"The Paris Library" by Janet Skeslien Charles - Historical Fiction Book Club - Past Titles

About the Author: Janet Skeslien Charles

Background: Janet Skeslien Charles was born in Missoula, Montana, USA.
Education: She holds a Master's degree in Creative Writing from the University of Paris.
Career: Janet Skeslien Charles has a diverse professional background. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked as a journalist, a translator, and a teacher.
Experience in Paris: Charles lived in Paris for many years, where she had the opportunity to explore its rich literary and historical heritage. This experience deeply influenced her writing.
Debut Novel: "Moonlight in Odessa" (2009) is Janet Skeslien Charles's debut novel, which explores themes of love, immigration, and cultural identity. The novel is set in Ukraine and draws on her experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in that region.
"The Paris Library" (2021): One of her notable works is "The Paris Library," a historical novel that weaves together the stories of a young librarian in Paris during World War II and a teenager in Montana in the 1980s. The novel is inspired by true events and reflects Charles's passion for books and libraries.
Literary Themes: Charles's works often explore themes of cultural exchange, human connections, and the impact of historical events on individuals and communities.
Advocacy: In addition to her writing, Janet Skeslien Charles has been involved in advocacy work. She has supported causes related to libraries, literacy, and cultural understanding.
Multicultural Perspective: Charles's multicultural background and experiences contribute to her ability to bring diverse settings and characters to life in her novels.

Synopsis

Paris, 1939: Young and ambitious Odile Souchet seems to have the perfect life with her handsome police officer beau and a dream job at the American Library in Paris. When the Nazis march into the city, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her beloved library. Together with her fellow librarians, Odile joins the Resistance with the best weapons she has: books. But when the war finally ends, instead of freedom, Odile tastes the bitter sting of unspeakable betrayal. Montana, 1983: Lily is a lonely teenager looking for adventure in small-town Montana. Her interest is piqued by her solitary, elderly neighbor. As Lily uncovers more about her neighbor's mysterious past, she finds that they share a love of language, the same longings, and the same intense jealousy, never suspecting that a dark secret from the past connects them.

Historical Timeline

The timeline of Paris in 1939 reflects a period of uncertainty and tension as Europe faced the looming threat of World War II. Here are some key events that occurred in Paris during that year:

January 30: Adolf Hitler delivers a speech threatening to eliminate the Jewish race in Europe, foreshadowing the darker events that would unfold during the war.
March 15: German troops occupy Czechoslovakia, increasing concerns about the possibility of further German aggression.
March 31: The United Kingdom and France pledge to support Poland in the event of an invasion. Tensions continue to rise.
April 7: Italy invades Albania, adding to the growing instability in Europe.
April 14: Germany issues an ultimatum to Poland, demanding the return of the Free City of Danzig and access to Polish territory. The situation becomes increasingly critical.
April 28: German forces threaten Poland, leading to a state of alert in France and the United Kingdom.
May 22: Germany and Italy sign the Pact of Steel, solidifying their alliance.
August 23: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression treaty that secretly divides Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence.
September 1: Germany invades Poland, marking the beginning of World War II. France and the United Kingdom declare war on Germany on September 3.
September 3-4: Paris experiences blackouts and air raid drills as the city prepares for the possibility of German air raids.
September 17: The Soviet Union invades Poland from the east, following the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
September 27: Warsaw, the capital of Poland, surrenders to German forces.
September 29: Germany and the Soviet Union divide Poland between them according to the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
November 30: The Winter War begins between the Soviet Union and Finland.

As 1939 draws to a close, Paris and Europe as a whole are on the brink of war. The events of this year set the stage for the broader conflict that would unfold in the coming years.

MLN Materials

book
large print book
playaway
spoken CD

Audiobook Versions

Libby

Ebook Versions

Libby

The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis
Call Number: FICTION Davis
It's 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn't ask for more out of life-her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open. As her studies take her all over the city, she finds herself drawn to Greenwich Village's new bohemia, where she discovers the Heterodoxy Club-a radical, all-female group in which women are encouraged to loudly share their opinions on suffrage, birth control, and women's rights. Soon, Laura finds herself questioning her traditional role as wife and mother. But when valuable books are stolen back at the library, threatening the home and institution she loves, she's forced to confront her shifting priorities head on . . . and may just lose everything in the process. Eighty years later, in 1993, Sadie Donovan struggles with the legacy of her grandmother, the famous essayist Laura Lyons, especially after she's wrangled her dream job as a curator at the New York Public Library. But the job quickly becomes a nightmare when rare manuscripts, notes, and books for the exhibit Sadie's running begin disappearing from the library's famous Berg Collection. Determined to save both the exhibit and her career, the typically risk-adverse Sadie teams up with a private security expert to uncover the culprit. However, things unexpectedly become personal when the investigation leads Sadie to some unwelcome truths about her own family heritage-truths that shed new light on the biggest tragedy in the library's history.

