Ex Libris: Stories of Librarians, Libraries, and Lore

by Paula Guran (Editor), Ellen Klages (Contributor), Kage Baker (Contributor)

Portals to all the knowledge in the world, libraries are also created universes of a multitude of imaginations. Librarians guide us to enlightenment as well as serving as the captains, mages, and gatekeepers who open the doors to delight, speculation, wonder, and terror. Both inspire writers of speculative fiction to pen wonderful tales woven around them.
This captivating compilation of science fiction and fantasy short fiction showcases stories of librarians-mysterious curators, heroic bibliognosts, arcane archivists, catalogers of very special collections-and libraries-repositories of arcane wisdom, storehouses of signals from other galaxies, bastions of culture, the last outposts of civilization in a post-apocalyptic world . . . grand adventures and small sagas of the magical places we call libraries and the wizards who staff them!

Genres: Short Stories, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Anthologies, Books About Books, Collections

384 pages, Paperback

First published August 5, 2017

About the author

Paula Guran is senior editor for Prime Books. She edited the Juno fantasy imprint from its small press inception through its incarnation as an imprint of Pocket Books. She is also senior editor of Prime's soon-to-launch digital imprint Masque Books. Guran edits the annual Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror series as well as a growing number of other anthologies. In an earlier life she produced weekly email newsletter DarkEcho (winning two Stokers, an IHG award, and a World Fantasy Award nomination), edited Horror Garage (earning another IHG and a second World Fantasy nomination), and has contributed reviews, interviews, and articles to numerous professional publications.

Reviews

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

After doing the math, despite some REALLY blow your mind stories, it averaged out to 3.09 stars for me.

The best, to find and read somewhere, if not from this anthology.

1) "In the House of Seven Librarians" by Ellen Klages. First story in the book, starts off with amazing awesomeness, had high hopes for the rest of the book due to this story. 5 stars

2) "The Books" by Kage Baker. Not quite as great as the first one, but VERY good. 4.5 stars.

3) "Summer Reading" by Ken Liu. You will need a hanky or two for this one. So sweet. 5 stars.

4) "The Inheritance of Barnabas Wilcox" by Sarah Monette. Spooky and while you knew where it was going, you were glad it went there. 4.5 stars.

5) "The Midbury Lake Incident" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Sad, but hopeful. 4.5 stars.

6) "In the Stacks" by Scott Lynch. Apparently I can only handle him in short story format, but this was really good. 4.5 stars.

The ones to avoid.

1) "Special Collections" by Norman Partridge. The only story I DNF'd in this entire volume, and that's saying a lot for a short story. It was HORRIBLE. No thank you, I don't want to read about a menage between a sociopathic murderer, a completely unstable female and a demon manifestation of Jack the Ripper, made out of grave worms. If that's your thing, then you will like this story. If not, avoid. No stars.

2) "Magic for Beginners" by Kelly Link. It started off weird, got REALLY good, then the author left a Lady or the Tiger ending and I nearly rage-threw my eReader across the room. I wanted resolution and was given a tease. Nope! One star.

I only listed the 4.5/5 and 0/1 star stories, but there were a LOT of middle of the road 2s and 3s. A few 4s as well, but I didn't want to list every story.

Suffice it to say, this isn't a bad read. You have some amazing stories, some ok stories and some "I need to wash my brain and eyes with bleach" stories. It's a typical anthology. I will read other anthologies edited by this editor, she does have some taste and includes different types of stories that all are bound to enjoy at least a few of.

I would recommend it. Three stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and Diamond Book Distributors Prime Books for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

[Fiona Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

That libraries and librarians are often found in fiction should come as no surprise. Cultural reflection aside, writers usually know both well and are fond of them. And, since authors need reading and readers and libraries and librarians nurture such, authors have a vested interest in their ongoing success.

This is my second collection edited by Paula Guran and it's another exceptional piece of work. The story quality is consistently fantastic - there's a couple here and there I wasn't a fan of, but even the best editor can't accommodate everyone's taste. And they definitely weren't enough to lose a star, especially with the good ones being so absolutely brilliant. Authors usually start as readers, and readers love libraries, and it was very clear that these stories were written with a good deal of love.

Once again there's too many good stories to review them all, so I've (somehow) picked out a few of my favourites to highlight. The opening story, In the House of the Seven Librarians, by Ellen Klages, is my absolute everything. If you've ever wondered what it would be like to be raised by feral librarians, this charming almost-fairytale might just be the answer to your wildest dreams. The Books, by Kage Baker, called forth childhood memories of losing days inside a newly discovered world on the pages of a new book; Death and the Librarian, by Esther M. Friesner reinforced the importance that books can play in a child's life (and made me cry, which too few books manage to do any more). In Libris, from Elizabeth Bear, sits in wonderful companionship to In the Stacks, from her husband Scott Lynch, which also appears in this collection.
The Midbury Lake Incident from Kristine Kathryn Rusch made me wish for more - especially of the wonderful Magoo. And Exchange, by Ray Bradbury, was a love letter to books and readers, libraries and librarians - exceptionally touching and extremely effective.

This really is one hell of a collection. And this being Goodreads, I'm confident it will find it's audience among the book lovers.

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprised how many authors conceive of libraries or librarians as threatening!

[Bea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Libraries are one of my favorite places to be so I when I saw this on Edelweiss, I eagerly requested it. The stories celebrate libraries, librarians, knowledge, information, and the power of words. The stories covered sweet, whimsical, odd, strange, hopeful, funny, and a couple were dark. The quality ranged from good to meh, exciting to boring, inventive to cliched. It's a LONG book as it has a lot of stories. It would have been a tighter collection with fewer stories, a quarter to a third less. The topic was broad enough that authors had a lot of wriggle room but even so, some authors greatly stretched the definitions of 'library' and 'librarian', and there were some common themes: the danger of knowledge, the power of knowledge, books or libraries as magic, among others. There are some major authors in the fantasy and science fiction genres here, some of whom I'd never read before so it was a good introduction to a wide range of authors.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My father died, and it was as if a library had burned down.
—Laurie Anderson, during an interview on NPR

Odds are that the people who shelve books in your local library, and check them in and out for you, are not librarians. Their work is important too—I've done it myself—but librarians are degreed professionals, and their jobs are normally rather less routine—more research-based, even managerial. I should know; I'm married to an academic librarian.

Similarly, the editors of anthologies are not their proofreaders. Veteran editor Paula Guran is very, very good at what she does, but she's not the one responsible for copy-editing Ex Libris: Stories of Librarians, Libraries and Lore. Or so I hope, anyway, because her introduction to this anthology, "Ad Librum," a wide-ranging catalogue (heh) of librarians as they appear in sf, is also abysmally proofread.

Take, for example, this sentence, which I swear to you I'm reproducing in its entirety:

Palgolak's library does not lend books, but readers can visit any time of the day or the night, and there were very.
—p.10

Fortunately, lacunae this large were not nearly as frequent in the stories themselves.

Which are:

"In the House of the Seven Librarians," by Ellen Klages
With its echoes of A Canticle for Leibowitz, I thought this one was almost as magical as its title.

