Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for an advanced copy of The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.

Unfortunately this book wasn't for me. I had a really hard time getting into it. The beginning is very slow and the timeline jumps around so I was confused what was happening.

Eva Jurczyk’s The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections brings Liesl Weiss back from a recently started sabbatical to fill in for the collection’s director, Christopher ___, who lies unconscious in the hospital following a stroke. An older woman looking forward to retirement and largely invisible throughout most of her career, Liesel quickly finds herself over her head. The large Toronto university has recently spend a half-million dollars from donors to purchase a rare six-volume Plantin Polyglot Bible, believed to have been secured in Christopher’s office safe pending insurance. Donors are demanding to see what their money has bought, and only the unconscious Christopher has the combination, or so Liesel thinks.

When Christopher’s wife shows up with the combination, Liesl’s relief is short-lived. The safe is empty! What has happened to $500,000 rare books? Were the volumes accidently shelved? Did someone steal them? Why does Miriam, another of the librarians, fail to show up for work?

Liesl wants to notify the police but is ordered not to do so. As occasional brief flashback chapters fill in background information about other employees, readers see the number of suspects widen. Another rare book is discovered to be missing. Page after page, what would once have been her dream job goes from bad to worse.

Publisher’s Weekly labels The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections “an unflinching appraisal of the personal and professional effects of a woman's aging into invisibility." "Filled with characters that resonate, glimpses into the reality of libraries and academia, and enchanting descriptions of rare books,” the Library Journal comments, “this debut from a librarian will captivate bibliophiles."
Whether you enjoy women’s fiction, books about books and those who love them, or an entertaining mystery, add Jurczyk’s debut novel to your 2022 reading list.

Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for an advance reader copy.

More of a romance than I expected

Not the literary journey I had hoped for.
I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

As a librarian I was intrigued by this title! It proved to be an interesting read as I hve never worked with rare books, however as I do not usually read mysteries I was somewhat disappointed to discover it was a mystery. I do think it was an enjoyable read and will be especially enjoyed by mystery lovers

Within the setting of a university library, you'd imagine things to be quite dull. In this tale of suspicious relationships and misunderstood coworkers, a valuable manuscript gone missing is maybe more pressure and mystery than this library can handle.

4.5/5⭐️

I enjoyed this one more than I thought I would, but it was not what I expected (based on the somewhat whimsical cover).

When the head of the library department at a large university in Toronto is rendered comatose by a stroke, his assistant Leisl (on sabbatical) is called in as interim. Things go bad from day one, and she must wade through her coworkers secrets/motives to determine if one of them is a thief when a priceless artifact goes missing.

This is not your typical mystery, and if you’re looking for lots of action, that’s not what this is about. This delves into some major issues such as sex discrimination, elitism, mental health discrimination, abuse of power, etc. The author blends a mystery filled with flawed coworkers/suspects with a treatise on the day-to-day abuses that are sadly a part of our society. And while Liesl is our heroine here, she is also not without her own demons.

My only disappointment was the somewhat anti-climax denouement. It almost felt like an afterthought rather than a pivotal moment.

Very well written and more in-depth than I expected, it leaves a lot to ponder in its wake.

My sincere thanks to #NetGalley , #PoisonedPenPress and the author for providing me the free early arc of #TheDepartmentOfRareBooksAndSpecialCollections for review. The opinions are strictly my own.

"'The missing book', Liesl said. 'I was here half the night looking, and it seems like it's my responsibility but not my choice how I want to handle it.'"

Present day Toronto University and Liesl Weiss is dragged from retirement to become Acting Director of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Its long-time Director, Liesl's former boss, Christopher Wolfe, is in hospital with a stroke. The library has taken delivery of a rare and valuable Plantin Polyglot Bible, its volumes stored in the library safe. Under pressure from the university's smarmy president, Lawrence Garner, whose sole focus is keeping doners happy, she obtains the code from Christopher's wife. When she and a colleague open the safe, it's empty. Has the Plantin been mis-filed, lost, or stolen? Liesl is determined to find out, both aided and hindered by colleagues Miriam, Francis and Max, along with her depressive artist and loving husband, John and sparky grown-up daughter, Hannah. Who has more secrets, the library's collection or its staff?

