Published by Ecco on July 4, 2023

Sometimes I finish a book and think, “I’m glad I read that.” On multiple occasions while reading The Librarianist, I thought, “I’m glad I’m reading this.” I didn’t need to wait for the end to know I was having a good time.

The Librarianist takes the reader on a journey through Bob Comet’s small and unremarkable life. Except that no life is unremarkable, even one as ordinary and seemingly uneventful as Bob’s. There’s always something that sets us apart from each other. That, I think, is the novel’s point. But the book also reminds us that “part of aging, at least for many of us, was to see how misshapen and imperfect our stories had to be. The passage of time bends us, it folds us up, and eventually, it tucks us right into the ground.” Only as we near the end of our time do we gain the perspective to appreciate the unique strangeness of the life we lived.

Bob begins the novel in 2006 as a librarian in Portland. He’s happy living a life in which he is surrounded by books that substitute for friends. He’s never done well with friends. His only adult friend ran off with his wife. Maybe his life hasn’t been so uneventful after all.

When Patrick DeWitt takes us a few decades into Bob’s past, we learn that Bob’s friend Ethan lived across the street from the library. Ethan was charming and handsome and a bit of a rogue. He met Bob when he ducked into the library to avoid someone lurking in his apartment who wanted to do him harm.

Bob also met Connie in the library when the head librarian banished her father from the premises. Connie was direct where Bob was shy. Connie was funny where Bob was reserved. Connie and Ethan met on the bus when they were both coming to see Bob. Bob loved them both but, for obvious reasons, regretted that his life brought them together.

So now Bob has the library and not much else. One day, Bob encounters a woman who is staring into space and helps her back to the senior center from which she has wandered. This leads Bob to a stint as a senior volunteer, although what Bob has to offer is unclear. The residents don’t seem interested in his lectures on Russian literature. Still, he becomes a fixture; his silent presence adds something of value. The volunteer work eventually connects Bob with his past in a surprising way.

When DeWitt takes another detour into Bob’s backstory, we learn that Bob’s past was more adventurous than his present might suggest. In 1945, Bob ran away from home. He latched onto two women while hiding in their train compartment. Ida and June were traveling thespians who performed for ever smaller crowds. Their dancing dogs were likely the highlight of their shows. They decided that Bob could be their drummer until something better came along.

Ida and June are quirky and given to witty observations, the kind of characters who are perfect for an offbeat comedy. If only people spoke in the formalities and circularities of Ida and June (neither pays much attention to what the other says about anything, except to disagree), the world would be a more entertaining place.

Bob ended up in a town that is the epicenter of a riot, but people in the town don’t take much of anything seriously, including the rioters. The townspeople all tend to be philosophical, including a sheriff who responds to the observation “everyone goes his own way in this world” with “you’ve got yourself a morbid point of view.” Few perspectives that Bob encounters are morbid; people generally seem happy to be part of the town’s life, even when that life doesn’t make much sense.

Most of the novel’s characters are happy enough, although sometimes in a melancholy way. Bob and Connie have thought about each other over the years, but life moves on. That too is the point of the story. We wonder about the things that did and did not happen in our lives, but the life we lived is the one we need to appreciate.

Every bit of this gentle story is delightful and surprising. Most of the novel maintains a tone of low-key amusement, but every now and then the subdued humor gives way to belly laughter. DeWitt reminds us that thriller heroes and dramatic moments don’t dominate the real world, even if they dominate fiction. Viewed properly, the small moments are just as satisfying.

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Patrick deWitt's the Librarianist is a delightful journey through one man's year as a retiree, with detours through his brief marriage as a much younger man and even earlier, as a youthful runaway.

Bob Comet is a thinker, an introvert, nothing showy or outrageous at all. We see what makes him tick, and how his love of reading imbues his outlook on life. He's been let down, terribly, by people in his life, only to find friendship and closure with the inhabitants of a local senior residential center.

What happens after you've been betrayed? How do you go on living? Are you able to adapt or not. Bob is charming in his own way.

The Librarianist
Publish Date: July 4, 2023
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I love character driven stories and quirky characters. Bob Comet did not disappoint. He was unique, and I enjoyed his perspectives and situations. I would have rated this five stars, however, the sub-story with June and Ida dragged a bit and I’m still not sure how it drove the overall story forward. It could’ve been left out or maybe even the beginning of a separate book. It just didn’t fit. But other than that, it was a fun read, and I’m glad I got to spend some time in Bob’s world.

