Ex Libris: Stories of Librarians, Libraries & Lore ed by Paula Guran

Trade paperback format.

Portals to all the knowledge in the world, libraries are also created universes of a multitude of imaginations. Librarians guide us to enlightenment as well as serving as the captains, mages, and gatekeepers who open the doors to delight, speculation, wonder, and terror. This captivating compilation of science fiction and fantasy short fiction showcases stories of librarians—mysterious curators, heroic bibliognosts, arcane archivists, catalogers of very special collections—and libraries—repositories of arcane wisdom, storehouses of signals from other galaxies, bastions of culture, the last outposts of civilization in a post-apocalyptic world…

Contents

• Paula Guran • Introduction: Ad Librum
• Ellen Klages • In the House of the Seven Librarians
• Kage Baker • The Books
• Esther M. Friesner • Death and the Librarian
• Elizabeth Bear • In Libres
• Richard Bowes • The King of the Big Night Hours
• Ruthanna Emrys • Those Who Watch
• Norman Partridge • Special Collections
• Ray Bradbury • Exchange
• Holly Black • Paper Cuts Scissors
• Ken Liu • Summer Reading
• Kelly Link • Magic for Beginners
• Sarah Monette • The Inheritance of Barnabas Wilcox
• Kristine Kathryn Rusch • The Midbury Lake Incident
• A.C. Wise • With Tales in Their Teeth, from the Mountain They Came
• Tansy Raynor Roberts • What Books Survive
• E. Saxey • The Librarian’s Dilemma
• Amal El-Mohtar • The Green Book
• Scott Lynch • In the Stacks
• Robert Reed • A Woman’s Best Friend
• Xia Jia • If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler
• Gregory Benford • The Sigma Structure Symphony
• Jack McDevitt • The Fort Moxie Branch
• Edoardo Albert • The Last Librarian