On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As moments passed, the patrons and staff cleared out of the building, realizing that this was not the usual fire alarm. As one firefighter recounted, “Once that first stack got going, it was ‘Goodbye, Charlie.’”

Weaving her lifelong love of books into an investigation of the fire, award-winning  New Yorker  reporter and  New York Times  bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that tells the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.

Guest host Anne Strainchamps is the host of To The Best Of Our Knowledge. She co-founded the show, along with Steve Paulson and Jim Fleming, and has been a featured interviewer on the program for more than a decade.