I liked the premise of reading a story about a retired librarian when I began reading Patrick deWitt s new novel. As the novel progressed, I tried to find some connection to Bob Comet (a human who is the antithesis of his name) but found it difficult to stay engaged. I didn't find Bob's life experiences as compelling as other readers might. I picked up mostly on the sad aspects of the story. It was an interesting read but a bit too character driven for me.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the book.

The Librarianist is the story of Bob Comet, a retired and lonely librarian. Bob's mundane life takes a turn when he encounters a catatonic woman at the convenience store, and gets her returned to her retirement home, where he soon begins to volunteer. His lonely life turns into community life.

We learn along the way about Bob's marriage to Connie, and his best "friend" Ethan. We learn about his childhood escapades. And then ultimately, we learn the joy of closure, and then newness of life.

I loved reading this book - the dialog was fun and humorous at times, and always compelling. I did get a little bogged down reading about Bob's childhood, and might have edited that portion down substantially. I liked the ending, but I had to contemplate on it's meaning for a bit.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review The Librarianist.

Patrick deWitt's new book is a meditation on life and love. It is a meditation on closure and the true inability for our lives to turn out the way we'd hoped, but rather for us to accept the moments that are open doors. I appreciated the kindness that the author shows his subject and I loved the small snapshots we got of the important, and somehow unimportant, life of Bob Comet. I enjoyed this less than 'French Exit' but appreciated the moments of surrealism and gravity the author brings to his characters.

I enjoyed DeWitt’s The Sisters Brothers, but other offerings I’ve tried haven’t hit as well for me. that’s the case here, after about a quarter of the book, I realized that I just didn’t care at all about the main character here and did not finish this one.

If you liked Stoner, then you'll love deWitt's take on a simple man's life.

Beautiful. Haunting. Lonely.

I'm a die-hard deWitt fan and even I'm impressed with how good this book is. Bob Comet is a character many readers will compare to Stoner. His life is bland and uneventful. He loves books and has always lived in the same house. The most exciting events in his life were, in reality, moments that left him on the sidelines, watching others experience and feel what he longed for. He watched the people he loved fall in love. But not with him.

Outside of the heartbreaking story and the subtlety of Bob as a character, I need to address the structure of this book. It's not like Stoner, where we follow the protagonist from childhood through death. No, this story is told in three distinct parts: starting at the end with Bob enjoying retirement, then Bob's early adult life with his wife and best friend, then the last section (also my favorite) is when Bob is eleven-years-old and runs away from home for four days. By taking these leaps back in time, Bob's life becomes sadder and sadder. We know his ending (or, at least, we think we do), but this pealing of the onion is emotionally brutal. It's like knowing your child will die of cancer in a few years, then having to live through all the moments with that burden hanging over your head. The reader wants a better outcome for Bob so badly, but we know he won't get one. The final section, following Bob as a boy running away from home, retells all the emotional absences from the first two sections in a novel way. The reader gets to relive Bob's pain one more time. This last section also made me feel like a detective, mapping scenes and characters to those later in Bob's life.

Bob is reminiscent of every Dickens' main character: they're the bland vehicle that allows the reader to meet more interesting characters along the way. Every character is more interesting than Bob. But that doesn't make him a bad protagonist. If anything, deWitt spits in the eye of common storytelling advice and shows us a simple man living a simple life where his tragedy is centered on wanting to be there with everyone else, living a full life, but is constantly fighting fate. Bob may be plain, simple, and boring, but his aching pain of loss is transcendent.

I received a copy from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Story: 5 stars
Character Development: 5 stars
Writing: 5 stars

At the beginning of this book, I was encouraged by the very likable main character and the fact that he had been a librarian naturally increased my interest. The incident where he helps a lost resident back to the day center where she belongs is charming, as is his meeting of staff. Some of the residents were a hoot, also. But over time, I felt a bit less interested and a bit dispirited by the heavy background story and the protagonist's lack of energy. But a lot of people enjoy Patrick deWitt's books and I expect this one might be a hit with them.

The book begins with the introduction of a simple man, and through his encounter with the residents and visitors at the Gamble-Reed Senior Center, he reexamines his past and his future. This book meets at the apex of memory and memory loss, and what unfolds is a beautiful story of love, friendship, adventure, and sadness. What Bob finds at Gamble-Reed is the friendships, adventure, and joy that replace his life’s contentment. I loved this book so much.

Thanks to Ecco Press for the advanced copy. I really enjoyed this story about a retired librarian, Bob Comet, whose live revolves around a set of routines now that he is in retirement. After an encounter leads him to a retirement community, he finds a new sense of purpose in this quiet and compassionate book.

This was a quirky, meandering, character-driven tale about the life of Bob Comet, a retired librarian in Portland, Oregon. He lives in his little mint-green house that has been in his family for generations, and enjoys a quiet life of reading and the occasional walk. On one of his walks, Bob encounters an unusual woman in a convenience store that he comes to learn is a ‘runaway’ from a local senior center, where he eventually starts to volunteer and befriends some of the people there. We then start to learn a little more about Bob’s life by jumping back in time to learn about his young adult life and marriage, and finally going back further to recount a story from his childhood before coming back to present-day retired Bob and his journey to find a community and a place that feels like home.

