Fourth Wing - by Rebcca Yarros

 

If you tell people you are making a project of reading books about dragons you WILL be asked if you've read Fourth Wing. There are evidently a lot of people who either love or hate this work. I found myself a bit indifferent about it. But, let's face it, at sixty years of age I'm not exactly its target audience. This is a book for "new adults" and features a group of twenty-somethings at a magical war college (Basgiath) learning how to fly dragons. The classes are deadly. Many die before they even get to their first class. Violet Sorrengail never even wanted to join the elite team of dragon riders. She wanted to be a scribe and train to be a librarian in Basgiath's archives, like her father. Her mother, however, insisted that she risk her life in the Rider's Quadrant. 

Of course, her time studying to be a scribe only makes her more bad-ass, even though she is among the weakest and smallest members of the Rider's Quadrant. She knows not only the value of information, but also where to find it, how to use it to her own advantage, and to understand who gains from telling the stories.

Violet is also discovers that forbidden information is perhaps the most powerful information of all. 

My Librarian is a Beautiful Lesbian Ice Cream Cone and She Tastes Amazing - by Chuck Tingle

My sister sent me an Amazon link to this super-short story. I really had no choice but to purchase the ebook and download it to my Kindle app. In a world where sentient ice cream cones are a thing that don't give anyone pause, we can also easily accept the wonderful metafiction that allows us to believe that the ice cream librarian is reading a book about herself as it is being written.

Certainly not a book for everyone's taste, but definitely a fun read. It also came with a bonus story "Nice Guy Dinosaur Doesn't Pound Me in the Butt Because I'm not Interested and He's Not Actually Nice He's Just Annoying and Creepy and Doesn't Respect My Boundaries When I Tell Him We're Not on a Date".

I have no additional comments about the bonus story. The title pretty much tells all, plus which there are no librarians.

The Princess Trap - by Talia Hibbert

 

A twist on the fake-girlfriend trope, this romance has Ruben, a Danish Prince, convincing Cherry, an English citizen, to pretend to be his fiancée for one year. He offers to pay her an exorbitant sum of money in exchange for this service. The amount is never disclosed to the reader, but it is enough to pay for the expensive medical bills, tuition, and living expenses of Cherry's younger sister who is attending Harvard. Although they arrange a fake engagement, the sex is real, and pretty explicit. The ending is as anyone would expect.

Although Ruben is royalty he prefers living in a small house, rather than his mansion. But of course this is a fairy tale and what kind of fairy tale would Cherry be living in if their were no library in the house? Ruben offers to let her redecorate it, but Cherry apparently doesn't take him up. She does however find a bodice-ripping romance to read there, which she assumes was originally procured by Ruben's grandmother (something Ruben would rather not think about). Of course a woman reading is a rather sexy sight, so when Ruben discovers Cherry in the library reading it doesn't take long for the real bodice ripping to begin, right there amongst the books.

Deceived by the Gargoyles - by Lillian Lark

 

August is Read-a-Romance month. As a genre, I rarely read romances, but when I do they feature a librarian. Lucky for me this list of 10 Romances about Magical Librarian Love from Book Riot appeared on my Facebook feed in late June. I selected Deceived by the Gargoyles because the description indicated it was a polyamory romance, and not having read any such before, I was intrigued.

Grace is a witch who works in a library archive for both magical and non-magical artifacts. Grace's special magic allows her to "read" feelings and emotions via paper (especially books). She is also looking for love.

After some unsatisfactory dates she heads to a matchmaker (Rose) who suggests that Grace consider dating a "non-witch". Grace is open to this and answers that "the type of paranormal shouldn't matter." She is sent on a date to meet Elliott, who appears human (wearing a "glamour") when they meet, but who is actually a gargoyle. Elliott, is gracious and offers to get his car so Grace doesn't have to walk to the nearby restaurant in her "sexy" high-heeled shoes. As sensible-shoe-wearer myself I immediately questioned Grace's choice of footwear. What kind of librarian is she, anyway? In any case, however gracious, Elliott hadn't been completely honest with Rose when asking for a match. While Grace was expecting to be matched with someone single, Elliott, in fact, already had two (2!) other mates (Broderick and Alasdair), both male, and both gargoyles. They all lived together with the rest of their clan in Bramblewick Manor.

