Americanah - by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Adichie's book tells the story of Ifemelu, a Nigerian woman who immigrates to the United States, and then, after becoming a U.S. citizen, returns to Nigeria. As a smart, savvy young woman it should go without saying that Ifemelu is also a library user.

Ifemelu and her boyfriend Obinze first use the library only as a place to meet, but she becomes a more active user after she moves to the United States for college. Obinze (an "Americophile") sends her a reading list of American writers he believes she should read. After already having found The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn "unreadable nonsense" she wasn't expecting to find an author she liked, but

She hungered to understand everything about America...Obinze suggested...American books, novels and histories and biographies. In his first e-mail to her...he gave her a list of books. The Fire Next Time was the first. She stood by the library shelf and skimmed the opening chapter, braced for boredom, but slowly she moved to a couch and sat down and kept reading until three-quarters of the book was gone, then she stopped and took down every James Baldwin title on the shelf. She spent her free hours in the library, so wondrously well lit; the sweep of computers, the large clean, airy reading spaces, the welcoming brightness of it all, seemed like a sinful decadence...in those weeks...she discovered the rows and rows of books with their leathery smell and their promise of pleasures unknown...

Well, who needs a man?

Ifemelu is not the only one in this story who uses the library. There are at at least three other characters who are clearly patrons. One of these is Blaine, a boyfriend in her adult years, who not only uses the library, but also defends a library employee at Yale, where Blaine is a professor of Political Science. Blaine is a friend of Mr. White, a "rheumy-eyed" security guard "with skin so dark it had an undertone of blueberries". When a white employee mistakenly suspects that Mr. White is involved in a drug deal and calls the police Blaine organizes a protest after the university responds to the incident with a statement that it was "a simple mistake that wasn't racial at all".

An especially curious passage to read in the summer of "Permit Patty", "Bar-B-Q Becky" and "Coupon Carl".

I think that perhaps Adichie's last mention of the library in this work is my favorite of all time. Ifemelu applies for a research fellowship at Princeton University. When she reads her acceptance, hands shaking, she discovers that "the pay is good, the requirements easy: she was expected to live in Princeton and use the library and give a public talk at the end of the year." All I could think was that the only thing I could think of that would be even better than having a job as a librarian, would be to to be paid just to use the library.