#369 Bookmobile fiction

I've been reading novels about bookmobiles lately. Who knew? First, I read The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton. An American librarian wants to bring literacy to remote Africa by delivering books to villages on the back of a camel. Though this story is fiction, the book mentions the very real organization the African Library Project and encourages donations for small libraries throughout Africa.

Then I read The Book Stops Here by Ian Sansom, the 3rd in the Mobile Library Series. This is the story of Israel Armstrong, the disappointed mobile librarian who finds himself serving rural northern Ireland. Though this is my least favorite of the series, I did appreciate this paragraph: “Librarians possess a kind of occult power, an aura. They could silence people with just a glance. At least they did in Israel’s fantasies. In Israel’s fantasies, librarians were mild-mannered superheroes, with extrasensory perceptions and shape-shifting capacities and a highly developed sense of responsibility who demanded respect from everyone they met.”

Yours in enjoying the "Bookmobiles-fiction" subject heading,
Mary