"The Books," by Kage Baker

I don't remember when it went down, of course. I wasn't born yet.
—p.39

There's not much that's new in the late Kage Baker's story of a post-apocalyptic theatre troupe, perhaps, but then sometimes a twice-told tale is exactly what you need.

"Death and the Librarian," by Esther M. Friesner
Sometimes it's a matter of tone... the events in this one could have been dark and bleak.

"In Libres," by Elizabeth Bear

Pity never made a sorceror.
—p.65; italics in original

Or a librarian, apparently. The Special Collections in Bear's story are rather more special than Euclavia anticipated... and more dangerous.
This is not the last story in Ex Libris to stress the hazards of venturing into the stacks, by the way...

"The King of the Big Night Hours," by Richard Bowes
Based, at least in part, on actual events. Architecture, rather than literature, is the key to this one.

"Those Who Watch," by Ruthanna Emrys
This one, I am quite sure, was written by a real librarian, or at least by someone who knows one. Why? Because of lines like this:

{...}instead I was shelving. After a year with an MLIS and no prospects, you don't whine.
—p.93

And this:

They threw a dozen weird-ass reference queries at me in rapid succession, and seemed pleased by my sample class on databases.
—p.94

"Special Collections," by Norman Partridge
That phrase again. This one might not be the best thing to read during your lunch break, though—it's intense, and more than a little gruesome...

"Exchange," by Ray Bradbury
In which there is nothing magical whatsoever, except what's between the covers of your favorite childhood memories.

"Paper Cuts Scissors," by Holly Black
A Dewey Decimal sort of love story.

"Summer Reading," by Ken Liu
Liu's story evoked Clifford Simak for me—that same sense of deep time, of nostalgia for the commonplaces of the present day—although I do not think there will ever be a time when we lay aside the codex—when humans still exist but books do not.

"Magic for Beginners," by Kelly Link
Although Ex Libris does overall have a surprisingly small amount of overlap with other books I've read, I had already encountered this story several times elsewhere, including in the eponymous collection. I reread it happily here, though. Link retains the magical ability to walk a tightrope between surreality and silliness.

"The Inheritance of Barnabas Wilcox," by Sarah Monette
A tale of just desserts that wouldn't have been out of place in McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories, which I also recently read.

"The Midbury Lake Incident," by Kristine K. Rusch
This one didn't quite gel for me at first, although it did eventually. A tale of a small-town library that burned down, and its librarian's odd reaction to that event.

"With Tales in Their Teeth, from the Mountain They Came," by A.C. Wise
More smoke and ash—Guran's talent for juxtapositions like this, both subtle and overt, is a large part of the reason why her anthologies are read-on-sight for me these days. Bradburyesque, in a timeless land where acolytes strive to save their sacred texts from soldiers and from unexplained disappearances...

"What Books Survive," by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Books are the carriers of civilization{...}
—Barbara W. Tuchman, p.239. Italics in original

Creepy and unexpected in all the right ways. Again, this story's introductory quote ties it in with the preceding Wise story. And again, another excursion into post-apocalypse—a strong subtheme in Ex Libris.

"The Librarian's Dilemma," by E. Saxey
The dilemma is between circulation and preservation—which is why I'm not a librarian myself, by the way, although I'd prefer to be thought of more as a collector than a "hoarder" (their word). This story does have a good setup—I'm not sure it pays off, but it is at least accurately named.

"The Green Book," by Amal El-Mohtar
Sometimes the books talk back. One book, at least.
El-Mohtar also appears to good effect in The Djinn Falls in Love, which I just read this past December.

"In the Stacks," by Scott Lynch

"I don't mean to lecture, magician, but sooner or later you should probably start using, you know, magic to smooth out your little inconveniences."
—Casimir Vrana, p.280

Humor and high stakes—this one stood out for me, as one of the most entertaining holdings in this... special collection.

"A Woman's Best Friend," by Robert Reed

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.
—often, though not with certainty, attributed to Groucho Marx

But so if a dog and a book are man's best friend, what then is woman's? Reed's story is not nearly as sexist as its title might suggest, though.
She's named Mary, and she is a librarian. He is named George. Everything else is... extraordinary.

"If on a Winter's Night a Traveler," by Xia Jia, translated by Ken Liu

Many are the ways of commemorating the dead, and no one can say which is best—not even the dead.
—p.325

"The Sigma Structure Symphony," by Gregory Benford
A SETI researcher on Luna must deal with personal tragedy and alien complexity. Benford's entry felt a little too old-school, to me—but would I have thought so without having seen his name? I must admit I'm not sure.

"The Fort Moxie Branch," by Jack McDevitt
I think I use Jack Finney too much as a touchstone, but here I am doing it again anyway. This one touches on the magic of the books no one else has read...

"The Last Librarian: Or a Short Account of the End of the World," by Edoardo Albert
Revenge against the philistines—an interesting note to end on. It reminded me, just a little, of my own "Last Gasp of the Silverfish," if I may be permitted the presumption.


You don't get to tuck your forty-second (!) anthology under your editing belt without having learnt a few things along the way, I suspect. At any rate, Ex Libris definitely did the trick for me—that endlessly fascinating trick of turning black ink on white pages into full-color fantasies, again and again, which makes this anthology a very good read.

[Alex Sarll]

Ah, the perils of the anthology on a single topic, in this case libraries: as a wise man once observed, stories with a twist can lose much of their impact if you read them in 50 Stories Where The Heroine Turns Out To Be A Vampire - and even when it’s not a matter of twists, diminishing returns can easily set in. Particularly if you have an advanced copy* with a ticking clock and are obliged to get through all 23 tales in a month or two. So for all that I love a good library, there were points here at which I found myself sighing as yet another collection was lost or saved, hidden away or opened up. E.Saxey, whose work I've not encountered before, encapsulates it perfectly in the aptly titled 'The Librarian's Dilemma'; the nature of the job is that it's always a tension between access and preservation. That story switches back on itself several times within a fairly short piece, understanding that some moral questions are tricky but that doesn't mean others aren't easy; too many of the other pieces seemed too certain of too many answers, plumping uncomplicatedly for one or the other, ending in moments of resolution which made me think - really? Most particularly AC Wise’s ‘With Tales in Their Teeth, from the Mountain they Came’, in which the library at the story’s beginning seems too forbidding – but the new library praised in the conclusion is far too noisy for this particular Goldilocks. Still, I’ll forgive a certain amount for its orgy of the human books. Similarly, while Paula Guran’s introduction sometimes devolves into a mere list of Some Libraries In Genre Fiction, I can’t be too harsh on any such list which opens with James Branch Cabell’s incomparable Beyond Life, wherein can be found a library resembling but preceding and exceeding the one Lucien curates in The Sandman.

