
Novels with giant, possibly magical, libraries - whatrocks
https://www.charlieharrington.com/novels-with-libraries
======
hprotagonist
"I'm the disreputable dog. I'm your _friend_ " <3

\- _Discworld_ is an obvious thing here.

\- _Anathem_ has a distributed network of libraries of most knowledge with an
interesting time-limited distirbution scheme.

\- _Snow Crash_ has A Librarian -- and also a hypercard knowledge system.

\- _If On A Winter 's Night, A Traveller_ by Italo Calvino features books and
libraries prominently. They're not exactly magical, but they're not...not
magical, either.

edit: it's not a novel, but the library in the sands in _Avatar_ is another
fine example of this trope.

~~~
whatrocks
Thanks -- I'll be adding all these. Can't believe I forgot the Stephenson
examples. The Calvino book looks great.

And.. the Disreputable Dog. I'll always be her friend, too.

~~~
hprotagonist
[https://www.lrb.co.uk/v03/n17/salman-
rushdie/calvino](https://www.lrb.co.uk/v03/n17/salman-rushdie/calvino)

"I have quoted this line in full because it is the last example on record of a
bad sentence by Italo Calvino."

If you haven't yet, check out the audiobooks of the Abhorsen books. Tim Curry
makes an excellent snarky cat with mysterious powers...

~~~
whatrocks
"instead of making myself write the book I ought to write, the (“neo-
realistic”) novel that was expected of me, I conjured up the book I myself
would have liked to read, the sort by an unknown writer, from another age and
another country, discovered in an attic."

Chills.

------
kabdib
Vernor Vinge's _A Fire Upon the Deep_ has a "dataset", basically an educator
PDA for a child (covered in fake fur, IIRC) that contains a nearly bottomless
amount of information. It's captured and used by an alien race to get a
technological advantage in a local war.

I really like the idea that even a kid's toy would have petabytes or exabytes
of data, just because it was easy for the designers to include it.

~~~
EdwardCoffin
That book also had the archive at Relay, and the archive in the low beyond,
the subset of the archive that the _Out of Band II_ carried.

I think that another of his books in the series, _A Deepness in the Sky_ had a
broadcast library, a set of core information that was repeatedly broadcast
throughout the galaxy, at least that's what I seem to remember.

------
labster
[https://allthetropes.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel#Literatur...](https://allthetropes.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel#Literature)

I was going to list a lot I could think of, but I figured it would be easier
to link here. Not linking to TVT because I started this fork, no ads, and less
censorship.

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pseudolus
Also missed the late, great Terry Pratchett's library of The Unseen University
[0].

[0]
[https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Library](https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Library)

~~~
whatrocks
Somehow I've never picked up any Pratchett books but, after reading this, I'm
in:

    
    
      *The Library has endless shelves (some of which are Mobius shelves)*
    

Which one(s) should I add to the list? And, more importantly, where should I
start reading?

~~~
pseudolus
I would start with "The Colour of Magic" which is the first book and gives an
overview of "Discworld"[0]. After that there are quite a few guides relative
to the preferred order and you'll have to make your own decisions based on
your personal preferences [1].

[0] [https://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/discworld-reading-
order/](https://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/discworld-reading-order/)

[1] [https://www.discworldemporium.com/content/6-discworld-
readin...](https://www.discworldemporium.com/content/6-discworld-reading-
order)

[https://bookriot.com/2018/09/11/discworld-reading-
order/](https://bookriot.com/2018/09/11/discworld-reading-order/)

[https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-to-read-terry-pratchetts-
discwor...](https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-to-read-terry-pratchetts-discworld-
series-in-one-h-1567312812)

~~~
whatrocks
Thanks! I'll pick up "The Colour of Magic" this weekend. I'm now remembering
that I've read "Good Omens" that he did with Neil Gaiman, and I made a note
back then to start exploring Discworld, but never followed through with it.
Time to fix that.

~~~
munk-a
As an alternative, I might suggest starting with "Guards! Guards!" since it's
one of the good plot arc beginnings and actually directly involves the library
and L-Space.

I'm also a bit less fond of "The Colour of Magic" since I think his writing
style was weaker in his first few books and since his characters were not well
established. Both "The Colour of Magic" and "The Light Fanstastic" are very
fun books but not quite at the same quality level as his later ones once he
found his rhythm and built up his world.

~~~
ur-whale
Fully agree.

------
frabbit
The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco) surely? The tantalizing sense of loss as
rare texts are censored and erased for ever, leaving as their only trace
suggestive references and mentions in other works gets me every time.

~~~
jszymborski
Came here to mention this one :)

I particularly love it because so much of the library was forbidden knowledge
guarded by a religious sect... those words almost always mean a good read is
ahead :P

Umberto Eco has said he came up with the idea of the library (and some
spoiler-related things) before coming up with any of the characters or
premise.