After a bit of getting to know each other, some confessions, a lot of sex, and a lot more sex, and the gifting of an entire library in their home to Grace - a la Beauty and the Beast(s) - they all fall in love and live happily ever after.

Broderick appeals to Grace's intellectual curiosity in order to entice her to try some new things with him

You're a librarian who has knowledge sitting before you. I'd think you'd...jump on the opportunity to explore.

Among the gargoyles Grace has the hardest time connecting with Alasdair, who had never been with a woman before. They initially find kinship through reading together. Alasdair suggests that Grace select a book that she would like for him to read to her on her Kindle. Together they discover a special intimacy through this otherwise chaste act. 

Reading together is one of the things that my husband and I have been doing consistently since we started dating 37 years ago. Sometimes we read books, other times magazine or newspaper articles (or Dear Abby). Deliberately making and spending this time together gives us a chance to slow down, and take a break from whatever else is happening. We often laugh together, or chance upon a new topic of conversation.

The crazy four-way sex in this work was more than I'd expected, even knowing that it was a polyamorous romance. Much as I'm all for life-long learning, I won't be reading the rest of the series.

Anne of Manhattan - by Brina Starler

In this reimagined Anne of Green Gables for the twenty-first century, Anne is a graduate student in Manhattan, getting her Masters Degree in Education at the fictitious Redmond College. Diana is her roommate. Anne is a go-getter who somehow manages to work full time at a bookstore, go to school full time, serve as a teaching assistant in a Shakespeare class, and run an after-school program for aspiring middle school writers. And if that isn't enough she can suck a mean dick, too. She also knows how to use the term quid pro quo when oral sex is on the table.

While I appreciate a story of a woman who owns her sexuality, there was much about this one that I just couldn't wrap my head around. The kind of time a person needs to do the amount of work (and play) that Anne does frankly defies the laws of physics. I'm also not sure the author has a firm grasp on what a person needs in order to get an Associate Professorship. Anne manages to score one of these increasingly rare gems of a job after earning her Master's degree. She even has the luxury of turning one job down in order to hold out for the one she really wants. Ummm...no. To begin with one needs a PhD to get that sort of position, and no one turns down such a position simply in hopes of getting the exact job they want.

The library of the Redmond Writers House, located on the ground floor, is one in which we can picture Anne Shirley settling right in

Three original fireplaces had been bricked over decades before, and now contained arrangements of silk flowers or sinuously twisted clay sculptures. Bookcases lined the walls, and although the rooms were small and crowded, with intimate seating arrangements, tall arching windows let in plenty of natural light tinted by multiple verdant green plants spilling out of hanging baskets. The entire library had an airy, bohemian feel to it...  

The library is also a dandy place for Anne and Gil to meet to work on their combined thesis project (again, really, not a thing in academia). As it turns out the "middle ground between their two apartments was technically the school library."

Caveat Lector
This ultimately is a romance novel with a rather trite resolution, so Anne of Green Gables fans should take heed. While the protagonist is still a feisty feminist, there are some hard-to-take romance tropes. 

My husband and I listened to this on Audible during a road trip. 

The SEAL's Rebel Librarian - by Anne Calhoun

 

August is Read-A-Romance Month, and while I don't read many romances, I do find them to be good escape. I also like to be thematic, so each August I do a bit of summer reading in the genre. Earlier this month I read some LGBTQ YA lit, What If It's Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera, which was a sweet story but, sadly, had no librarian. Therefore, I had no choice but find another romance novel to read, one worthy of this blog. And a funny thing happened when I started to Google "romance novels featuring librarians". The autofill completed my search string with "navy seals" before I could type the word "librarian". I laughed wondering why the algorithm would make such a suggestion for me while also thinking that there really is a reading fetish for everyone (and far be it for me to question someone else's choices). But then a really strange thing happened when I finished my search the way I intended. The list of recommendations included a novel featuring both a librarian and a navy SEAL. It seemed the bibliosphere was trying to tell me something, so I downloaded the book and started reading. 

