The Librarian of Burned Books: A Novel

Each of the three storylines takes place in a different city. How are these settings depicted? What roles do time and place play in each of these narratives?

What role does the act of storytelling play outside of books? Consider Viv’s mission to tell a good enough story to potential voters, and Althea’s wish to see herself as the hero of her own life story. What is the significance of these various storytelling forms?

German officials ban and burn books that they consider “dangerous” because they don’t fit with their ideology. How does the novel depict censorship and its relationship to political violence and control?

The novel explores the tensions between cynicism and altruism. How and why do these two forces come into conflict in the lives of the characters? In what ways do the characters learn to (or fail to) navigate between these two modes of thinking and being?

Several characters pose and consider the question of their favorite book, with varying degrees of honesty. What does each character’s private connection to her/his favorite books reveal about her/him? How does a character’s attitude towards literature shape their characterization more generally?

Consider the novel’s narrative structure, with its three different plot lines occurring at different time periods. What roles do time, memory, and the past play in the novel? How does the novel’s structure illuminate some of the text’s key themes and ideas?

Much of the novel focuses on the good (or ignorance) of the individual versus their responsibility to the greater good. How do the main characters act in service to the world, and how do they act in service to themselves? How do various characters learn to reconcile the conflict between their private desires and communal duties?

Viv considers the way being “in love” is socially championed as greater than simply “love.” What forms of love and relationships appear in the novel? What do these various forms reveal about the complexities of love and human connection?