I felt immersed in this tale of literature, religious texts and, more prominently, secrets. Liesl is easy to get behind, much put-upon by all around her (particularly men), determined but invisible, unable to hear herself think for others' opinions. Present day narratives from Liesl are interspersed with brief sojourns to the past from her colleagues, providing context and potential suspects. A whodunit, it's also a why and how should Liesl handle this situation? Her relationships are difficult, and some tragic situations are handled with care, whilst the library setting and its complicated staff take centre stage. This is an engrossing debut, perfect for mystery-loving bookworms!

"Liesl had been deafened by the chorus of voices in her head for so long...the voices finally went quiet enough for Liesl to hear her own thoughts, to decide what she wanted."

I don't really know what I was expecting with this book and I'm still not 100% sure whether I really liked it or not. That's why I'm giving it 3 stars. What I'm battling with the most is that I didn't fall in love with any of the characters. I really only finished the book because I had invested too much time not to know what happened. By the end I didn't particularly care one way or the other.

I received a free publisher's review copy, via Netgalley.

The plot in this book reminds me of a film noir movie. Liesl Weiss, a librarian who deals with rare and valuable books at a university library, is planning for her retirement so that she can finish working on a book about horticulture. While on sabbatical, she's called back to work because her boss, Christopher has had a stroke and she needs to fill in temporarily until his return.

Upon her return to work, she discovers that not only was Christopher terrible at paperwork, but a newly purchased rare Bible has disappeared along with a librarian she's worked with for many years. Accusations begin to fly and Liesel needs to find the missing Bible, placate the donors and find the missing librarian at the same time.

The supporting characters are well developed and realistic. As a former assistant librarian, I also enjoyed reading about the procurement process.

Books x books = a happy reader. The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections by Eva Jurczyk is a cozy read with a dash of mystery.

Liesl Weiss has worked as a librarian at a university for decades. When her boss suffers a stroke, she fills his position for the interim. It’s not long before she discovers that an extremely rare and recent acquisition of a religious text has gone missing. When Liesl decides to notify the police about the disappearance, she cannot wrap her head around why many are against reporting it as a theft.

Do they merely want to save the university’s reputation, or could they be hiding something?

To make matters worse, a fellow librarian also goes missing. Liesl begins to question if the two incidents are related.

This story is told in dual timelines with multiple perspectives, although Liesl’s POV is the main one. It’s hard to say exactly when the book is set, but certain technology mentioned suggests that it is around the nineties. There are lots of references to discmans.

There are discussions on being a woman/woman of colour/gay while working in a field that is mainly dominated by white cisgender men.

It took a little while for me to warm up to this book, but the mystery soon drew me in.

This story will make you want to get all cozy and maybe enjoy a bowl of spicy noodles like Liesl frequently did with her family.

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Presss for an arc provided via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

https://booksandwheels.com/

I'm going to go along with the mixed reviews regarding this book about books. In a heavily saturated area of the book lovers reading go to's this book brought a unique element with a cozy mystery about a missing librarian, IN A LIBRARY! Perfect right? All the makings for something wonderful and I just couldn't connect with the characters and upon finishing I felt fairly neutral. I am positive many people will love this book, for me it was ok.

This book is very well written, but I didn't connect with any of the characters. In fact, I really didn't like any of them. I love books about libraries and academia, and this one delivers on that basis, but it wasn't the book for me.

What happens when something good goes bad and just continues to get worse? This novel. But that's just the plot. The writing itself is fantastic. I love anything to do with libraries and books within a novel and this was just it.

Okay how cute was this book?!!? I loved that the main character was an older female. I immediately fell in love with Lisel in the first chapter. I think we can maybe all relate to her struggles of needing to fill in for her boss. The mystery component of the book was a fun ride.

A wonderful book about someone finding their confidence and place in the world. Highly recommend!

I’ve worked in libraries for twenty-one years, more or less. For a few years, I worked at a public library. Mostly, I’ve been at academic libraries. I know that it’s a rarified world of citation information (sooooo much citation information), looking for copies of things, and thinking up ways to get databases to locate the sources that might help answer research questions. My work world is far from the one inhabited by Leisl Weiss, who has suddenly found herself as the interim director of a special library in Eva Jurczyk’s The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Where my library is highly digital, Leisl’s is still very much much paper, leather, and ink. My work is about connections between students and information. Leisl’s shares some of that, but she always has to keep the conservation of paper in mind where I’m handing out links, printing copies, and yanking books off the shelf to hand to students. Before you, gentle reader geek out too much about Leisl’s access to books that the rest of us can only dream of brushing our fingers across the covers of, this book also reveals a lot of dirty secrets kept by people who only care about money and privilege.