This is a quick read (a novella) which wastes no time getting to the sex. Librarian Erin recognizes that her affair with student/veteran Jack Powell is not sanctioned by the university. "She was in a leadership role at the college, bound by the same rules governing relationships as a professor or administrator." Nevertheless, after initially rejecting his offer of a drink, she throws caution to the wind and invites him to her place (ostensibly for coffee), and then to one of the group study rooms in the library where Jack actually "shushes" Erin and is sure to tell her that they're "gonna have to be quiet". As if she didn't know.

The sex in this one comes early and often, as such just about every possible word choice is used to describe body parts, and articles of clothing. This was unfortunate for me as I really don't find the words "slacks" or "panties" sexy at all, and each was used quite a few times. Final tally: Panties-9; Slacks-6. 

A little better editing would have been in order, especially since the audience was sure to include some anal-retentive librarians. It was unfortunate for me that I noticed the following inconsistency: prior to Jack and Erin's first sexual encounter, when they met by happenstance at the motorcycle dealer where Erin is about to put down a deposit, she is described as wearing a green turtleneck. However, somehow when they got back to her place and undress he's fumbling with the buttons on her blouse. So which is she wearing a turtleneck or a button-down blouse? So distracting.

The most off-putting thing for me though was the use of the word "pussies" to describe those who ride certain models of motorcycles that are not perceived to be as macho as other models. I frankly almost stopped reading when I got to that part. Anyone who is so uncomfortable in his own masculinity that he would resort to this kind of name calling will never find himself between the stacks with this librarian.

Red, White & Royal Blue - by Casey McQuiston

The Buck(ingham) Stops Here!

James and I read about this book on some listicle back in February while we were on our way to Martha's Vineyard. I remember the description said something about this being covered all over the place during the summer of 2019 and if you didn't know about this love story between the Prince of Wales and the First Son of the United States you weren't paying attention. I really don't know how I missed it. I see the book trade magazines regularly come across my desk, and this is exactly the kind of book that would have caught my eye. But here we are.

Anyway, since the trip to the "Vineyard" was pre-pandemic the local bookstore (Bunch of Grapes) was still open. We went in and purchased it with the intent that we would read it together.  The story takes place in the present day in a parallel universe in which there is no pandemic, and the country isn't being run by a completely incompetent president.

What starts as a bro-mance orchestrated for the press turns into a full on love affair when the biracial, bisexual son of the first woman president of the United States falls for Henry, the gay Prince of Wales. Not prepared to come out to their families, much less the rest of the world, the two manage their long-distance romance by making up reasons to hop across the Big Pond, as well as via chat messages and e-mail. When their steamy electronic messages get leaked to the press the two find themselves in a true diplomatic nightmare for the White House and the Crown. Can these two millennials make history with an international sex scandal?

The real nail biter for me, though, was wondering if these two would ever use a library. James and I very much enjoyed reading this, and I was truly worried that it would not find a place on this blog, as the first time a library is even mentioned is not until page 386 (of 418) and that was simply as a place that was nixed as venue for the official royal "courtship photos".

Alex has to admit, the royal photographer is being exceedingly patient about the whole thing, especially considering that they waffled through three different locations-Kensington Gardens, a stuffy Buckingham Palace Library, the courtyard of Hampton Court Palace-before they decided to screw it all for a bench in a locked-down Hyde Park.

There is a nod to the intellect of these two by way of "a pile of books" stacked up next to the bench in the photos.  The use of the indefinite article in front of "stuffy Buckingham Palace" caused James to wonder aloud just exactly how many libraries there are in the palace, and for me to follow up with, "and just how many of those are stuffy?"

Interestingly, after making me wait until the book was almost done to satisfy my frustration, the author manages to sneak in one more mention of a library - the Library of Congress of course - on page 415.

