She lands her dream job assisting patrons of the American Library, which serves both foreigners and Parisians, and falls in love with one of the police officers her father brings home for dinner. As the war proceeds and the Nazis take over the city, she fears for her twin brother, who has been captured by the Germans, places herself in danger by transporting books to Jewish patrons who are forbidden to visit the library, and begins to question some of her boyfriend's actions. Her story is juxtaposed with that of a teenager named Lily who, in 1983, lives in a small rural town in Montana. When Lily's mother becomes ill, Lily grows close to her previously frosty next-door neighbor Odile, who moved to Montana as a bride immediately after the war ended. While the chapters featuring Lily are snappy and often amusing, especially as she begins to adopt Parisian airs, they play a distinctly secondary role to those concerning Odile's life during the war. Structurally, the novel sometimes sags: Charles tends to move into the points of view of secondary characters, which leads to some repetition. But the author has a clear affection for both Paris and the American Library, where she worked as a programs manager in 2010, and she integrates the stories of many of the real-life employees and patrons of the library into the story with finesse, earning the novel its own place in the pantheon of World War II fiction.A novel tailor-made for those who cherish books and libraries.