In the wake of the previous director’s stroke, second-in-command Leisl is drafted to take his place. Her first duty is to make sure that the library’s most recent acquisition, a copy of the Plantin Polyglot Bible, is ready to mingle with the donors. When she finally manages to open the safe in the director’s office, Leisl is horrified to discover that the bible’s volumes are missing. Rare books, it turns out, are fantastic MacGuffins: they’re highly portable, wildly valuable, and easy to hide. The Plantin and other valuable books and manuscripts that feature in this book are described in such loving detail that I wanted to drool (metaphorically, of course, because that would be bad for the books). Those descriptions—plus the wonderful portraits of the library staff in this book—were so realistic that I wasn’t at all surprised to find out that the author is an academic librarian.

In fact, this book is so close to reality that it was uncomfortable for me to read at times, when Leisl and the staff sniped at each other or made nice with ignorant donors or sparred with the university president. So while the rare books got the plot moving, The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections was a lot more about people than it was about the books. Leisl ends up wrestling with whether or not to save or destroy reputations, how much sucking up she can handle without killing her soul, and which half of the work-life balance matters more in the long run.

This is one of the most accurate books I’ve read about library life I’ve ever read. And, after reading it, I realize that I want to stay far away from upper management so that I focus on doing the work of the library without having to deal with donors and or employee conflict or even upper management.

Didn't completely hate this book, but definitely didn't like it very much. I considered just giving up on it several times, but was too stubborn to not finish.

Most of the characters were pretty awful. The interactions amongst coworkers usually felt at least a little off/wrong. There were many instances of rambling on and on for unnecessary bits, and also pretty important details were glossed over and barely given a complete sentence.

Another big hang-up for me was the inconsistency with character roles/titles vs what they actually did within the library (for example, a page who happens to catalog), though perhaps a rare books library at a university is run very, very differently than a mid-sized public library?

I was unable to finish this and thus will not be posting a full review. I was bored even from the inception of this book and I expected to like it a lot. Not sure if this was translated but the writing was stodgy and the characters unbelievable.

Honestly, while I do love mysteries involving books or libraries, I mainly was drawn to this one because it deals with rare books specifically. As someone who is married to a rare book dealer, I thought it would be fun to be in his “world” for a while. And it was fun – at times. Reading about the characters’ reactions to these rare books used in the story was very reminiscent of my husband’s reactions in his own work, which I found charming, but, as a non-rare book dealer myself, there still was quite a bit of the vernacular that would only be suited to a small number of people. If you are someone with no interest in rare books or the inner workings of a university library, then parts of this story might feel like a slog to you.

Overall, the mystery itself was enough to keep me guessing throughout despite the uneven pacing. There were a couple of times when I thought I had it figured out only to have the next chapter, or in some case paragraph, change everything and leave me at square one. It would make for a nice weekend read when it’s a bit grey outside and you’re in the mood for something a bit more somber, but still want the challenge of a good mystery.

I love books about books and was immediately interested in the description of a library mystery! I was also excited that the main character is a woman nearing retirement.

I really enjoyed the story and the way the author took readers behind the scenes in an academic library! It will be a great book to recommend to readers who enjoy mysteries or are also bibliophiles.

A mystery novel involving librarians? Say no more, I’m all in. But let’s dangle a missing, rare manuscript, and a missing librarian.

“Liesl tries to sound the alarm and inform the police about the missing priceless book, but is told repeatedly to keep quiet, to keep the doors open and the donors happy. But then a librarian unexpectedly stops showing up to work. Liesl must investigate both disappearances, unspooling her colleagues' pasts like the threads of a rare book binding as it becomes clear that someone in the department must be responsible for the theft. What Liesl discovers about the dusty manuscripts she has worked among for so long—and about the people who care for and revere them—shakes the very foundation on which she has built her life.”

I loved this, and it will definitely keep the reader guessing who the culprit is. A four star ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read that will delight anyone that loves mysteries and libraries.

**Many thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are my own.**