This is truly a fun romance about a well-matched pair. Equal in good looks, intellect, and political power there's no trite story about a prince pretending to be just a regular guy, or a poor admirer hoping the prince will notice them. Only the use of a library could have formed a more-perfect union between these two.

We started reading this just about the time that our governor issued the stay-at-home order for Massachusetts, and we read a bit each day. It was the perfect antidote to our work-at-home days - a little daily vacation when we could forget about what was going on in the rest of the world and simply have a laugh together.

Sexy, smart satire. Read it with someone you love.

American Dreamer - by Adriana Herrera

The most important criterion I have when I make my selection for Read-A-Romance-Month is that the book have a librarian as one of the main characters. Of course many books fill the bill, but since I only read 1-2 books of the genre per year any book I select has to be extra. Herrera's book made the final cut for this gringa bilingual librarian because Jude Fuller.

When blond librarian Jude surprises the swarthy Ernesto (Nesto) Vasquez (owner of the Afro-Caribbean food truck parked outside the library) by flirting with him in Spanish Nesto falls hard. The two waste no time in beginning a hot and steamy relationship. So lucky that it turns out they are neighbors, too!

This one follows the expected three point romance plot with a "boy meets boy" twist. I also liked that in lieu of the "sassy gay friend" we so often see in boy-girl romances Herrera gives that role to the meddling Carmen, smart-aleck straight friend to Jude. And, of course, I loved that Herrera recognizes that not only do librarians have sex, it can actually be intense.

I have to admit though that the millennial main characters in this book stressed this baby boomer out a bit. They worked 12-14 hour days and then came home and seemed to have energy for acrobatic sex at 11:00 at night. I was always worried that they would oversleep the next day, or simply burn themselves out.

Find out more about the author and her works at https://adrianaherreraromance.com/

A Time to Fall - by Jess Vonn

The last time I wrote a post about a romance novel (A Knight to Remember), I prefaced it with this statement "I don't always read romances, but when I do they are about librarians". So now I must make an amendment: I will also read romances authored by those on whose tenure committee I served. And, as Vonn's book also clears my low bar (of mentioning a library at least one time) for inclusion on this blog, it gets a review here, too.

Fleeing from a bad break up,  Winnie Briggs leaves Chicago and moves to Bloomsburo to take a job as editor of the local newspaper The Bloom. After literally running into her landlady's most dapper son, Cal Spencer, Winnie attempts to keep her distance from him so she can focus on herself. Cal, likewise, had no interest in falling for his mother's quirky new tenant. Sexual hijinx ensue.

Winnie is intelligent and dedicated to her work. So much so that on a Sunday night at 11:00, she was writing a tedious story about a county planning and zoning commission meeting even though "her brain hurt and she wanted to curl up in bed and read the latest Julia Quinn novel she just picked up from the library."

For those of us who pay attention to such things as how libraries are presented in works of fiction, this one actually packs some punch. After all, this wasn't just any Sunday night: this was the Sunday just one week after Winnie Briggs arrived in town. So what we learn from this is that Winnie Briggs is not simply "kind and smart and funny and lovable as hell" as well as "sexy...and competent". Winnie Briggs is also a person who knows that one of the first things a person does when they move to a new place is to get a library card. And really, there is nothing hotter than that.

The Sexy Librarian's Big Book of Erotica - edited by Rose Caraway

I didn't originally intend to make this post one for Banned Books Week, but in re-reading Bix Warden's foreword I noted his quote from Jo Goodwin "a truly great library contains something to offend everyone" and I was reminded that Banned Books Week is about celebrating the freedom to read. So although I did not find any specific information indicating that this book was banned anywhere it seems especially appropriate for blogging during Banned Books Week. It is a celebration of our right to read what we like.

Bix also notes that "librarians...are often smart and sexy; they read wildly and across many genres, from horror to science fiction to literary fiction and nonfiction. If it's well written and thoughtful, a librarian is likely to enjoy it." As a librarian I appreciate this description. Smart and sexy is appropriate because it is sexy to be smart. I also do enjoy a variety of genres. On this blog readers will find fiction and non-fiction, romances, thrillers, funny books, serious reads, children's books, young adult books, and stories from all over the world.