*ebook & audiobook on Libby
The Bookseller's Secret by Michelle Gable
Call Number: FICTION Gable
In 1942, London, Nancy Mitford is worried about more than air raids and German spies. Still recovering from a devastating loss, the once sparkling Bright Young Thing is estranged from her husband, her allowance has been cut, and she's given up her writing career. On top of this, her five beautiful but infamous sisters continue making headlines with their controversial politics. Eager for distraction and desperate for income, Nancy jumps at the chance to manage the Heywood Hill bookshop while the owner is away at war. Between the shop's brisk business and the literary salons she hosts for her eccentric friends, Nancy's life seems on the upswing. But when a mysterious French officer insists that she has a story to tell, Nancy must decide if picking up the pen again and revealing all is worth the price she might be forced to pay. Eighty years later, Heywood Hill is abuzz with the hunt for a lost wartime manuscript written by Nancy Mitford. For one woman desperately in need of a change, the search will reveal not only a new side to Nancy, but an even more surprising link between the past and present.
The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel
Call Number: FICTION Harmel
"Eva Traube Abrams, a semi-retired librarian in Florida, is shelving books one morning when her eyes lock on a photograph in a magazine lying open nearby. She freezes; it's an image of a book she hasn't seen in sixty-five years--a book she recognizes as The Book of Lost Names. The accompanying article discusses the looting of libraries by the Nazis across Europe during World War II--an experience Eva remembers well--and the search to reunite people with the texts taken from them so long ago. The book in the photograph, an eighteenth-century religious text thought to have been taken from France in the waning days of the war, is one of the most fascinating cases. Now housed in Berlin's Zentral- und Landesbibliothek library, it appears to contain some sort of code, but researchers don't know where it came from--or what the code means. Only Eva holds the answer--but will she have the strength to revisit old memories and help reunite those lost during the war? As a graduate student in 1942, Eva was forced to flee Paris after the arrest of her father, a Polish Jew. Finding refuge in a small mountain town in the Free Zone, she begins forging identity documents for Jewish children fleeing to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named Rémy, Eva decides she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember who they really are. The records they keep in The Book of Lost Names will become even more vital when the resistance cell they work for is betrayed and Rémy disappears."

*ebook & audiobook on Libby
The Librarian Spy by Madeline Martin
Call Number: FICTION Martin
Ava thought her job as a librarian at the Library of Congress would mean a quiet, routine existence. But an unexpected offer from the US military has brought her to Lisbon with a new mission: posing as a librarian while working undercover as a spy gathering intelligence. Meanwhile, in occupied France, Elaine has begun an apprenticeship at a printing press run by members of the Resistance. It's a job usually reserved for men, but in the war, those rules have been forgotten. Yet she knows that the Nazis are searching for the press and its printer in order to silence them. As the battle in Europe rages, Ava and Elaine find themselves connecting through coded messages and discovering hope in the face of war.
The Secret Messenger by Mandy Robotham
Call Number: FICTION Robotham
Venice, 1943: The world is at war, and Stella Jilani is leading a double life. By day she works in the lion's den as a typist for the Reich; by night, she risks her life as a messenger for the Italian resistance. Against all odds, Stella must impart Nazi secrets, smuggle essential supplies and produce an underground newspaper on her beloved typewriter .But when German commander General Breugal becomes suspicious, it seems he will stop at nothing to find the mole, and Stella knows her future could be in jeopardy ... London, 2017: Years later, Luisa Belmont finds a mysterious old typewriter in her attic. Determined to find out who it belonged to, Luisa delves into the past and uncovers a story of fierce love, unimaginable sacrifice and, ultimately, the worst kind of betrayal ... Set between German-occupied 1940s Venice and modern-day London, this is a fascinating tale of the bravery of everyday women in the darkest corners of WWII.
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
Call Number: FICTION Rosnay
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel d'Hiv roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours. Paris, May 2002: On Vel d'Hiv's 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv, to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.

*ebook & audiobook on Libby
*audiobook on hoopla