I haven’t read any other works by Patrick deWitt, but I enjoyed his quirky and easy-to-read writing style and I appreciated the humor that was inserted throughout. However despite being easily readable, the book overall felt like a slog to get through at times. I really enjoyed the present-day sections, and I appreciated the backstory of Bob’s young adult life for context and its contribution to how Bob came to grow into the man he is when we first meet him in retirement, but the section that focused on his childhood just felt incredibly slow and without any real purpose. I think I would’ve enjoyed the story more without it.

I’m glad that I took a chance on this book and got introduced to deWitt as an author. I enjoyed it enough that I’m certainly interested in exploring his backlist. Having picked this title to read based almost solely on the title, I do wish it had a little more ‘bookish’ energy to it rather than just a few scenes in a library, but that certainly wasn’t a deal breaker. All in all, it was an enjoyable and unique reading experience, even if it is one that likely won’t stick with me long term. Thank you so much to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book is so good--sweet, heartbreaking, funny, subtle. (Not as laugh out loud funny/witty as French Exit, his last novel, but still funny.) Books never make me cry but I was tearing up as I finished it--the ending is a little sentimental but it was more the cumulative effect of having this book in in my life for a day or two and then being done with it. It starts off a bit slow (honestly a bit boring) and feels like it's going to be a familiar trope: a guy starts volunteering at a retirement center, meets some eccentric people who change his life for the better, and rethinks his life or something. (Kind of like what I imagine A Man Called Ove is about, although I'm basing that only on the trailer for the movie.)

But then it totally changes. It's not a spoiler to say that Bob has been alone for most of his life after his wife left him for his best friend early on in their marriage. After an opening act of Bob getting to know the retirement center, we burrow into his past and learn about his previous marriage and friendship--a really heartbreaking and well-done section; I was intrigued by what would happen even though, of course, we know what will happen; I kind of felt guilty or voyeuristic--and then we burrow deeper into the past after that for another episode that took place when Bob was 11, before returning to the present. It's a deceptively simple structure, really well-constructed. I feel like deWitt is kind of giving you what you want, but withholding just a small percentage of it, so you're never fully satisfied, and you're always a little sad. A really, really affecting, bittersweet book that I know I'll read again.

The book started out with an engaging premises, but unfortunately went downhill fairly quickly. I just did not connect with the characters and found Bob, the protagonist to be rather dull. I did like how the author brought the book to conclusion but getting to the end was a chore.

Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books and small comforts in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon. One morning on his daily walk he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior center that is her home. Hoping to fill the void he’s known since retiring, he begins volunteering at the center. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed.

Behind Bob Comet’s straight-man façade is the story of an unhappy child’s runaway adventure during the last days of the Second World War, of true love won and stolen away, of the purpose and pride found in the librarian’s vocation, and of the pleasures of a life lived to the side of the masses. Bob’s experiences are imbued with melancholy but also a bright, sustained comedy; he has a talent for locating bizarre and outsize players to welcome onto the stage of his life.

With his inimitable verve, skewed humor, and compassion for the outcast, Patrick deWitt has written a wide-ranging and ambitious document of the introvert’s condition. The Librarianist celebrates the extraordinary in the so-called ordinary life, and depicts beautifully the turbulence that sometimes exists beneath a surface of serenity.

I’ve enjoyed Patrick deWitt’s books in the past, particularly The Sisters Brothers, and appreciate that this new book is set in Portland, Oregon (as am I). It’s a rare reading pleasure to come upon familiar and authentic landmarks near one’s home. But this is only one a small aspect of why I found his new novel to be exceptional.

The Librarianist tells the life story of Bob Comet, a librarian, whose focus, we are told, from an early age, has been on books, both reading and sharing. Bob's life unspools in four parts: old-age, young adult, youth and then another dip into old-age. The prose is beautifully simple with a tempo matching the simplicity of the plot. The details are rich but not overbearing, and the phenomenological underpinning gives the reader a constant sense of being in the moment, of being present with Bob.

Throughout the four parts, ever-steady Bob walks, interacts, observes and recalls. The set-up in the first part relates to a long-lost divorced wife. The connection between her and the present (fifty-odd years later) was unexpected and the subsequent tension inherent in this startling revelation had me ready to devour the remainder of the book. The next part shuttles back to Bob’s young adult past and DeWitt unearths for us aspects of the initial revelation, and the connective tissue between past and present accumulates. I remained thoroughly immersed and unmovable from my reading chair, a reading experience of extraordinary quality. The third part, an adventure from Bob Comet’s childhood, however, felt disconnected from the power of this evolving narrative thread, and I was eager to pass through his youth to return to the plot elements and their implications set up so strongly in the first two parts. I was only modestly satisfied in the resolution offered in the final part. I did feel warmth and compassion and an ongoing interest in Bob and his aged reflections, but the enthusiasm I felt in the first two parts never materialized again.