Although librarians are often the stuff of fantasies only one of the twenty-two stories ("Notes on a Scandal", by Melly Maher) actually featured a librarian (well actually a librarian in training). Lauren's librarian-training program appears to include lessons an sporting an appropriate "librarian look" with "her dark-blonde hair...twisted up behind her head with what looked like chopsticks anchoring it. The dark-brown plastic rims of her glasses...[emphasizing] the chocolate brown of her eyes." As her favorite patron, Brandon, discovers she is also quite a good writer.

While not including a librarian, the first story of the anthology,  "Book Swap" by Rachel Kramer Bussel, does explore a love of reading and sharing books.

I recommend sharing this book with someone you love.

50 Shades of Grey - by E L James

Coming in at number four on the list of most frequently challenged books of 2013 James' books have caused quite a bit of controversy for its theme of sexual bondage and domination. Most works that show up on the New York Times bestseller list will be purchased by public libraries without any librarians reading them first to determine if they are good enough. If there is a clear demand, they are purchased. There is no doubt about the demand for the "50 Shades" trilogy (which also includes 50 Shades Darker, and 50 Shades Freed). The question is why are some libraries refusing to purchase it? Some question the "literary merits" of the book. I agree that those merits are questionable, but do libraries really apply those standards to all of their purchases? One could also rightly question the literary merit of Stephen King, or Danielle Steele. Others have stood behind their "no erotica" policy. I agree that collection development policies are important and should be used to make purchasing decisions, but here I question who is deciding what constitutes erotica. Do these libraries not carry any bodice-ripping romances? Or do those get a pass simply because they are classified under the genre of "romance" rather than "erotica"? As a little test, I checked the Gwinnet County (GA) Public Library catalog for Pamela Morsi's Love Overdue (which includes at least two sexually explicit scenes). And indeed, I discovered that this Harlequin Romance is in the catalog, but the Library is apparently steadfast in its refusal to order 50 Shades. 

Personally, I was prepared to never read 50 Shades myself, but when I saw it on the banned books list I felt that I should (strictly as an academic exercise, of course). I discovered that the book's narrator, Anastasia Steele (Ana), not only loved books, but that she also claimed to not like being in crowds and "prefer[red] her own company reading a classic British novel, curled up in a chair in the campus library." She also makes a passing reference, while interviewing for an internship at a publishing house, to the fact that she worked in the library as a student at Washington State University. This revelation comes late in the book, and is so subtle one might not even notice it unless one is specifically looking for the word "library" (or its variations) while reading. For those of us who were looking for such connections, it suddenly turned Ana into the trope of the stuck-up-virgin-librarian-who-just-needs-to-let-her-hair-down. It did make me wonder, also, why she had to ask Christian Grey where she should do research about his "alternative lifestyle". He simply tells her to start with Wikipedia. Really? She couldn't come up with that on her own? Are we left to believe that a graduate of WSU, who worked in the library no less, doesn't know where to begin doing basic research?

Ultimately, I saw this book as a strange mash-up of Twilight and Nine and a Half Weeks.

Read more about some of the libraries that have banned this book here. 

Love Overdue - by Pamela Morsi

I don't believe I have ever read a Harlequin Romance before. I rarely read romance novels, and I admit to becoming somewhat jaded about them during my long ago bookstore clerk days. The series romances would come in monthly installments, and then the same women (they were always women) would show up and buy the lot of them. I would hear them chattering while they waited in line about how they needed to get to the store the day they came out, lest they miss one. Occasionally, they would explain that such a calamity had befallen them at some point in the past, and they were not about to let it happen again. Even without reading these novels I sensed that they were all pretty much the same, and couldn't understand why missing one was such a big deal. I once made the mistake of suggesting to one of our customers that perhaps she could go to the library and read the books she was missing. No, this was not good enough because, she explained, she needed to own them.

