EX LIBRIS: STORIES OF LIBRARIANS, LIBRARIES, AND LORE - Paula Guran, editor


 A collection of stories centered around libraries and those who work in them is a near-perfect concept for a book. What reader hasn't had an experience at some point with a library? What writer hasn't interacted with a librarian?

I've come to have greater appreciation for the role of editor for a short story collection. The number of stories that a reader finds appealing or enjoyable definitely correlates with how much the readers' likes and dislikes falls in line with the editor's tastes. I've never read anything edited by Paula Guran before and it looks as though our tastes align by about 40%.

I'm not sure what I was expecting as I started this book ... what kinds of stories would these be? ... but I was definitely surprised at how many of them seemed to have a scifi or fantasy feel to them.  Perhaps these are the only ones I remember?

The first story in the collection, "In the House of the Seven Librarians" by Ellen Klages, was one of my favorites.  A strong opening story had me hopeful for a strong collection. The story of seven librarians who refuse to leave when a library is shuttered. A forest grows around them and things get even stranger when a very over-due book of fairy tales is put into the book return. (A search shows that this is available to read for free online.)

This is followed by a really powerful story, "The Books" by Kage Baker - an author with whom I am not familiar but probably should be.  A post-apocalyptic story in which traveling circus children explore a town they are visiting and discover a building which is floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall full of books.

Sarah Monette's "The Inheritance of Barnabas Wilcox" was 'wonderfully creepy' I noted on my Kindle. But my favorite of the entire collection might have been "In the Stacks" by Scott Lynch. In various places this story is described:

Life is always complicated for students of magic at the High University of Hazar, but the fifth-year exam is a particular challenge: Each student must return one library book.

Of course, they must return it to the Living Library, a haunted collection of ten million magical tomes, a collection where the rules of time, space, weather, and reality itself are subject to sudden change. Escorted by armored battle-librarians, a group of four students must face mysteries and monsters in a fight to get their books back on the shelves in this brisk, darkly whimsical sword and sorcery tale.

With Indexers and Vocabuvores (who can only be kept at bay by providing them with new words) - Lynch has created a wonderful, if not a bit familiar, magical world centered around the library.

These four works are quite strong, but that's only about 1/6 of the collection and maybe it's not worth buying for that small a sampling.  But maybe you'd like more of these stories.  Or maybe  ... here's an idea ... check out a copy at your local library.

This collection contains the following:

Paula Guran • Ad Librum
Ellen Klages • "In the House of the Seven Librarians"
Kage Baker • "The Books"
Esther M. Friesner • "Death and the Librarian"
Elizabeth Bear • "In Libres"
Richard Bowes • "The King of the Big Night Hours"
Ruthanna Emrys • "Those Who Watch"
Norman Partridge • "Special Collections"
Ray Bradbury • "Exchange"
Holly Black • "Paper Cuts Scissors"
Ken Liu • "Summer Reading"
Kelly Link • "Magic for Beginners"
Sarah Monette • "The Inheritance of Barnabas Wilcox"
Kristine Kathryn Rusch • "The Midbury Lake Incident"
A.C. Wise • "With Tales in Their Teeth, from the Mountain They Came"
Tansy Raynor Roberts • "What Books Survive"
E. Saxey • "The Librarian’s Dilemma"
Amal El-Mohtar • "The Green Book"
Scott Lynch • "In the Stacks"
Robert Reed • "A Woman’s Best Friend"
Xia Jia • "If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler"
Gregory Benford • "The Sigma Structure Symphony"
Jack McDevitt • "The Fort Moxie Branch"
Edoardo Albert • "The Last Librarian"
About the Authors

Looking for a good book? Ex Libris: Stories of Librarians, Libraries, and Lore, edited by Paula Guran, is a collection of stories with libraries as the central theme, of varying quality. None are terrible, but only a small handful are standouts.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

3 stars

* * * * * *

Ex Libris: Stories of Librarians, Libraries, and Lore

editor: Paula Guran

publisher: Prime Books

ISBN: 9781607014898

paperback, 384 pages

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

VINYL RESTING PLACE - Olivia Blacke

Image
 Juni Jessup and her two sister, Tansy and Maggie, have gone into business together in their hometown of Cedar River, Texas, opening a combination record store and coffee shop. Vinyl LPs are making a comeback after all, despite critics thinking the medium was dead.  But speaking of 'dead' ... finding a dead body in the supply closet just as they are looking to have a grand opening is not part of the plan.  Juni's life gets more complicated when their uncle, Calvin, already a suspect in the murder, disappears. And the police officer leading the investigation is Juni's EX-boyfriend (who passive-aggressively keeps putting himself back into her life). Convinced that her uncle would never murder anyone, Juni sets out to prove his innocence - which isn't easy since he's making himself look guilty - because Calvin is family and family is EVERYthing to Juni. As readers of my blog know, I'm not a big fan of most cozy mysteries, but the setting caught my eye and my in...
Read more

THE WALLED CITY - Ryan Graudin

Image
  Jin and her sister, Mei Yee, were taken and sold and then sent to the lawless Walled City to serve as prostitutes or slaves to anyone willing to pay. Jin managed to escape her captivity, but not the Walled City and she now lurks about, disguised as a boy and is trying to track down the brothel where her sister is still captive. Jin will work odd delivery jobs to earn a small bit of money and hopefully have a legitimate means of coming in contact with her sister's captors.  This is how she meets up with Dai, a mysterious boy who has somehow managed to avoid running with any of the gangs in the city but he seems to have his own unusual connections, which Jon could desperately use if she has any hope of finding Mei Yee. But Dai has his own desperate needs.  The story is told from the different perspectives of each character and we do bounce around quite a bit as the chapters are generally short. This never bothered me, which is slightly unusual as often I find this techni...
Read more

THE RAVEN THIEF - Gigi Pandian

Image
 With Tempest Raj now a member of the company, Secret Staircase Construction (a company who, as their title suggests, builds mystery-themed, secret rooms inside homes) has finished their first job. Their client now wants to celebrate to kick off her new beginning - new home and new life now that she's divorced from her cheating ex-husband, famous mystery author Corbin Colt. First up, a mock séance to remove any trace of Corbin from the property, led by Tempest's friend, Sanjay.   But during that séance, while all those gathered sat in a dark room holding hands, Corbin's dead body crashes the party, falling across the table in front of everyone. There were eight people in the room, and they were all holding hands, but all the evidence points to one of them being the murderer.  Suspicions point to Ash, Tempest's grandfather, because he was the only one with Corbin's blood on him. Of course, as a doctor, he was also the only one who checked on the body - ...
Read more