There are certainly gems here. Ray Bradbury was always the master of evoking the sort of small American town I dream about inhabiting in another life, and his library story here gains points for the anthology by not being the obvious ‘Bright Phoenix’. Kelly Link, in what I think may be the book’s longest piece, uses a strange TV show about an otherworldly library as the anchor for a poignant tale of that teenage moment which seems most eternal precisely as it’s ending: "Now the five are inseparable, invincible. They imagine that life will always be like this - like a television show in eternal syndication - that they will always have each other. They use the same vocabulary. They borrow each other's books and music.” And Esther M Friesner's 'Death and the Librarian’ is just heartbreakingly beautiful and sad and uplifting all at once.

*From Netgalley.

[Anna Tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

As anthologies go, Ex Libris a mixed bag. It wasn't as dark as I expected it to be (hah), nor half as weird. In fact, it started off almost downright wholesome with Ellen Klages' In the House of the Seven Librarians, which I totally loved.

The libraries depicted in this book are often wonderful, magical places, some of which hold more magic than can be reasonably contained. In Libres (Elizabeth Bear) is a hilarious case in point, emphasising how dangerous it is (can be), where one browses at their own risk and carries a spool of thread to remember how to get out again. Ruthanna Emrys's Those Who Watch explores this further, though in a slightly darker way, with shifting statues and secret myths. Another notably dangerous library is shown in In The Stacks by Scott Lynch where reshelving books is a dangerous job, often involving magic and swords and resulting in trips to the infirmary.

Paula Guran is known for selecting darker, wilder stories and this anthology offers that too, mostly in the form of frightening librarians, such as the one in Special Collections (Norman Partridge). There are nice ones too, such as Miss Louisa Foster in Death and the Librarian (Esther M. Friesner) and Miss Adams in Ray Bradbury's Exchange. Some librarians and libraries are inexplicably linked, harking back to the lost library of Alexandria (The Midbury Lake Incident; Kristine Kathryn Rusch).

All in all, Ex Libris is a celebration of words, the power of words, and the people who try to keep them in order. It's a hefty book but one worth reading!

Note: I received a copy of this ebook via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars overall
The stories run from a low of 2 stars to high 4 1/2


In the House of the Seven Librarians by Ellen Klages 4 stars
The Books by Kage Baker 3 1/2 stars
Death and the Librarian by Esther M. Friesner 3 1/2 stars
In Libres by Elizabeth Bear 3 stars
The King of the Big Night Hours by Richard Bowes 3 stars
Those Who Watch by Ruthanna Emrys 2 stars
Special Collections by Norman Partridge 2 stars
Exchange by Ray Bradbury 4 1/2 stars
Paper Cuts Scissors by Holly Black 4 stars
Summer Reading by Ken Liu 4 stars
Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link 2 stars
The Inheritance of Barnabas Wilcox by Sarah Monette 3 stars
The Midbury Lake Incident by Kristine Kathryn Rusch 3 stars
With Tales in Their Teeth, from the Mountain They Came by A.C. Wise 3 stars
What Books Survive by Tansy Rayner Roberts 3 stars
The Librarian’s Dilemma by E. Saxey 4 stars
The Green Book by Amal El-Mohtar 3 stars
In the Stacks by Scott Lynch 4 stars
A Woman’s Best Friend by Robert Reed 4 stars
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Xia Jia, translated by Ken Liu 3 stars
The Sigma Structure Symphony by Gregory Benford 4 stars
The Fort Moxie Branch by Jack McDevitt 4 stars
The Last Librarian: Or a Short Account of the End of the World by Edoardo Albert 4 stars

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of short stories that's exactly what it says on the tin. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed an anthology this much. I did skip one story due to it having a serial killer sort of vibe, which is not my thing. And there's one story with a librarian I suspect is based on or an homage to the angel Aziraphale from Good Omens, which pleased me greatly.

[Marjolein (UrlPhantomhive) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full review to come!

[Katharine (Ventureadlaxre) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This anthology is made up of reprints, taking from other anthologies or magazines such as Uncanny and Subterranean, so some you may have come across before. Of these, I've already read the shorts by Elizabeth Bear, Kelly Link, Scott Lynch, and Tansy Rayner Roberts - but as these are my favourite authors I eagerly reached for the rest. After all, what better subject than libraries.

Unfortunately I struggled with this anthology. Usually I love to review each story individually, but I didn't find myself able to have enough to discuss about each one. Please find following what I loved about a few of them. This is a steady anthology, one that has a beautiful cover and a few very excellent pieces in it, but unfortunately is not an easy collection to read through continuously (either in a week, or a few weeks).

In the House of the Seven Librarians by Ellen Klages

In a fitting start to the anthology we see a quaint proper library replaced with a new one that boasts proper fluorescent lighting and ergonomic chairs, and it's written with the kind of tone we can appreciate - a library isn't just a place with stacks of books, libraries that were our friends growing up are places of comfort - not sharp lines and electronics. Not all the books make it over, and for some reason the seven librarians remain in the old building also - and it's here they receive a late return. As we all know, late books require a fee to be paid, and this payment is quite odd indeed.

This is quite a lovely short - a little bit magical and a little bit of old comfort you instantly wish you were one of the librarians in their quiet comfort, or the lucky little bundle of payment. Reading this one was an excellent start to the anthology, and is so lovely in such a gentle way that it beautifully sets the tone.

The Books by Kage Baker

I love the premise of this - just like how I loved it in Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel - how in a not so distant future a rabble group of people travel the world to entertain and remind others of things so they can't be forgotten and lost to the ravages of time in a post-apocalyptic world.

This one is an excellent piece to broaden the anthology out. We start with a safe library we've always found comfort in as children with Klages' story first, and then Baker takes us out into the big unknown, and shows how stories are our constant, and the one thing we can't do without - up there with food, water and shelter.

In Libres by Elizabeth Bear

Euclavia has been instructed by her advisor that her thesis really needs another source. He recommends a full rare book, rather than a particular article, and this means she has to go to the library. To the Special Collections section in particular. And for this, she wants her oldest friend, Bucephalus, (a centaur) to come with her, as libraries are a cause for concern.

They arrive, and the librarian they meet both recommends against it, and asks whether she's done anything to earn the ire of her advisor - slept with the tutor's spouse, etc. 'Any reason for him to want you dead?' is literally asked.

This creates such a fantastic piece of work where librarians carry both sword and wand, and people like poor Eu who need to enter are instructed to bring a ball of twine, three days of food, a bedroll, no fire, no shoes on antique rugs, no pens (but pencil and notepaper are allowed)... though as a plus, there are first air and water stations wherever there are restrooms which is say, every five kilometers... however they all move around, so who knows, really.

Brilliant through each part, and Bear, I want a full novel of this, please.

Summer Reading by Ken Liu

'After mankind had scattered to the stars like dandelion seeds, Earth was maintained as a museum overseen by robot curators.'

We have CN-344315 as our protagonist. He last saw a human over five thousand years ago, but he still goes about his routine - just like our favourite Wall-e, and like him, he cares so much about what humans have left behind.

This short story is endlessly quotable, like a lot of what Liu writes. 'Data only lives when it is constantly copied.' 'Books are long alive when they're read.' 'For books are seeds, and they grow in minds.'

Beautiful.

