I was now holding the book innocently in my hands, like a normal library-goer. Which I was. Except for my overwhelmingly passionate desire to read books and reread them, hold them, surround myself with them, and yes . . . sometimes even smell them. It wasn’t just the heady scent of glue in the spine. It was also the scent of the pages—timeworn or slicked with new ink—and the old cloth cases, how the linen had aged. The smell of imagination and escape.
This is where the whole journey of writing The Lending Library began for me: as a love letter to books and readers. I knew the novel would also be about a library, a place where people can find joy, solace, escape, community. My hope was that it would also remind readers of some of their own favorite memories of a library they love.
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