Santa Barbara Public Library, 40 East Anapamu St., groundbreaking for Faulkner Memorial Art Gallery, September 26, 1929. Myron Hunt (standing), seated (left to right); Mary Corning Winslow Black, Frances Linn, Mrs. Mary Faulkner Gould Edson Smith Photo .

Bruce Cable owns a popular bookstore in the sleepy resort town of Santa Rosa on Camino Island in Florida. He makes his real money, though, as a prominent dealer in rare books. Very few people know that he occasionally dabbles in the black market of stolen books and manuscripts. Mercer Mann is a young novelist with a severe case of writer's block who has recently been laid off from her teaching position. She is approached by an elegant, mysterious...

Santa Barbara Free Public Library, 40 E. Anapamu St., corner of Anacapa & Anapamu Sts., Anacapa Street side of building. Edson Smith Photo Collection no. 1174.

"The beautifully ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library is completely silent one weekday morning, until a woman's terrified scream echoes through the room. Security guards immediately appear and instruct everyone inside to stay put until they determine there is no threat. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers who had been sitting in the reading room get to chatting and quickly become friendly. Harriet, Marigold, Whit, and Caine...

When his son is kidnapped, Cotton Malone discovers a link to a conspiracy involving the lost contents of the Library of Alexandria, a priceless treasury of thousands of ancient manuscripts that vanished more than 1,500 years ago.

"The story of Dewey Readmore Books, the beloved library cat, starts in the worst possible way. Only a few weeks old, on the coldest night of the year, he was stuffed into the book return slot at the Spencer, Iowa, Public Library. He was found the next morning by library director, Vicki Myron, a single mother who had survived the loss of her family farm, a breast cancer scare, and an alcoholic husband. Dewey won her heart, and the hearts of the staff,...

"It's 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn't ask for more out of life-her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open. As her studies take her all over the...