The Inheritance of Barnabas Wilcox by Sarah Monette

As one can guess from the title, Barnabas Wilcox has passed away, and his inheritance involves a country house to his nephew. One of the stipulations being that his library catalogue of an astounding number of books be finished - only his nephew doesn't know where to begin, so he writes to a boy he knew in school - one he was never close with, but he's the only one he knows who to turn to. And as Booth is in awe of the now deceased antiquary Lucius Wilcox, he agrees.

Like a good horror or murder mystery, the pieces slowly fall into place. The insane ramblings of the uncle. The abundance of a certain type of tree in the garden, and the horrid scratchings on the library door. I haven't yet read any of Monette's work but now I really, really want to.

What Books Survive by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Like some of the oldest and best fiction, space invaders have come. Now nothing electronic works, but as long as they stay behind their walls, the invaders seem to leave them pretty much alone. The only issue is that some houses have no or very few physical books, and along with half the houses (which means everyone has to squish in together), the shops, and the school (so now the town hall acts as the school also)... they left the library on the other side of the barricade. Something that 16yo Katie Marsden can't stand.

This is such a fun and wonderful piece - kids with gumption, and it tackles the hard questions. Such as 'Should I pick books [to save] because of posterity and shit like that, or should I just be selfish and save the ones I wanted to read?' Personally I reckon save the ones you want to read - life is too short if invaders have come.

Now Tansy is a fan of the kindle, as am I, but this certainly is a strong reason to be a fan of both mediums for sure.

The Green Book by Amal El-Mohtar

This is such a clever piece that the least said about it, the better. Even if you pick up this book and flick to Amal's section first - totally worth it.

In the Stacks by Scott Lynch

An old favourite. Fifth year exams for the High University of Hazar require the aspirants to enter the library and return with a library book.

Simple, right?

Well, the motto of the librarians here is: RETRIEVE. RETURN. SURVIVE.

Dressed in armour, equipped with swords and years of training, four of them are there to take the test. As one of the thankfully longer pieces in this anthology, we get such a fun romp of a tale where you see so much of their whole world even though we mostly see their sprawling library alone. Another piece that demands a full novel or ten. The language and dialogue makes anything by Lynch such a joy to read. The descriptions, witty banter - in many awful moods I've picked up something by Lynch and felt better within minutes - if only it could be bottled.

If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Xia Jia, translated by Ken Liu

After college, a young girl returns to where she grew up to work in the library her father ran - as it's always felt like home, and other people don't make much sense anyway. She's had a feeling that she's always been looking for something, and she finally finds it in a slim volume of poetry, that's part of a collection donated by a family clearing out their father's estate.

This is a beautiful piece of work. 'It was still there, a slim volume squeezed between other books like a mysterious woman hiding in the attic.' Basically one can be assured that if Liu has translated it, then it's always going to be worth reading.

[David H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stories about books and libraries are some of my favorite themes, and Ex Libris did not disappoint in this regard (though in one or two stories, libraries are peripheral). With a mix of science fiction and fantasy, Paula Guran assembled a lot of fantastic stories, including one of my all-time favorite Ken Liu stories, "Summer Reading" (about a robot curator who remembers what books are for). Also included in this anthology were some of my favorite authors like Kage Baker and Ruthanna Emrys, whose stories were quite good as well. Of stories new to me that I loved were Ellen Klages's great opener, "In the House of the Seven Librarians" (about a girl raised in a library, cut off from rest of the world) and Esther M. Friesner's lovely sentimental "Death and the Librarian" (with a wonderful everchanging depiction of Death as well). Ray Bradbury's "Exchange" was new to me as well, and quite captured that feeling of books as friends and as memory-markers to me, while Scott Lynch's "In the Stacks" is just plain high fantasy fun. I have to also call out Amal El-Mohtar's "The Green Book" as a evocative short story and Xia Jia's indefinable "If on a Winter's Night a Traveler," a story I keep thinking about.

All in all, though, I just really, really liked this anthology, and I can definitely see myself revisiting some of these stories again in the future.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

(2.5 out of 5)

I ended up not really caring for this anthology. It's not bad, per say. But it's not really that good either. A few of the stories are nice, particularly the first one, "In the House of Seven Librarians", but the rest failed to leave any kind of real impression on me. The quality of the shorts varied greatly, some being much better than others. But overall, the anthology itself was a bit of a trek to get through. It wasn't as enjoyable as I'd hoped it would be. Perhaps some will enjoy it, perhaps the writing styles of many of the shorts just weren't my cup of tea. But I didn't much care for it. It's not bad, it's just forgettable.

(I received a digital ARC of this book from Edelweiss in return for a fair review.)

[Lizabeth Tucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

When mankind left Earth for the stars, the planet was turned into a museum overseen by robots. CN-344315 was the robot docent of the library. It had been five thousand years since he last had human visitors. The servers are gone, but CN-344315 had a tiny room filled with his favorite treasures: a selection of books protected behind an airtight glass. A visitor reminds CN-344315 of why books are important. Wow! I’ve come across Liu’s work in my SF magazines over the years and have always enjoyed his stories. I do believe this might be one of my favorites. Short, sweet, and wonderful. 5 out of 5.

Merged review:

Ex Libris: Stories of Librarians, Libraries & Lore
Edited by Paula Guran

Twenty-three tales of fantasy and science fiction that contain libraries and librarians as well as the magic of books. An absolutely wonderful collection, only one disappointment. And that was more about style of writing than the premise of the story itself. 4 out of 5.

“In the House of the Seven Librarians” by Ellen Klages
When the old Carnegie library was closed and much of its newer content moved to a brand-new library across town, seven librarians remained behind, moving into the library to stay. Their lives are changed when a baby is left as payment for an overdue book. A suspension of disbelief leads to a strange yet satisfying read. 4.5 out of 5.

“The Books” by Kage Baker
The Show traveled around the badly decimated U.S., providing entertainment and trade. In one larger city, three kids explore, stumbling on a library. All of them are determined to take books back with them, but it might not be that easy. This was almost like a section of a longer story, one that I'd love to read. Very intense. Baker does a marvelous job with atmosphere. 3.5 out of 5.

“Death and the Librarian” by Esther M. Friesner
Death has come at last for Miss Louisa Foster. Yet even Death can be surprised. This one came close to tearing my heart out, slamming it on the floor, and stomping on it repeatedly. 5 out of 5.

“In Libres” by Elizabeth Bear
Despite her thesis being complete, Euclavia is directed to the Library Special Collections to read another source. Accompanied reluctantly by her centaur friend Bucephalus, they dare to visit the dangerous place. Definitely dangerous! There’s a chill tap-dancing along your spine, especially for those readers who have been deep in the bowels of huge, older libraries. 4 out of 5.

“The King of the Big Night Hours” by Richard Bowes
Memories and suicides in the library. I’m not certain how I feel about this one. The writing is exquisite, the plot is intriguing, but the emotions invoked are not comfortable. If that was the author’s intent, mission accomplished. 3.5 out of 5.

