Just as the name implies, Susan Orlean's "The Library Book" (Simon & Schuster, 317 pp., ★★★½) celebrates the love of books and the wonder of public libraries. But, as it turns out, it is so much more.

A boy finds himself magically transported to the North Pole. He's chased by a moose into a time portal that transports him back to 1621, where he joins the first Thanksgiving in colonial America. Just ...

For writer Susan Orlean, libraries seemed a distant part of her past, honey-hued memories of the countless trips she and her mother made to the local branch of the Shaker Heights Public Library during ...