At seventy-one years of age Bob Comet has settled into a contented retirement after a long career as a librarian. He had no friends, per se, and communicated with the world mainly by reading about it. On a walk one day he enters a 7-Eleven to get a cup of coffee to warm his hands and encounters a friendly but distracted woman in a pink tracksuit. As she exits the store he decides to follow her and ultimately escorts the woman, Chip, back to the Gambell-Reed Senior Center. As Bob enters the Center he is unknowingly opening a door that will change his future and allow him to reconcile his past in unexpected ways.

The Librarianist is filled with the most colorful and quirky cast of characters. It is easy to fall in love with Bob and all of the people he meets. I loved the characters deWitt created—they were real people but also unique and flawed. I ended up feeling a great deal of affection for Bob (as most of the book’s characters did) and the people that deWitt put in his path and surrounded him with.

This book is full of humor. There were times when I laughed out loud and admittedly times when I knew something was meant to be funny that wasn’t hitting me as strongly as I think it was intended. I often wondered if this book would be more enjoyable on audio with the right narrator (and maybe even a laugh track).

The Librarianist feels like two separate stories in one—Bob’s post retirement life bookending a four-day adventure Bob takes as a runaway at age eleven. Of course these follow the same character so they are very interconnected and these four days were some of the most important in Bob’s young life. They still feel very separate and at times I wondered if the runaway tale was imagined or part of a book Bob read since he lived so much in books. Maybe it was? It did feel a little long and I’m not sure I felt it added significant value to the other parts of the book. But I did enjoy it on its own.

I really loved this book's focus on a character in the post-retirement phase of life and the transition from living independently to group living. It doesn’t seem like a focus I see often in novels. I also loved that it wasn’t angsty and I felt Bob found peace with his life without having to fight something or experience major epiphanies. It was a quiet transition befitting of our main character.

One of the disappointments for me was in the setting. Because the blurb mentions it takes place in Portland, Oregon in the first sentence I thought the city/setting would figure more prominently in this book. I love reading books set in places that I have a connection and familiarity with. This book really could have been set anywhere and you really didn’t get a sense that this was in Portland.

All in all I really enjoyed this book.

Thank you Ecco Books and Netgalley for providing me with an electronic copy of this book.

Not sure what to say, other than I did not find the storyline to be particularly gripping nor any of the characters to be of much interest. If it’s hadn’t been a relatively quick read, I probably would have dnf’d it fairly quickly. Each moment throughout the book I was left wondering what the point was of its inclusion. The way the novel is broken up adds to this sense of a lack of cohesion. To the book’s credit, there were some funny quips and scenes, and some characters briefly added sparkle to the story. Overall, though, I can’t say I enjoyed the experience, and don’t think this book achieved what the author was hoping to achieve.

With The Libriarianist, Patrick deWitt has once again presented his unique take on the world via prose that is so beautiful, witty and wise. Beginning with the ironic name of his central character. Bill Comet, a lifelong introvert and resident of Portland Oregon, who has the good fortune of landing his job at the library early on and "...felt uncomplicated love for such things as paper, and pencils, and pencils writing on paper, and erasers and scissors and staples, paper clips the scent of books, and the words on the pages of books." Anyone would be glad to have discovered their life's cubbyhole, but Bill doesn't recognize that fact immediately. This story of his life is told in segments, each is in its own way, a gem. In his mind, "It was clear he suffered both from poor luck and authentic stupidity." To the reader, though, he is anything but unlucky, far from stupid. We meet him near the end of his life when the aging process is in full swing and learn of the events in his life that shaped his character. Such accurate observations so beautifully presented. I could list at least a dozen more, but each reader should find their own favorites on their own. Highly recommended.

I loved this book so much, and it is not just because Bob was a librarian (or librarianist). The details selected to tell Bob’s story are so well crafted, the reader begins to care deeply for this unique individual. The author has a clear understanding that sometimes less is more, and he doesn’t feel the need to pile on events and explanations like too much lace on a wedding gown.
The sections of the book take place in different years. They are out of order, but each fills in important aspects of Bob’s life and character. The era dating from 1945 was rather tiresome, but it was followed by the positively best ending. I felt I had been along on a life long path of growing self-awareness with Bob, and, although it was not yet complete, the journey was deeply satisfying. I can confidently give the whole story 5 stars.