“Those Who Watch” by Ruthanna Emrys
The library marks Elaine on her third day of work. Already dealing with various health and emotional issues, she must find a way to adapt or leave. Unusual and intriguing. Definitely deserves further exploration. 3.5 out of 5.

“Special Collections” by Norman Partridge
He went to work at the library as suggested by his court-appointed therapist. He started taking Library Science classes as suggested by the college archivist where he met Daphne. But there are secrets, deadly secrets swirling around the library and the narrator. More horror than fantasy, not one of my favorites. Despite ticking off some loved trope boxes, I struggled to finish. 3 out of 5.

“Exchange” by Ray Bradbury
Working in the library for forty some years is getting to Miss Adams. Too many children, too many books, too much noise. Then a former patron arrives after hours looking for a final goodbye before shipping out. There is no finer writer of fantasy on this planet. Or maybe it is more accurate to call him a weaver of magic. 5 out of 5.

“Paper Cuts Scissors” by Holly Black
Justin struggles to find a way to rescue his girlfriend Linda from the book she put herself into after they had a fight. His best hope is Mr. Sandlin, a man who can bring characters out of books. Thanks to another, as well as Sandlin, Justin finds answers and a possible solution. An intriguing premise handled with a delicate touch. Lovely. 4 out of 5.

“Summer Reading” by Ken Liu
When mankind left Earth for the stars, the planet was turned into a museum overseen by robots. CN-344315 was the robot docent of the library. It had been five thousand years since he last had human visitors. The servers are gone, but CN-344315 had a tiny room filled with his favorite treasures: a selection of books protected behind an airtight glass. A visitor reminds CN-344315 of why books are important. Wow! I’ve come across Liu’s work in my SF magazines over the years and have always enjoyed his stories. I do believe this might be one of my favorites. Short, sweet, and wonderful. 5 out of 5.

“Magic for Beginners” by Kelly Link
I’m not certain how to explain what this story is about. There’s a TV series and the characters in this story watch the series yet are also an episode of the same series. Gave me a bloody headache. There was so much potential, but it twists around itself until I finally gave up trying to understand it as a bad deal and just slogged through. Weird beginning, no real ending. Just a mess. 2.8 out of 5.

“The Inheritance of Barnabas Wilcox” by Sarah Monette
Booth is surprised to hear from Barnabas Wilcox, a former classmate and bully. Wilcox needs someone to catalog his late uncle’s library. Booth senses something twisted at Hollyhill, the uncle’s estate. Creepy, horror of the emotions rather than blood and guts. In other words, my kind of horror tale. 4 out of 5.

“The Midbury Lake Incident” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
When the Midbury Lake Public Library burned to the ground, librarian Mary Beth Wilkins was upset, not only because of the fire, but that she wasn’t notified. Grief would come later, once Mary Beth has left for a new life. Very nice, just enough backstory to intrigue the reader. I do wish there had been more. 3.5 out of 5.

“With Tales in Their Teeth, from the Mountain They Came” by A. C. Wise
After she loses her lover in the War, she goes to the Library on the Mountain, becoming an acolyte now named Alba. She stries to find solace in the quiet, but mostly struggles. Then she meets a novice named Eleuthere who hides secrets beneath his robes. Very magical, almost dreamlike. 4 out of 5.

“What Books Survive” by Tansy Rayner Roberts
When the Invaders came, every electronic device died immediately, even battery-run ones. Katie Scarlett Marsden was almost halfway through Wuthering Heights when her Kindle died. Once the town built a barricade, she was separated from the school library. Wanting more to read, Katie slips past the barricade one night, finding more than she expected. A very weird dystopian story, enthralling and filled with twists. 4.5 out of 5.

“The Librarian’s Dilemma” by E. Saxey
Jas was hired to bring libraries into the 21st Century. Saint Simon’s librarian Moira doesn’t mind the security measures he can provide, but she isn’t interested in sharing the contents of their Special Collection outside the library’s walls. I understand the dilemma in this story and, frankly, I’m not certain which side I would support in regards to the sharing of dangerous material. 4 out of 5.

“The Green Book” by Amal El-Mohtar
There is little that I can tell you about the story without spoiling it, so I’ll live it with that it is a story about a mysterious green book and its contents. I mostly liked it. I think. Yet it felt like it was more a rough sketch than a complete story. 3 out of 5.

“In the Stacks” by Scott Lynch
Magical student Laszlo Jazera discovers the dangers of the final assignment for Fifth Year, one he must pass to make it to Sixth Year. It seemed simple enough, return a book to the Living Library. The task will be more frightening and intense than he could ever have expected. There is a tragic sadness throughout this story, but the universe created is horrifyingly compelling. 4.5 out of 5.

“A Woman’s Best Friend” by Robert Reed
On Christmas Eve, Mary sees a stranger stumbling through the snowy streets of her town. George is confused and frightened, soaked from head to toe. Mary impulsively takes him back to her home in the library. A strange retelling of a classic Christmas film, a mixture of fantasy and science fiction. Interesting, a bit strange at the end. 3.5 out of 5.

“If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler” by Xia Jia
A lonely librarian discovers a book of poetry that might expand his world. There is magic about this tale that touches the reader’s soul. I loved how the people who wanted the poetry read and appreciated on its own merits, not for the possible backstory of the author. 4 out of 5.

“The Sigma Structure Symphony” by Gregory Benford
Ruth is one of many librarians mining for useful information in recordings from the SETI project. After the death of a fellow librarian, Ruth is asked to take over his task, mining the Sigma Structures. Math and music, language and love. Are they simply human-based? Weird. Confusing. Engrossing at the time yet left a sour aftertaste. 3 out of 5.

“The Fort Moxie Branch” by Jack McDevitt
Mr. Wickham, in the process of disposing of his privately published novel, is caught in a blackout. During that darkness, he sees a strange glow in a long empty house. I love the idea of this story. A fascinating premise from start to finish. 4 out of 5.

“The Last Librarian” by Edoardo Albert
Books, actual physical books, have been ignored in favor of uploaded versions or neural inputs. The librarian at the British Library finagles a way to direct traffic physically into the building. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go well. In today’s world, I fear this could happen. Maybe not now, but very soon. I was surprised that the narrator remained at the end. 4 out of 5.

[Catherine Girard-Veilleux · Rating 5 out of 5]

*I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

This collection of fantasy short stories explores the relationships of readers and librarians, the wonderful work librarians do, the fantastical places that libraries can be… and all of that mixed with lore.

Now, I must say this book really caught my interest when I first saw it! Stories about librarians, libraries, and lore in the same book? Count me in! Also, the Latin title got me. I think it speaks for the theme’s oldness, deep knowledge, and mystical air. The best thing about Ex Libris? It did not disappoint me – in fact, it even surprised me more than once!

