READERS GUIDE

Reader’s Guide
The Librarians by Sherry Thomas
Discussion Questions:


1.   Often the physical or emotional landmarks of our younger days reveal themselves to be not quite what we fondly remembered. Hazel’s rediscovery of her childhood library, on the other hand, is a pleasant surprise. Has that ever happened to you, that something you thought of as being decent-to-good turned out to be great upon revisiting?

2.   Early in the book, Astrid thinks about how she has done a lot of fantasy casting, putting faces—mostly those of well-known actors—on characters from her favorite books. Have you ever done that? How would you fantasy-cast The Librarians? (Corollary: Which character would you have the most trouble with, and why?)

3.   The library is a public space. Hazel deals with a low-key harassing patron. On the day Game Night takes place, there is also a fistfight and a toilet emergency. What is your most unusual and unexpected experience at your local library?

4.   In a mystery, all the secrets are eventually unearthed. Astrid’s secret is that despite her accent, she isn’t Swedish, and her pain is that
she hasn’t been able to shed that disguise all these years, which has kept her isolated in life. Astrid’s case might be extreme, but people often wear masks in life. Why do people pretend to be someone other than who they are?

5.   Astrid’s secret might have made her life less connected and less vibrant, but Sophie’s secret is of a different order of magnitude and could have wrecked everything she built for herself and her daughter. Why do you think Sophie took the immense risks she did to honor Jo-Ann’s dying wish? Would you have gone all in like that?

6.   The librarians face a plethora of police interviews. How do their attitudes and conduct differ toward the police? What factors account for those differences?

7.   The poem Jonathan wrote in college gives a more PG-13 version of what happened between Jonathan and Ryan at a long-ago party the summer before college. Is that sufficient foreshadowing for the reality of what happened? Are you surprised that Ryan doesn’t remember it quite the same way? Why do you think Ryan experienced the event so differently? Was it only due to the guilt he carried over Davoud Asadi, or had he expected nothing less than rejection at the outset?

8.   Hazel’s involvement in the search for Perry’s killer(s) ratchets up after she runs into Conrad and finds out that he was there at the library on Game Night—or at least in the parking lot. Theirs was a missed connection that took on mythical proportions after Madeira. They became beautiful ideas to each other. Such a thing is usually unhelpful in real life, even dangerous under certain circumstances. But there are always exceptions. Do you think Hazel and Conrad count among those rare exceptions, a couple who can successfully de-escalate and bridge the distance between beautiful ideas and real life?

9.   Toward the end of the book, the library closes for a while; the public rejoices when it reopens. A bullet-ridden library isn’t a common occurrence, but libraries do close for maintenance and/or reduce hours due to budgetary constraint. Do you recall a time when something happened to make you realize just how much you needed and missed your library?
10. A library is only a building without its librarians. At the beginning of this book, our librarians, because of the secrets they carry, are only colleagues, albeit colleagues who like and appreciate one another. At the end of the book, however, they have come together and formed a real community. What do you think of this transformation?

Bonus Questions:

1.   Jonathan, Ryan, and Conrad attend the Texas Book Festival, a beloved annual event in Austin, Texas. Have you ever been to a book

festival?

2.   The Den of Calories has the Wall of International Snacks. What is your favorite international snack, if you have one?

3.   What dish do you think Conrad would have brought to Friendsgiving?