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Tim O'Brien

636. Salley Vickers - The Librarian


One of Paddy’s library books; I have never heard of the author (although I think I may have read ‘The Cleaner of Chartres’), but this was very good.

A slow beginning, quite sparse and spare writing, but compelling once you get into it. A book about a librarian in a village near Swindon, set just post war in the 1950’s, who has an affair with the local GP, although this seems, but isn’t really, central to the plot.

What is central is her love of reading and particularly children’s books. Beautifully written and with a clever coda set about 40 years later in which two of the children who she encouraged to read meet again, and possibly re-kindle their love.


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