------
T-A
He missed Rainbows End [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End)

~~~
whatrocks
Oh, good call! Forgot about that one. I'll add it to the list. I am huge fan
of his Zones of Thought books.

------
shabble
Given the mentions of the word throughout the article, I was entirely
expecting to see _Palimpsest_ by Charlie Stross[1] in there somewhere. It does
feature a very large library, although the plot is more time-travel (and
temporal engineering).

[1] [https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/palimpsest-
intr...](https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/palimpsest-intro.html)

~~~
whatrocks
That sounds almost too perfect - I'll add it to the list (as well as my near-
term reading list).

------
icosa
Genevieve Cogman's _Invisible Library_ series features a library that connects
to multiple parallel worlds, with the portals anchored by books in its
collection that are variants unique to that world. e.g. an original edition of
Grimm's fairy tiles with extra stories. The library is big enough to have an
internal transportation network.

------
phren0logy
Probably Ink and Bone should be on there
[[https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/317174/ink-and-
bone...](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/317174/ink-and-bone-by-
rachel-caine/9780451473134/)]

~~~
whatrocks
I'll add it to the list! I've been on a middle grade / YA tear lately, and
this looks excellent.

------
megaman8
Thanks for the list but you forgot one of the best series of all times that
contains many libraries: A Series of Unfortunate events. I'm slightly ashamed
to say I saw it on netflix, rather than reading the books. But, i hear the
books are great too.

------
rotexo
Borges gets extra points for having infinitely long books in his magical
libraries. If you ever flip from a page, you will effectively never see that
page again.

------
aardvark179
The library in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun has always stuck with me.

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EdwardCoffin
Greg Bear's _The Way_ books have a fairly wondrous library which is central to
the plot of the first book

Larry Niven's _Protector_ also has a huge library that played a key role in
that book

------
rland
Topical is _The Book of Sand_ by Jorge Luis Borges. After all, the distinction
between a whole library and a single book is rendered meaningless once
infinity gets involved!

------
dragontamer
I don't read much. But movies and TV shows (and Anime) have tons of mysterious
libraries.

* Terry Pratchet's Discworld -- `nuff said.

* The Pagemaster (90s film about kid getting trapped inside of adventure books)

* Beauty and the Beast -- The library was the only non-magical part of the enchanted castle, ironically.

* "National Treasure" movie has a few important library scenes

* A Certain Magical Index -- Anime / Light Novel: the female lead "Index" is literally a character who had a library implanted inside of her.

* The Mystic Archives of Dantalian -- Anime / Light Novel: Another one where the female lead is a library of sorts. She's more bookwormish than Index, and actually hangs out at a normal Library most of the time.

* Read or Die -- Another anime with library / paper themed superpowers

* Harry Potter -- So many shenanigans happen in the Hogwarts library, I don't even know where to start.

* Full Metal Alchemist -- The librarian was instrumental to the plot. Its mostly an action show, but there was a period where they had to research some stuff at the Alchemist's library.

* The Ancient Magus' Bride -- I wasn't too fond of the show in general, so I haven't seen it all yet. But there was a very memorable magical library episode. Effectively, the magic library was a trap which can only be escaped if the human receives something from inside. The lead character kept returning to the library (her personal life sucked, so she needed an escape), while the Librarian would continuously give her something so that she could escape each time. When the Librarian ran out of things to give her, he rips up the magical library card (hoping she never returns again). Unfortunately, the lead character is adept in magic and finds her way back even without the library card, to a disastrous consequence.

* The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- A classic, is it not? I guess its a single book that they're working with, but the singular book is magic-space tech that has all the information you could ever need. So its basically a library.

* Ender's Game -- Honorable Mention. Ender's video game with the giant that he plays by himself effectively functions as a library. Its where Ender has self-reflection, and where the malevolent forces push Ender towards one direction of his psyche. Its as much of a "Library" as the "Pagemaster" was IMO.

\--------

EDIT: Apparently 'The Pagemaster' is a book in of itself, and is listed in the
article. I didn't know that. Harry Potter was also on their list.

~~~
whatrocks
Speaking hyperbolically, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood might be the best
content across any medium that I've consumed in years. Speaking _somewhat_
less so -- if you're thinking about trying out anime, start here, it's amazing
and hilarious with great characters and an intense storyline.

~~~
dragontamer
Its hard to beat Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood in general. Its kinda got
something for everyone in my experience. A huge variety of people I know like
it.

I would argue that there were better anime out there, but they are difficult
to get through and may require a good understanding of "anime culture". Ex:
When they Cry, or Madoka Magica I would argue are superior.

When they Cry requires a general understanding of visual-novel harem style
stories, while Madoka Magica requires a strong understanding of the typical
Magical Girl plotline (Sailor Moon, Cardcaptors, Lyrical Girl Nanoha are
pretty much required watching BEFORE you watch Madoka Magica)

\-----------

In contrast: FMA: Brotherhood is self-sufficient. You can enter the show
without knowing anything about anime and enjoy it. The only "risk" I have with
the show is the chibi-styles / super-cartoony that they push randomly.

Its otherwise a very serious plot, with some quite dramatic moments. So a lot
of people feel it to be bipolar since it also uses "cartoon physics" on
occasion.

------
sourcesmith
The Final Encyclopedia?

