Along with her glamorous best friend and library assistant Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground. But as the war drags on, the women’s determination to remain strong in the face of adversity is tested to the limits when it seems it may come at the price of keeping those closest to them alive. There's an assumption - an unfair one - that if you work in a library, you are a cardigan-wearing introvert. Bethnal Green Library, where my novel is set, is one hundred years old this year, so I set myself the goal of interviewing one hundred library workers. From post-war librarians, to feminist and activist librarians, school librarians to Britain's oldest library reading volunteer, qualified and unqualified, all share one thing in common, a passionate belief in the power of books and reading to change lives. These ‘youngsters’ are now in their 90s, and memories of the little library are embedded in their hearts. “It was a sanctuary to me,” Pat, now 92 and living in Berkshire, told me. “By 1943, I was 14 and there had been so much horror: the Blitz, the Tube disaster. You can’t imagine what that library represented to me as a place of safety. It sparked a life-long love of reading.” Heartbreakingly, that home was tinged with horror one night in March 1943 when 173 people died in a human crush on the uneven steps down to the shelter. ARP wardens worked alongside housewives and boy scouts to save the injured. Mrs Chumbley wrenched children free from the crush with such force their shoes were left behind. It was three hours before the last casualty was pulled out.

When you close a library, bad things start to happen in the neighbourhood where the library used to be. The library is the glue that holds a community together and you only miss it after it has gone. " This is a remarkable novel inspired by the even more remarkable real life story of a library under ground! The library is the one at Bethnal Green in a disused tube station during the war.

Satisfying layers of depth

The Little Wartime Library, is a book framed by author’s message and notes as well as modern-day prologue and epilogue. The heart of the story is set during WWII era London during the devastating days of bombing. Right when it seems the most nonsensical time to put time and resources into a lending library, theater, or music, is exactly the time to do it and they did. People needed this library and the determined help of Clara the Librarian more than ever. Well, the book club belter, as I've called it, is made up of three key ingredients. Gin, gin and gin. I'm joking. There is a bit of orange cordial in it', she said, winking as she topped Pat up. 'But I don't like to go too heavy handed on the cordial'.

Along with her glamorous best friend and assistant librarian, Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground. But as the war drags on, the women’s determination to remain strong in the face of adversity is tested to the limits when it seems it may come at the price of keeping those closest to them alive. Libraries are the engines of our education and our escape, never have they been more important in transforming our lives.”We follow Clara’s life and her family/ friends,their hopes,dreams,loves and losses and their daily problems as war is battled over head and affects every aspect of their life The Little Wartime Library was a haven for people. It did so much more than hand out books. It helped children to learn to read, to come to terms with loss of family to help those living in the underground to bear the long hard years that war brought to their homes and cities. The entire supporting cast of characters in this story are a definite value add – they all work together to add unity to the overall scope of the story. I can’t think of a single one which didn’t add something of value. Sagas such as this book are not my usual genre of reading. I often find them quite twee and get a bit bored. However I was keen to read this book as I had recently been researching about the underground library and what life was like for those underground in East London during the blitz. I really enjoyed it and will definitely try some of the author’s other work. This is such a beautiful, heartwarming, heartbreaking, and inspirational book on so many different levels.

This means there’s something for everyone in Kate Thompson’s book. There’s romance and peril, bravery and cowardice, personal moments and international events, making the story thrum with vibrancy.Contrary to popular belief, during the Second World War, not all shelterers slept in an amorphous huddle on a dirty Underground platform. The history of World War Two is full of surprises, mostly tales of unspeakable deprivation, sacrifice and bloodshed, but just occasionally, magic. This book made me so angry. Angry at the closed minds and attitudes against women, reading and children. Mr Pinkerton-Smythe is just one example of the judgmental and wrong attitudes that abound. Sadly, it is not only the men either. Some of the women’s blinkered attitudes are just as bad. The other thing that made me my blood boil is the horror that is war and the lives lost. And the blind eye turned to the abuse dished out to women on a regular basis by their husbands. With so many people homeless and living in this underground world, Clara is determined to make sure that there is still books for them to read and does everything she can to encourage more people into the library she and her assistant and best friend glamourous Ruby Munroe have started a children’s bedtime reading session and also a book club for anyone who wants to join in, in these times not only do these people read and listen to some great books they also find friendship and the support that is needed. They start a travelling library for the factory workers who can’t get to the library they also have pamphlets on different issues for woman in desperate need. Based on true events, The Little Wartime Library is a book that remembers one of the greatest resistance stories of the war.

A hired gun falls for the one woman who's completely wrong for him in this Western romance from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Lorraine Heath It is heart warming,at times upsetting,very real,emotive and poignant,makes you think again of how people lived and coped through those awful harrowing timesInformative and enlightening, heart-wrenching yet hopeful, this is a story that will stay with me. Fans of historical fiction and stories revolving around libraries would certainly enjoy this novel. Clara and Ruby run the underground library after the overground library was bombed, There is a whole community living in the Underground Station and the library helps foster the community spirit. They try to encourage children into storytime sessions and get books out to the women working long hours.