He basically leaves the most of the library's books intact, but forbids some to circulate and says certain people, namely Jews, may no longer be allowed into the library. When the day for the inspection of the American Library arrives, it turns out that Miss Reeder, the director of the American Library, knows the inspector, Dr. Libraries in Paris are now controlled by the Nazis, who have already closed some and banned certain books. It feels like an idyllic life until France falls to the Nazis and everything changes. Like Odile, Margaret blooms in the library, finding friends, confidence, and meaning in her life and the two women become fast friends. Odile brings Margaret into the library fold as a volunteer while teaching her French. Odile also meets Bitsi, the friendly children's librarian who loves reading as much as she does, and wealthy, but unhappy Margaret, the wife of an attaché at the British embassy who can't adjust to living in Paris, missing her mum, England, and speaking English. And finally, it happens - a blond policeman named Paul, who actually shows up at the library bearing daffodils and looking for reference books.

Meanwhile at home, and much to the amusement of Odile and her twin Rémy, her father, a police captain, has been inviting protégés from various precincts to the house for Sunday dinner, in the hope she will be attracted to one. Odile has been visiting the library since she was a child and already knows many of the people who frequent it on a daily basis.

It's February 1939, and Parisian Odile Souchet has just landed her dream job as a librarian at the American Library there.

The paris library paperback