The Librarian: The Top 10 Sunday Times Bestseller

Description

'This beautifully crafted novel is a tribute to the power of books' Sunday Express In 1958, Sylvia Blackwell, a newly-trained librarian, takes up the post of Children's Librarian in a run down library in the market town of East Mole. But her project to inspire the local children to read is threatened by undercurrents of prejudice in the seemingly pleasant town. Her position is also affected by her love affair with a married GP. The relationship his precocious daughter forms with the son of Sylvia's neighbour, and a deprived child struggling to pass the impending eleven plus, puts Sylvia's job and the existence of the library in danger. How do the children fare as a result of the books Sylvia introduces them to? And how does the library alter the children's lives?

Salley Vickers is the author of many novels, including Miss Garnet's Angel, The Cleaner of Chartres and Cousins. She has worked as a teacher of children with special needs, a university teacher of literature and a psychoanalyst. She now writes fulltime and divides her time between London and Wiltshire. She attributes such success as she has achieved in life to an early love of reading.

A nostalgic treat...involving and hopeful * Mail on Sunday * Excellent... a period tale of sentimental education, it's deliciously readable, with a clever epilogue zooming into the present day for a last gasp surprise * Daily Mail * No one can dig down into the shrouded recesses of the human heart quite as forensically as Vickers * Sunday Times * Vickers writes of relationships with undaunted clarity -- Adam Phillips Quirky and charming * Love It! * This beautifully crafted novel is a tribute to the power of books * S Magazine, Sunday Express * The Librarian will wring the heart of anyone who fell in love with books as a child. It is a hymn to the power of children's literature...delightful * The Times * Vickers lays bare the inner workings of one family, possibly every family, with an often disconcerting clarity * The Times on 'Cousins' * Vickers' real skill as a story teller is in allowing each distinct voice to contribute to a complete, or as complete as can be, picture of one family... the pace gathers, making for a deeply poignant climax * Financial Times on 'Cousins' *