Of all the book introductions I’ve read in my life, Paula Guran’s one in Ex Libris is by far the best one out there yet (at least for passionate readers and anyone who loves libraries). She tells us of the different libraries and librarians from all genres in literature while punctuating it with excerpts. Her research must have taken her a long time… but I want to say it was well worth it and beautifully done. It’s an introduction I won’t forget anytime soon. As for the reading itself, it flows – it is engrossing and lovely. It also got me quite emotionally invested in the stories, characters, and life itself (I still haven’t figured out how it managed to do that with the last one, but it’s still a neat feat!). Moreover, I had a magical read! The stories (most of them) were very funny and amusing. It reminded me of the magic libraries hold and how time flies by when I’m reading. It is an enchanting and lovely book!

All the short stories in this collection have a varying degree of importance related to books and/or libraries – you never know what to expect except that these two elements will be there in some way or another. To what extent and use is the surprise of each story. Speaking of stories, they were quite imaginative. They even manage by some mysterious force to be believable (don’t ask me how, I’m still working on understanding it)! The voices of the many narrators are clear, distinct, and strong. I would have thought some stories would lack in voice… but I was shown wrong with this collection! Woven into the texts are amusing references to real books – it’s a nice addition and at the same time a necessity regarding the library theme.

The vocabulary used in these stories is diverse, beautiful, and precise. The short stories aren’t too long – I believe their length has been well measured as it makes for captivating enough without becoming boring. Some stories are drama, others are adventures, but all have a subtle touch of humor and are engaging in their own way. One thing is for sure: together, those short stories are an eclectic mix – although it is sometimes destabilizing, it is also quite pleasant, much like refreshing parts of the same whole. Another thing I particularly enjoyed about Ex Libris is how diverse the situations and characters are! Some are people of color while others have illnesses or handicaps. A much appreciated touch that helps make those weird (it’s a compliment here) stories more realistic! There is something different I noticed about the format of these short stories: they include subtitles related to books or libraries (like the widely used Dewey decimal system), quotes, and other fun things. It’s a great idea to make their format somehow fit their main theme! I also think they were well structured, which helps the reading experience by making it easier on the eye. Finally, I loved learning about the authors in the ‘’About the Authors’’ section at the end. At first, I thought this was a collection of short stories written by emerging authors, but oh no! They are all big names like Holly Black, Ray Bradbury, and many others! It’s imposing and impressive.

You’re probably wondering where are the negative points, aren’t you? I was too, frankly… However, there are only two of those, which I am pretty sure are now fixed since the book has been released. I have found a few typos, additional and unneeded words, and sometimes forgotten conjugations. The other thing that bothered me (only slightly as the rest of the book was well worth my time spent reading it!) was how many repetitions there were. For example, in two close paragraphs the words ‘’soft’’ and ‘’softly’’ were used thrice. It happens here and there and, like in that example, it can pull you out of the story you’re reading. Those points aside, the book is pure entertainment with mysteries written in its pages.

The idea itself of a book about libraries and librarians wins numerous points with me. It hit home and I think it will do the same thing with other bookworms. In fact, it is a good fit for anyone who has a (secret) love of books and libraries and the people who help keep them in order. I give it a rating of 5 out of 5 because of the library theme, the quality of the stories, and also because I always wanted to resume reading it. I’m pretty sure all fantasy fans will find Ex Libris quite entertaining and worth their while since it has varied short stories – in other words, there is a short story for everyone in this amazing collection!

As a bonus, here’s my ranking of my favorite Ex Libris short stories:

1- In the House of the Seven Librarians by Ellen Klages

2- The Last Librarian by Edoardo Albert

3- Death and the Librarian by Esther M. Friesner

4- Special Collections by Norman Partridge

5- In Libres by Elizabeth Bear

Please note that all short stories had something unique to them and the ranking above is simply based on my personal tastes!

[Karin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for librarians and library lovers to be sure, but it is quite uneven*. Still, the five stars are earned on the merit of the best stories and the very existence of this collection. (*To someone who hasn't been searching out every story about magical and fantastical libraries they can find for the last thirty+ years, many of these stories will likely be more original than they were to me.)

[Martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended for libraryfolk and bibliomanes. Includes some stellar short stories including "In the House of the Seven Librarians" and "Magic for Beginners."

[phil breidenbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

A delight for book lovers everywhere, every story in this collection features a library, librarian, or some form of book cataloguer. While in some of the stories libraries and the like are only given a cursory mention, in the majority they are integral to the story and you can soak in your library-love for page after blissful page. As a bonus, read the introduction and discover even more books based around libraries!
In the House of the Seven Librarians by Ellen Klages – Abandoned by the erection of a new, hip library across town, the seven librarians barricade themselves in their workplace and dedicate themselves to serving the library. Things are insular and uneventful until the morning the foundling arrives.
The Books by Kage Baker – The first of several post-apocalypse stories, The Books is told from the perspective of a child who, as part of a travelling circus, arrives in what remains of a city in this slowly disintegrating world. He and his friends discover unexpected dangers exploring the library. Content warnings for violence.
Death and the Librarian by Esther M Freisner – Set in a time when Death made house calls, Freisner's story features our shape-shifting death coming to collect a senior woman who spends her sleepless nights reading to an unusual audience. Content warnings for deaths of children, and suicide.
In Libres by Elizabeth Bear – In Bear's fantastical world of magic and mythological creatures, a trip to the university library to check out a book is the sort of venture that could easily result in death. Unfortunately for apprentice sorcerer Euclavia, her tutor wants her to find one more citation for her thesis. It's in Special Collections, where the aisles rearranging themselves on a whim is the least of her worries.
The King of the Big Night Hours by Richard Bowes – Between reminiscences of his younger days, a library staffer speculates on the sudden spate of deaths in the library. Content warnings for suicide. LGBTQ characters.
Those Who Watch by Ruthanna Emrys – This Louisiana library changes those who work for it, in permanent and visible ways, and without asking first. Content warnings for fat-shaming and self-hatred.
Special Collections by Norman Partridge – A criminal narrator gets a night job at a college library and discovers it is haunted. This gruesome, violent tale goes from dark to darker as the narrator encounters both the ghost and a creepy student. Content warnings for murder and mention of torture.
Exchange by Ray Bradbury – A touching story about a soldier who makes a pit stop in his childhood hometown and stumbles heartbroken to the library when none of his old friends are at the station to greet him.
Paper Cuts Scissors by Holly Black – A library studies student gets a part time job organizing a private collection with very unusual properties. He has his own reasons for wanting the job though, and these quirks do not deter him.
Summer Reading by Ken Liu – When humanity has spread out across the universe and perfected information dissemination, the abandoned libraries back on earth and their robot curators slowly fall into ruin.
Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link – School children who bond in part over their love of an outlandish television show where a renegade librarian and a magician try to save the world, until the day one's mother wants to take him to Las Vegas to see the wedding chapel she was willed.
The Inheritance of Barnabas Wilcox by Sarah Monette – An old classmate of Booth's inherits a country house from uncle and noted antiquary Lucius Preston Wilcox. The inheritance comes with a request that the library catalogue be updated, and Booth agrees to help out, spending the weekend at the eerie gothic manor where he makes a disturbing discovery.
The Midbury Lake Incident by Kristine Kathryn Rusch – Mary Beth Wilkins has the most perfect library, until it burns down one day in the middle of June. From that point on, Mary Beth Wilkins ceases to exist. Only a persona created to keep Darcy safe, because Darcy has no intention of ever letting the beings searching for her find her.
With Tales in Their Teeth, From the Mountains They Came by AC Wise – The loss of her beloved in a war sends Alba looking to drown her grief in endless stories in a nearby library, where she gets a second chance to overcome her fear of intimacy and save the words she comes to love. Has LGBTQ characters.
What Books Survive by Tansy Rayner Roberts – Barricaded against the apocalypse, this small town thinks they've stopped the invaders and saved the important things. One young girl also wants to save the books.
The Librarian's Dilemma by E Saxey – Library modernizer Jaswinder grapples with difficult questions as he digitizes Saint Simon's book collection: do you focus on preserving the books, and limit people reading them, or do you focus on allowing people to access the books and accelerate their inevitable decline? And the hardest question of all: what do you do with books no one should read? Has LGBTQ characters.
The Green Book by Amal El-Mohtar – Combining extracts from an exceptionally strange diary and a letter and set in a mysterious fantasy world where the Sisterhood rules everything and may or may not have trapped someone in a book.
In the Stacks by Scott Lynch – My favourite story of the series. Set again in a world where magic abounds and libraries are deadly places, Laszlo Jazera readies himself to undertake his fifth-year final exam: reshelve a book at the university library. An unlikely stroke of bureaucratic luck pairs him with three capable classmates and he thinks he's in the clear. He's very nearly correct.
A Woman's Best Friend by Robert Reed – Only peripherally related to libraries and librarians. A chance encounter leads to a librarian seducing a man from an alternate universe. Content warning for suicide and the kind of portrayal of women that comes out of a Penthouse Letters extract.
If On a Winter's Night a Traveller by Xia Jia – The librarian in this story stumbles across a small book of poetry by an unknown poet and it opens up a new world in his life. No obvious relation to the Italo Calvino book with the same title.
The Sigma Structure Symphony by Gregory Benford – Students in this sci-fi future work in SETI libraries decoding messages from alien civilizations. One of the most complex is the Sigma Structure but Ruth finally starts to make some headway when she researches the links between the alien languages, mathematics, and music.
The Fort Moxie Branch by Jack McDevitt – Wickham is visited by what may be the most exclusive library in the world, the John of Singletary Memorial Library. They collect books that otherwise would be lost to history. From centuries past that close-minded fools have wanted to burn. They keep the glories of the human race safe from all of humanity.
The Last Librarian: Or a Short Account of the End of the World by Edoardo Albert – Again, the world is ending. But this time, it's the angry librarian ending it. You should have been more careful with the books.
Many of these stories pass the Bechdel test; ones that don't typically have few enough speaking characters that the failure isn't a surprise. There are only sporadic LGBTQ characters, or characters of colour. Although there are many characters that can be any race you desire. Overall, it's an engaging collection of stories sure to satisfy your book obsession, and even give you some dilemmas to ponder.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Except for a jog or three pretty insipid after the first couple of stories. I thought these stood out:

Klages, In the House of the Seven Librarians. A true A++ classic. "Olive had been the children's librarian since before recorded time, or so it seemed. No one knew how old she was, but she vaguely remembered waving to President Coolidge. She still had all of her marbles, though every one of them was a bit oddd and rolled asymmetrically." Also: Blythe "had bright, dark eyes like a spaniel's, which Dinsy thought was appropriate, because Blythe lived to fetch books."

Bear, In Libres. A visit to a very Special Collection: "It certainly had a great mad pile of things shelved within it. Finding them was another matter: there was no card catalogue, and several attempts to establish one had met with madness, failure, and disappearances." Also: "Please don't feed the books. Some of them will beg."

Emrys, Those Who Watch. I'm a fan of stories with sentient libraries, and this is one of the better ones.

Bradbury, Exchange. Not really fair to the other contributors, slipping a Bradbury in.

Liu, Summer Reading. "For ten minutes, they were not sitting in a decaying library on an ancient, forgotten planet. For ten minutes, they were in a place, at a time, where talking tortoises and caterpillars who tossed salads made sense. For ten minutes, they were not an old robot and a young girl, but readers, coimmuning with an author across an ocean of one hundred thousand years. An entire world rose, grew, and blossomed around them as they read."

Saxey, Librarian's Dilemma. Preserve hate lit, or let it moulder?

Lynch, In the Stacks. Returning grimoires to the shelves. Library school as it actually is! "Final exams were out there, prowling, waiting to tear the weak and sickly out of the mass." Special award for: "Vocabuvores," "Bibliofauna."

Benford, Sigma Structure Symphony. About interpreting alien transmissions: "Her odds were good, but the goods were odd."

The rest I'm rating B to C- work--including Kelly Link's Magic For Beginners, of which I have never been a fan, and the weak closer, Albert's Last Librarian.

[Alexia Polasky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley and Diamond Book Distributors for the ARC!
Sci-Fi, Gothic, Mystery, Existential, you name it. This book touches on a variety of topics and genres, all revolving around the theme of books, libraries and librarians.
A book that is alive, another acts as a philosopher's stone, a baby as payment for a late return, witches, authors living after their deaths through their books, and much more.
Curious about my favorites? Find them in the full review

3.5 stars.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 3.0 of 5

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.

[Vicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a slog for me to get through. The problem with short story collections is the variety of story and quality (both of content and editing). I specifically got this collection because I wanted to read Ray Bradbury's Exchange and was having a difficult time finding it. Exchange was a sweet love note to librarians. Summer Reading by Ken Liu was another favorite.

Death and the Librarian by Esther M. Friesner was hard to follow at first, but ended up being sad and sweet.

Elizabeth Bear's In Libres was similar to Scott Lynch's In the Stacks, although In the Stacks had a more satisfying story and character arc.

The concept of Paper Cut Scissors was intriguing. And The Librarian's Dilema by E. Saxey brought out valid ethical concepts regarding information that should or should not be repressed or 'managed'.

Those Who Watch by Ruthanna Emrys was what I was expecting from this collection.

Magic for Beginners was long. And I do not like stories about libraries burning or when death is approached in a callous and cold way so The Midbury Lake Incident was not a favorite. Amal El-Mohtar's The Green Book was just weird. A little Tom Riddle journal anyone.

The King of the Big Night Hours (Richard Bowes) and Special Collections (Norman Partridge) were not to my liking, but I am not a horror or paranormal fan. The whole concept of With Tales in Their Teeth, from the Mountain They Came (A.C. Wise) was repulsive. The Inheritance of Barnabas Wilcox was my level of intrigue/horror as was What Books Survive by Tansy Rayner Roberts.

A Woman's Best Friend (Robert Reed) was more multiple timelines than library. Although I was reading it in December and it has a It's a Wonderful Life tie in so that was fun.

Both Xia Jia's If On a Winter's Night a Traveler and Jack McDevitt's Jack McDevitt dealt with less known or not known works of literature and the levels of anonymity of authors. Interesting and thought-provoking. I really want time in the Moxie Branch. The beginning of the Moxie Branch short story was clunky, but it got better and the concept was worth struggling through the beginning.

