Q&A: Brianna Labuskes, Author of ‘The Librarian of Burned Books’

We chat with Brianna Labuskes about her new novel The Librarian of Burned Books, which is a captivating WWII-era novel about the intertwined fates of three women who believe in the power of books to triumph over the very darkest moments of war.

Hi, Brianna! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?

Hi! I’m a full-time writer and former journalist who lives in Asheville, N.C.. I have a puppy named Jinx who is ninety percent mischief and ten percent goofball. I’ve always been the girl with my head in a book, but I also love hiking, travelling, kayaking and other outdoor activities. I’m a huge history nerd and have been devouring books on World War 2 since I was a teen. And I have two nieces who are the best humans in the world.

When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?

I’ve always loved reading, my mom semi-jokes I never needed to be taught, that I just picked up a book one day and read it to myself. And then never stopped. I think that love blossomed into wanting to write my own stories, as well. I have a distinct memory of a sixth-grade project where we wrote and illustrated a “book,” and I told a story about an Olympic swimmer who pushed herself too hard. I was hooked.

Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!

I must have read tons of books before this, but the one that sticks out in my head as the first to really pull me in deeply and leave a nearly three-decades long impression of that feeling was The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman.

I’m going to cheat and list two: Under the Harrow, by Flynn Berry set me on my path to write psychological thrillers, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which sparked my love of historical fiction.

In Meomoriam, by Alice Winn, which is coming out in March. It’s a WW1 queer love story and one of my favorite books I’ve read in a long time. I call it my beloved!

Your new novel, The Librarian of Burned Books, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?

Timely, romantic, informative, tense, cinematic.

What can readers expect?

The pulse of the novel follows Viv, who is working for the Council on Books in Wartime, an organization that sent lightweight paperbacks to soldiers to boost morale and alleviate boredom. For political reasons, a powerful senator wants to cripple the program with a censorship bill. In Viv’s fight to save it—based on real-life events—she discovers a love story from 1933 Berlin between an American author and a German woman who is attached to early resistance fighters in the city. The story weaves in plenty of literary references, and a warning about history repeating itself when it comes to book burning and censorship. It’s also a love letter to the power of the written word.

Where did the inspiration for The Librarian of Burned Books come from?

The initial idea came when I was reading Molly Guptill Manning’s When Books Went to War. That real-life censorship fight sparked by this senator resonated so much with what we’re seeing in our current landscape that I knew there was a book in that. After that, I went looking for more stories about books and wartime and found two separate libraries that cropped up in the thirties—one in Paris and one in Brooklyn. Both existed to protect the books the Nazis burned (hence the title!). I found that concept so poetic and romantic, I had to include them. And you can’t write a novel about book burning without incorporating May 10, 1933.

Can you tell us a bit about your research process?

It’s so much fun, finding these little pockets of history that not many people have heard about. It starts a bit superficially. Like I said, I stumbled onto the original idea simply because I enjoy consuming non-fiction work about World War 2. But then you start putting out feelers for other plotlines and can stumble on some great ideas by just falling down rabbit holes until something strikes you as interesting. There were some challenging moments—not a ton has been written about the library in Paris, for example. But I found some old coverage about the opening, which described the inside, including the fact that the founders put up a picture of Goebbels to remind everyone what they were fighting against. I did a little dance when I found that article!

I also loved researching the queer storyline. I was writing the first chapter for Hannah—the woman who works in the Paris library—and had a flash of realization that she had been in love with the main character in the 1933 Berlin storyline. That sent me researching what a Sapphic romance would look like in that era, and it turns out, it would fit right in with the thriving LGBTQ community in pre-Hitler Berlin. So that turned out to be a really enjoyable and informative storyline—you mostly hear about the sad queer history, but here was a time period with so much joy.

Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?

Writing about the queer experience in pre-Hitler Berlin was so lovely—there are a couple cabaret scenes, which had me diving into pictures and old accounts of what that was like. I even researched a bit about humor back then so I could have an MC at one of the night clubs tell a time-period appropriate joke about Hitler and Goebbels, which was really common in those places.

The whole novel also builds up to these anti-book burning speeches, and every moment that I was writing toward that ending I knew they’d have to blow the roof off to make the whole book satisfying. It was nerve-wracking, but ultimately a really powerful way to drive home the entire message of the novel in a way you don’t usually get to do without being heavy-handed.

What’s next for you?

I just turned in my second historical fiction novel. It’s centered around the only mass protest in Germany during the war—one that ended up being successful in freeing nearly 2,000 detained Jewish men. What I like about historical fiction is how you can find parallels to our own lives, and in this one I really wanted to explore the importance of protesting beneath a fascisct regime.

The story also focuses on the resititution efforts following the war to return the books that the Nazis plundered. A lot of focus in popular culture is on the artwork that was looted, but the Nazis stole millions of books, as well. In the same way the U.S. and others worked to find the rightful owners of those paintings, there was also a big effort to return private collections, research libraries and other books.

Lastly, are there any 2023 book releases our readers should look out for?

Oh my gosh, there are so many I’m jazzed about. Three books I can already recommend—because I read early copies—are In Memoriam, by Alice Winn; After Anne, by Logan Steiner, which tells the story of L.M. Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables;  and The Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen, a queer historical fiction mystery that makes you feel like you’re in a 1940s movie. Some that I’m looking forward to reading: The Air Raid Bookclub, by Annie Lyons; The Bookbinder of Jericho, by Pip Williams; The Paris Deception, Bryn Turnbull; and The House of Eve, by Sadeqa Johnson.

You can find Brianna on Twitter and Instagram, as well as at her website.

Will you be picking up The Librarian of Burned Books? Tell us in the comments below!