Libraries in Historical Fiction

Intertwining the stories of the first female volunteer librarians during WWI and the first women admitted to the Naval Academy in the 1970s, The War Librarian tells the incredible story of brave and pioneering women. In 1918, timid Emmaline ventures to the frontlines of France, serving as a volunteer librarian and participating in a book club for censored books. Decades later in 1976, Kathleen is eager to prove to herself and her beloved grandmother who raised her that she deserves a spot in the first coed class at the United States Naval Academy — but not everyone among the new class of midshipmen agrees.

When Japanese bombs begin falling over the city of Nanking, students at Minghua University are told to flee. Lian and her classmates embark on a perilous journey across China to the relative safety of the country’s Western Provinces. But it isn’t just their own lives at risk on this journey; they’ve been entrusted with a collection of 500 year old myths and folklore known as the Library of Legends. And the only thing standing between it and aerial attacks are these young students.

The little known story of J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, is one every library lover should read. Belle da Costa Greene becomes one of the most powerful people in the world of art and books in New York, but she’s also hiding a secret that could unravel her life completely: she’s the daughter of the first African American graduate of Harvard, passing off her darker complexion as part of her supposed Portuguese heritage rather than her true ethnicity. It’s the story of an incredibly intelligent and talented woman forced to go to great lengths to make a place for herself in a society that can’t look past race.