This was a slow but beautiful read. I love to read stories of ordinary lives, and this is one of them. Beautifully written. I will remember this one.

I read The Librarianist with an advanced readers copy from Netgalley.com. The book tells the story of a retired librarian who volunteers at a senior living center. In many ways I felt the protagonist shared traits with Frederik Backman's "Ove." In this instance, the protagonist, Bob Comet is a bibliophile who other than a short marriage in which his wife ran off with his best friend, has lived a solitary life. The novel tells a story of Bob's experiences at the senior center, then flashbacks to his young adulthood and marriage and its unraveling. At one point the book flashes back in an extended sequence to when Bob was eleven and ran away from home. This section of the book was both interesting to read, and yet also confusing in it wasn't really clear how it fit or why it was necessary for the ultimate resolution of the story.

All this said, the book was well written and enjoyable to read.

The Librarianist could have been a treacly, sentimental fable about the wisdom of age, found family, and altruism; but deWitt offers instead a story that retains its sweetness without being cloying. The novel is structured as a deep character study with events in the protagonist’s life revealed within two timelines. Bob Comet numbly follows his routines and seeks only modest comforts, content to immerse himself only in the company of books. On one of his regular trips to the store, he sees a confused woman in a catatonic state near the freezer section. Despite Bob’s introverted nature, the retired librarian feels compelled to help the woman, returning her to her proper home. From this one small act, the novel illustrates how Bob rediscovers the latent yearning for connection and adventure from his youth. The reader becomes intimately acquainted with the septuagenarian, learning about some of his formative relationships and adventures, providing a deeper understanding of the man’s true nature. DeWitt treats his elderly cast with respect and humor: although he does occasionally resort to familiar stereotypes, especially with some of the book’s side characters. Charming, witty, and well-balanced: the Librarianist is a balm for modern cynicism. Bob is richly rewarded for the daring disruption of his insular and well-worn path, and with this skillful depiction, the reader is as well.

Thanks to the author, Ecco/Harper Collins and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

Loved this so much! I can’t wait to read more by this author! I hope they continue to keep making more and more books like this one.

Bob Comet is a 71-year-old retired librarian. One day he comes across a non-verbal woman in a convenience store. When he reads the tag around her neck he guides her back to the Gambell-Reed Senior Center, from which she has run away.


Bob tours the Senior Center and thinks he would like to volunteer there. First he tries reading to the residents but they don’t seem interested:


“He understood that he was going to work his way towards visibility, to earn the right to be seen by these people, which he believed was fair, and correct.”


Bob tries again taking a more philosophical approach in a lecture about literacy:


“‘Why read at all?….There is an element of escape…but also we read as a way to come to grips with the randomness of of our being alive. To read a book by an observant, sympathetic mind is to see the human landscape in all its odd detail, and the reader says to him or herself, Yes that’s how it is, only I didn’t know it to describe it.’”


Bob gives up the reading idea and becomes instead a friendly and stable helper at the center.


Through a series of flashbacks we learn that Bob had a difficult childhood. Once he ran away from home and for 4 days had an exciting adventure with two women performers who took him in as part of their act.


In another series of flashbacks we learn that Bob had once been married, but that his wife Connie had run away with his best friend, Ethan, who was more dynamic than he was.


“There had been whole eras of Bob’s working life where he knew a lamentation at the smallness of his existence.”


Bob makes a disturbing discovery about one of the residents at the Senior Center that causes him to stop volunteering for awhile. When he meets the resident’s son, it leads to a sense of outrage and finally a sense of closure for Bob.

“Was it not too late in the game to make a change to one’s own personality? To suddenly begin action in a new way?”

The Librarianist was written by Patrick deWitt, a Canadian author known for his black comedy style in his previous titles French Exit and Sisters Brothers. In The Librarianist, deWitt explores what it is to be an introvert, with empathy and humor. Full review at RipeReads.net - book by and about adults 50+

Hardcover 354 pages, Audiobook 10 Hours

I must admit, having high expectations from French Exit, I was disappointed by this one. Usually I appreciate an out of order timeline, however with this one the 1945 section of the novel completely derailed and ruined the narrative for me. This section was mildly important for developing Bob as a character however, given how interwoven the other sections were I believe this one could have been completely removed or at least used to start the novel.