But then, I realized, isn’t this how life actually unfolds?

The story of an individual life doesn’t tie up into a tidy package, not for Bob Comet, or any of us. In reality, the connections between childhood events and adult perspectives and actions are always tenuous, uncertain and unclear. The actions and ponderings of an old man close to the end of life, newly hit by disappointment and regret, will be cloudy, perhaps laced with a hint of dementia. There are few lessons to be learned, no lasting morals in our “real" life stories. Thus, on reflection, I determined the pacing of The Librarianist to be brilliant, insightful and honest, a literary architecture that may contribute to the reading community beginning to wean itself from pervasive and inauthentic resolution-narratives that are of little use in interpreting life, which in the end is the only real job of art.

At least I hope that’s the intent behind The Librarianist.

Highly recommended.

Hm. Speaking as a deWitt fan, I didn’t love this one as much as others. While it opens strong and segues beguilingly into the back history of Bob’s marriage, I was less attracted by the childhood section and the arch characters connected to it. Middle age and elderly Bob intrigued and compelled much more, and the terrain - of mystery at life’s vicissitudes, and empathy at a small life - were constantly appealing.
This author is never dull, but this is not his strongest work.

This book was stale and boring. I didn't like the characters, I hated how disjointed it was, and I gave up right around 70%. I just couldn't force myself to continue.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an ARC of this book by Patrick deWitt.

If books can be called sweet, this is a sweet book. It is the story of an ordinary man, one who might seem calm, competent, and maybe invisible to most of the world. the story begins with him as an older man finding a senior lot in the streets and returning her to the retirement home where she lives. He is so impressed with the place that he volunteers his time to work there. He wants to share stories. He makes some friends and soon learns that the woman he rescued was someone he'd known well in his past.

And the story takes us back to that past. To his becoming a librarian and the small adventures that befall him. He meets a woman and marries her. He makes a best friend. All at the library.

I stumbled a bit at the beginning of the book but soon I was hooked and could not stop reading.. deWitt is impressive with his stories--none of which are similar and yet are delightful and verge on kooky, the good kind of kooky. I really enjoyed this book and recommend it.

The LIbrarianist
by Patrick deWitt
Pub Date: July 4, 2023
Ecco
Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
Being a librarian, I am drawn to books about books and libriarians.
This is the story of Bob Comet, retired librarian who finds himself at loose ends. He starts volunteering at the local senior center and begins to feel part of the community. I enjoyed the segments about the senior center.
I was less interested in the lengthy flashbacks to his childhood days. I highly recommend this book to fans of character-driven narratives.
4 stars

I really enjoyed the latest book from Patrick deWitt, author of one of my favorite books, The Sisters Brothers. The Librarianist tells the story of Bob Comet, a retired librarian living a quiet life in Portland, Oregon. It starts in the present, but goes back in time to when Bob was a young man falling in love and getting married, and a young boy who ran away from home.

Like Bob, this is a quiet book. It's beautifully written, and I savored each carefully-crafted sentence. Bob is surrounded by a variety of unusual characters, which makes his quiet reliability (and hidden depths) really stand out.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this wonderful book!

One of the most enduring books i have ever read. Patrick deWitt has created a wonderful story about a retired librarian Bob Comet who lives alone. Through an event Bob ends up a senior center and it is suggested that he come and volunteer.
Through his volunteering with these seniors we find out about Bob's childhood, youth and adult life.
The book reminds me of A Man Named Ove by Fredrik Backman and is just as enjoyable.
I enjoy the style of writing and the variety of so many strong delightfully colorful characters.
This story is full of humor and wit. This is a happy warm funny book that I highly recommend to someone who just wants a good read.

Thank you NetGalley and Ecco Press for giving me this advanced E-book in exchange for my review consideration. All opinions are completely my own.

The Librarianist was a lot of what I've come to expect from Patrick deWitt - great characters with hilarious quirks, going through life looking at things with a unique bent.

We open with Bob Comet rescuing a woman named Chip who has escaped from a local senior center. He finds her at a convenience store and returns her to the center, where he is overcome with the desire to volunteer. At first Bob turns to his former career as a librarianist to motivate his volunteer work, but after a few poorly attended readings, the center director asks him to just come and visit. Bob, for all that his career fulfilled him, is a deeply lonely man, divorced since his mid-20s to a woman who fell for his best friend, and the center provides valuable human interaction.

Without giving anything away, events at the center during Bob's volunteer work send us back in time, where we learn all about Bob's marriage gone wrong, as well as the time he ran away from home at aged 11.

Eventually everything catches up in the present, so to speak (the present in our novel is 2006). I think the present-day timelines were the most effective - in both past timelines, it took a little while for me to get my bearings and I also felt that young Bob behaved much too similarily to elderly Bob.

All in all, a great Patrick deWitt novel, if that's your thing. Thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for the ARC.