Favorite Quotes
From Ellen Klages' In the House of Seven Librarians, "We told them I was home-schooled, raised by feral librarians."

From Edoardo Albert's The Last Library
"Interested scholars would then be able to inspect perfect three-dimensional copies of the book, while those more concerned to hold up one end of a dinner-party conversation could download neural inputs sufficient to inculcate a comfortable memory of having read the book, without the tiresome necessity of ever having to look at it. After all, with most literature people want to have read the book, not to actually read it. In our rushed and hurried world, neural inputs meant that you could read all the classics of the canon in an afternoon and still have time for dinner. [If I had this available I would be tempted].
"'I accept the risk of damnation. The Lord will absolve me, because He knows I acted for His glory. My duty was to protect the library.'"
"If even scholars cannot be trusted with books. then this society can no longer be called civilized."

I rated this collection a three because there was everything from five-star short stories to well, not five-star reads. ;)

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a librarian, how could I NOT want to read a book titled Ex Libris: Stories of Librarians, Libraries & Lore?

I found the collection to be a mixed bag. Meaning that there were one or two horror tales included. [Note: When given a choice, I normally do not read horror.] But I wanted to read every story in this collection so I pushed on. And I certainly would not have wanted to miss some of the other, utterly delightful stories included in this anthology!

"As for the contents of this anthology...Let's start by finding out what it is like to be raised by feral librarians." This is how editor Paula Guran ends her opening essay titled Ad Librum. Here also is the first sentence of the essay: "That libraries and librarians are often found in fiction should come as no surprise." Thus Ms. Guran sets the stage for the short fiction works which compose the bulk of the anthology.

Some of the stories feature the concepts of "libraries" and "librarians" in unusual ways.

As someone who just retired from a 40-year career in a public library I can tell that some of these stories were written by authors who had never visited a public library like mine. (And my library had more than print books in the stacks, thank you very much. We brought Internet access to the community, taught computer literacy, and got people started in their quest for that new job which could ONLY be applied for online, among other activities such as teaching English as a Second Language, and many many children's programs including Story Time and much more for kids, teens, and adults.)

Even so. I enjoyed just about every one of these stories and most were by authors new to me (another plus).

So, hold onto your hat and prepare to expand your definition of both "libraries" and "librarians"! I definitely recommend this book to all, whether readers, authors, or librarians!

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another spotty short story collection. On the whole, enough good or decent stuff to say that I "liked" it, but only just. To me, many of the stories rely too heavily on a sense of nostalgia for libraries-- impressions from the author's pasts of places decades ago-- and/or on a sort of mystification or symbolic power of written material. As someone who works in a library and whose strongest connections to libraries formed more in my teens to adult life, those sorts of ideas don't resonate with me. This is probably why one of my favorite stories was strangely Richard Bowes' "The King of the Big Night Hours". Not a story that I would normally read, and with only a bare hint of something actually supernatural, it nonetheless was well written, provided an interestingly different view of the world, and seemed to understand some of the practical experience of working in a library and connecting with the public in such a position.

My favorite story was Kelly Link's "Magic for Beginners," another odd choice for me. I think if I read a summary of it, it would it would strike me as overly pretentious or just too weird in bad ways to be worth reading. But actually reading it, it worked quite well. It is built from relatable elements of mundane reality, but with everything slightly off kilter in intriguing ways. I do kind of wish it had more of a solid conclusion, but at the same time have to admit that any further development would probably destroy the balance of the story.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kelly Link’s “Magic for Beginners” is about five teenage friends and the pirate tv show they are addicted to called “The Library.” “In the House of Seven Librarians” by Ellen Klages is about seven librarians and a library raising a child and it’s delightful! In “Death and the Librarian” by Esther Friesner, Death comes for a librarian who holds a story hour for ghostly children; he gives her a pass, for now. “In Libres” by Elizabeth Bear the main characters attend a magical university and need one more reference for their theses, but the librarian in charge of Special Collections is a dragon on her horde of books she has not yet read. “Exchange” by Ray Bradbury is about a man returning to the town he grew up in, the people don’t remember him, but the librarian does. “The Librarian’s Dilemma” by E. Saxey “Jas’s job was to bring libraries into the twenty- first century. Saint Simon’s hadn’t left the seventeenth yet.” I quite enjoyed this collection of stories. B & N $14.35 9/2/17.

[Janell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few years ago a friend recommended this book. I'd had no luck finding it at libraries or local bookstores, so when COVID-19 closed the libraries, that seemed like a good time to buy it online.  I definitely enjoyed it, and am impressed by the job that Paula Guran did curating this collection of library-themed stories.  I'd say they generally are in the realm of sci-fi/fantasy, but they show a fair amount of range. Some are dark and deal at least indirectly with issues including suicide, AIDS, postapocalyptic life, serial killers, etc. "Special Collections" was way too creepy. Many are quite fun, some involve a lot of action, and a few are rather surreal. Partly due to a desire for more cheerful works during a stressful time, my favorites were "In the House of the Seven Librarians" by Ellen Klages, "In Libres" by Elizabeth Bear, "Summer Reading" by Ken Liu, and "In the Stacks" by Scott Lynch.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you like libraries? Or do you fear libraries/librarians? Do you know what actually happens in library stacks? Well, read this collection of previously published tales that all deal in one fashion or another with libraries or librarians and find out. The book opens with a child being raised by seven feral librarians and ends with a librarian destroying the future equivalent of the Internet to save the books from abuse. In between are tales of libraries helping save civilization, would-be-wizards needing to return books to the shelves in a living magical library, haunted libraries, libraries that collect books to good for the present readership, and many more tales. Most of these tales I had not read before and really enjoyed being able to sit back and explore one of my favorite places, the library!

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love books, I love libraries and I love books about books and libraries. And I genuinely love this book, it is easily one of my favorite anthology collections ever.
The tone of the stories was pretty varied, mostly whimsical, but there were stories that were more melancholy, stories that were dark and threatening, all of them touched on the magic and value of libraries and learning…and the dangers. Some knowledge comes with a steep price.
As with most short story collections there are a smattering of great, good, meh and just plain failures, but for me this collection tended to the great and the good more than the other two. I was introduced to several new authors, many of whom I plan on finding more works by, which is always exciting. I’m definitely looking forward to trying more anthologies by this editor.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in the Nook epub edition.

Stories about libraries and librarians, mostly fantasy. As usual with anthologies, some stories work better than others, and my dislike of the works of some authors was reinforced by their stories here.

I liked the voice in "King of the Big Night Hours" (Richard Bowes) more than I did the story and very much enjoyed "Death and the Librarian" (Esther Friesner); Sarah Monette is always fun to read; and those who don't enjoy horror will not want to read "Special Collections" (Norman Partridge), which starts its slow sidle into what-the-hell? very subtly.

And, once again, Ray Bradbury shows everyone how to write a magical story with grace and very human characters--and no actual magic.