Loved Bob, loved the character study. So charming. I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time.

A sweet and satisfying story based on a premise we’ve seen many times before.

I didn’t mind this but prefer deWitt’s previous work, which was equally well written but also much more original and thought provoking.

This feels a bit tropey and follows the trend of feel good reads about an older person finding new purpose late in life. As a theme this is fine and if you particularly enjoy this type of narrative you’ll certainly like deWitt’s version, which reads well and employs some clever notes.

As themes go this one doesn’t do much for me though, and while I didn’t mind reading it, I felt it lacked originality. The humor isn’t as good as it is in some of deWitt’s other novels, and his spin on the subject isn’t anything new.

In all, a perfectly fine light read, though I would recommend French Exit instead for those who would like to experience deWitt at his best.

A character study, or rather a study of several characters. At the center, Bob Comet, 71, a retired librarian in Portland, Oregon, who spends his days reading, cleaning, taking long walks. He is a man alone, a long-ago ex-wife, he never remarried, has no children, has had no close friend since those long-ago days when another young man named Ethan made Bob his friend, but Bob, despite his solitude, is self-sufficient, and seemingly never lonely. One day, on his long walk, he enters a convenience store and helps a catatonic woman in front of a drinks display case back to where she lives, a nearby retirement center, and ends up volunteering. Despite Bob being a librarian and loving books, books aren't at the center of this novel. Indeed, when Bob offers to volunteer by reading stories or bits of novels to the residents of the center, they are not interested at all. It is when Bob learns the identity of the woman he returned to the care home that the story shifts back in time - Bob as a young man, and then further back again, to Bob at eleven. Characters abound, at the care center, when Bob is a young man and Ethan makes him his friend, when Bob falls in love with Connie and marries her, when Bob, at 11, runs away from home where he lives with his single mother and has an adventure with two elderly traveling actresses. A quiet tale, and while Bob's lamentation for his life is not the focus of it, it is there, wended into the fable. For me, though, the notion that Bob is an old man at the age of 71 didn't feel right. 71 these days is not old at all.

Thanks to Ecco and Netgalley for an ARC.

Sadly, I didn't enjoy this book. It started out really interesting with an older man volunteering at an adult daycare facility. Then there were flashbacks to his early adult years and the bulk of the book was spent in the past. I just couldn't get into it and never grew to care about the characters.

A heartwarming story about Bob Comet, a retired/divorced librarian who starts volunteering at a small nursing home and because of a fall ends up living there. There’s a lot more to this story which is like reading a Mitch Album book. I really enjoyed it.

This book felt like a love letter to librarians and introverts. For those that prefer the company of a good book to party. It also recognized that such introverted book people still have relationships and still enjoy other people.

Bob Comet is a simple man who enjoys the basic routine of life and being a librarian. As he gets older and retires he thinks back in his life. He thinks about his ex-wife who left him for his best friend. Bob doesn't replace either of them with new people. He just finds solice in his books.

One quote from the book explained perfectly why people read.

"Why read at all? Why does anyone do it in the first place? Why do I? There is the element of escape, which is real enough—that’s a real-enough comfort. But also we read as a way to come to grips with the randomness of our being alive. To read a book by an observant, sympathetic mind is to see the human landscape in all its odd detail, and the reader says to him or herself, Yes, that’s how it is, only I didn’t know it to describe it. There’s a fraternity achieved, then: we are not alone."

It's a quick read. We see different periods of Bob's life, his present, parts of his childhood, and his early adulthood. The connection between the childhood and the rest of the book doesn't really work for me, but I thought of those chapters as a nice vignette.

In the childhood chapters a character explains that a vignette is "a story that’s too small to be called a story, so you call it a vignette. By pretending you’ve made it small on purpose, you avoid the shame that accompanies culpability.”

Overall I enjoyed this more than French Exit and will likely keep a copy for my book themed airbnb. A good book for book peoole.

Any true bibliophile can't resist a book about books, and should run to The Librarianist. Bob Comet is maybe my favorite character I have read all year. He's a quiet man and this a quiet book that spoke right to my soul. Bring some Kleenex!