FROM AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR PATRICK DEWITT COMES THE STORY OF A MAN WHO HAS LIVED HIS LIFE THROUGH AND FOR LITERATURE, UNAWARE THAT HIS OWN EXPERIENCE IS A POIGNANT AND AFFECTING NARRATIVE IN ITSELF. Retired librarian Bob Comet passes his days surrounded by books in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon. Hoping to fill a post-retirement void, he begins volunteering at a senior center. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a brush with a complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed. Behind Bob Comet's straight-man facade is the story of an unhappy child's runaway adventure during the last days of the Second World War, of true love won and stolen away, of the purpose and pride found in the librarian's vocation, and of the pleasures of a life lived to the side of the masses. The Librarianist celebrates the extraordinary in the so-called ordinary life, and depicts beautifully the turbulence that sometimes exists beneath a surface of serenity. -- Provided by publisher.