So anyway, I read a review of Morsi's novel in one on the endless stream of trade magazines that comes across my desk, and just couldn't resist putting in an Interlibrary loan request for it. Just take a look at the cover! Look at those sensible shoes! I must admit that this was a fun mindless read. The story starts with librarian Dorothy Jarrow moving to Kansas with her little dog. The "Oz" allusions continue throughout without any subtlety. In fact, there is nothing subtle about this book. Morsi appears to have had a lot of fun playing with the stereotypes, which again, she didn't even try to pretend were anything else:

"...librarians were expected to be law-abiding, as well as sedate, slightly stuffy and incredibly sexless. D.J. was pretty certain she fit that bill perfectly."

It is suggested that the new librarian must be "a homely old maid, married to her cat." Disbelief is expressed when someone says that she actually "looks kind of pretty."

Despite the fact that she is young and "kind of pretty" she is also described as going for that "old maid look... [with a] stuffy business suit, gray on gray with her hair pulled back into a little bun like somebody's grandmother." Variations on this description pop up several more times throughout.

The book flashes back several times, however, to a Dorothy who is eight years younger, and enjoying spring break at South Padre Island, Texas. And it is here that we find out that the librarian is perhaps not as stuffy as she makes herself out to be. Will she ever remove those "bookworm" glasses and let her hair down again? The answer, of course, was not really a big surprise.

I will also say that despite having a rather stereotypical look about her, D.J. is portrayed as a very competent librarian - recognizing how she can better serve her community; figuring out how to rearrange the library for better light; and she of course believes that everyone, including children, should be able to select their own reading materials. She is anti-book banning, and anti-censorship.

One other thing I should point out is that this work not only has a librarian, but also a busybody Library Trustee whom D.J., for some reason, thinks should call her "Ms. Jarrow". Really? I'm a trustee, and we all use first names.

Although entirely predictable (really, there was not plot turn that I didn't see coming pages out) I have to admit to enjoying this one. This is not to say I'm about to start a romance book subscription, or wait in line at the bookstore once a month.

The Celestial Bed - by Irving Wallace

As in Wallace's The Seven Minutes this work explores a modern day witch hunt involving sex and an over zealous district attorney (Hoyt Lewis). Aided and abetted by a phony televangelist (Rev. Josh Scrafield), and an aspiring newspaper reporter suffering from premature ejaculation (Chet Hunter), Lewis sets out to investigate and arrest the renowned sex therapist Dr. Arnold Freeburg, and one of the sex surrogates he employs, the lovely Gayle Miller.

Ironically, it is Hunter's girlfriend Suzy Edwards, who is also Freeburg's secretary, who provides the lead that gets her employer arrested. In referring her boyfriend to the sex therapist she also unwittingly opens the door to the investigation.

Hunter and Edwards first meet at the Hillsdale Main Public Library, where Hunter is doing some research for hire:

This fellow, probably in his thirties, surely no more than five years older than she, was carrying some books from the shelves, and the only spot open was the chair next to hers. Apologetically, he eased into the chair tight against her own. She had been taken by him at once. He was of medium build, receding neat brown hair, high forehead, soulful brown eyes highlighted by steel-framed spectacles set near the tip of his pug nose, his manner reserved but obviously an intellectual type.

It is also clear, however, that his work at the Acme Research Bureau "digging up facts from countless sources for free-lance writers graduate students, magazines, newspapers" is no job for a real man, as it barely pays subsistence wages, and at least one of his clients, the Revered Josh Scrafield had always looked at the researcher with "mild contempt [and as] something of a frail grub and intellectual nerd, sallow and frightened of life".

Ultimately, Hunter sees the error of his ways (once he experiences a successful coupling with Edwards), and refuses to cooperate with the DA, and of course, is rewarded with the real job at the newspaper he always dreamed of. A true fairy tale ending in which good sex conquers all.

