The Library Audiobook By Stuart Kells cover art

The Library

A Catalogue of Wonders

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Library

By: Stuart Kells
Narrated by: James Buckingham
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $16.35

Buy for $16.35

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

Libraries are much more than mere collections of volumes. The best are magical, fabled places whose fame has become part of the cultural wealth they are designed to preserve. Some still exist today; some are lost, like those of Herculaneum and Alexandria; some have been sold or dispersed; and some never existed, such as those libraries imagined by J. R. R. Tolkien, Umberto Eco and Jorge Luis Borges, among others.

Ancient libraries, grand baroque libraries, scientific libraries, memorial libraries, personal libraries, clandestine libraries: Stuart Kells tells the stories of their creators, their prizes, their secrets and their fate. To research this book, Kells traveled around the world with his young family like modern-day 'Library Tourists'. Kells discovered that all the world's libraries are connected in beautiful and complex ways, that in the history of libraries, fascinating patterns are created and repeated over centuries. More importantly, he learned that stories about libraries are stories about people, containing every possible human drama.

The Library is a fascinating and engaging exploration of libraries as places of beauty and wonder. It's a celebration of books as objects, a celebration of the anthropology and physicality of books and bookish space and an account of the human side of these hallowed spaces by a leading and passionate bibliophile.

©2018 Stuart Kells (P)2018 Audible, Ltd
Library & Museum Studies Words, Language & Grammar
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

"If you think you know what a library is, this marvellously idiosyncratic book will make you think again." (The Sydney Morning Herald)

What listeners say about The Library

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.