Herotica 3 - edited by Susie Bright

Back in the 1990s, when I was working at a Public Library in Texas, we received a donation of books for the children's collection that claimed to be appropriate for K-12 readers. I don't remember where the donation came from, but I do remember that we were puzzled by their designation as children's books. Some seemed to be appropriate for a variety of ages, but others were clearly adult-themed literature. Susie Bright's collection of short stories, Herotica 3, challenged even my own liberal beliefs about age appropriateness. While I don't deny that the work might be appropriate for a public library, it seemed a bit of a stretch to include this one in the children's, or even young adult, collection. Since the copy we received was also damaged, it didn't end up in the collection at all, and it found its way into my own personal library. I read it at the time, and have not revisited it again, but I recall that my favorite story involved a three-way with a librarian, so I recently re-read that story, strictly for the sake of blog completeness, of course.

In Susan St. Aubin's "Hope" we find a wonderfully different definition of the sexy librarian, rather than a young woman who only needs to remove her big glasses and let her hair down, in Hope we discover a confident 50-ish woman "with shoulder length white hair curled under in a way the seems natural. She's not short or tall, not fat or thin, but has the kind of build [the narrator's] father used to call healthy. Her face in tanned and her long gold earring have some kind of purple stone inlay that glints through her hair. Her skirt is purple too, and her lavender sweater scoops low enough  to reveal the tanned skin of her full breasts...she doesn't wear underpants."

I was especially drawn to this character when I read that she'd "been all over Mexico, and plans a long trip to Peru next year...talking of boats and flights and donkey guides to Machu Picchu". Hmmm must be something about librarians.

A wonderful bedtime story. Read  it with someone you love.

Fear of Flying - by Erica Jong

Because reading 50 Shades of Grey just seemed too trite, I decided to read Jong's classic piece of erotic fiction instead. This is the story of Isadora, torn between her husband Bennett, and her lover Adrian she reflects on her life, loves, and lusts. As a writer Isadora does quite a bit of research and tells of researching the history of the Third Reich at the USIS (United States Information Service Libraries) while her husband was stationed in Germany. After getting a job writing a column for a newsletter Isadora begins doing some research about a Nazi amphitheater she discovers in Heidelberg. In Heidelberg's main public library she finds a guidebook dated 1937 in "English and German on facing pages, with cheap, yellowing paper, black and white photographs and old Gothic type." Most intriguing about this work was that "every ten pages or so a paragraph or photo or a small block of type was covered over with a square of oak-tag. Like any good researcher worth her salt Isadora is determined to find out what is under those tags. "I checked out the book (along with four others so the librarian wouldn't be suspicious) and raced home where I carefully steamed the offending pages over a tea-kettle spout." (Normally, I would be bound by librarian ethics to point out that this would likely cause damage to a book, but censoring is way worse than making the pages a bit wavy, so in this case the ends justify the means).Once Isadora removes the offending tags she finds photographs with swastika flags, and of Nazi salutes and passages that give evidence of the German exceptional-ism of the time. In discussing the censorship with a former Nazi, Isadora begins to question her own honesty in writing, and realizes that she is self censoring her own true feelings.

I refused to let myself write about what really moved me: my violent feelings about Germany, the unhappiness in my marriage, my sexual fantasies, my childhood, by [sic] negative feelings about my parents...I had pasted square oak-tag patches over certain areas of my life and steadfastly refused to look at them.  

The book is the metaphorical removal of Isadora's oak tags as she explores all of the things she describes in the passage above. It is an intellectual exploration as well as a sexual one - and she does explore sex in the library. Isadora tells of flirtations in the Butler Library at Columbia University, as well as describing how she "studied together" (the quotes were in the original) with the man who became her first husband in the Butler Library "where [she] was later shocked to hear that some sacrilegious students actually screwed."

The Butler library was ultimately where Isadora went to escape her first marriage as she "sweated in the stacks...writing a ridiculous thesis on dirty words in English poetry."

And I thought I was going to have a "first" for this blog - a library dream. In the penultimate chapter of the book Isdoara describes a dream in which she is graduating from college. She walks up a flight of stairs "which looked more like a Mexican temple than the steps of Low Library."  But in doing a bit of research, I discovered that the Low Library at Columbia is no longer a library (and was not at the time the book was written). It is now the administration building.

As is true with much erotic literature (most recently with 50 Shades) Fear of Flying has been banned, and censored. See this entry from "The Field Guide to Forbidden Books" blog for more details.