You’ve reminded me that there’s good in the world” (240). Without you, I couldn’t have continued this long. When Professor Cohen finishes her manuscript, she knows she cannot publish it, and she entrusts it to Odile, saying, “Books and ideas are like blood they need to circulate, and they keep usĪlive.How does theirįriendship develop over the course of the novel? Odile refers to Bitsi as her “bookmate” (50) and later reflects on their experiences by noting that “coming face-to-face with Bitsi is like looking in the mirror” (166).

How is Lily’s adolescence in Montana similar to Odile’s own coming of age in Paris? How do books and learning the French language serve as a refuge for Lily?.

Why do you think Janet Skeslien Charles decided to interweave Lily’s story, set in Montana in the 1980s, with Odile’s story in Paris during World War II? What do the dual narratives reveal,.

Do you believe Odile’s assertion that her mother would “cast me out, just like

Consider Odile’s Aunt Caroline, and how Caro’s experience informs Odile’s decisions regarding Paul and Buck.

Among the Library’s subscribers and habitués are many fascinating and eccentric characters, such as Professor Cohen and Mr.

Odile and Lily come from very different backgrounds, different countries and different eras.

How do she and others like Boris and the Countess prove that throughout the Occupation?

Miss Reeder “was adamant that there was a place here for everyone” (3) at the Library.

Always.” (10) What does the red belt represent? And why, at the end of the novel, does she replace “her tatty red belt with a stylish black one”? (344)

Gustafson, Lily notes that she “donned her Sunday best - a pleated skirt and high heels - just to take out the trash. When Odile is first introduced as Mrs.Chapter 1 begins with Odile noting that “numbers floated round my head like stars” (3) as she runs through the Dewey Decimal system in her head.

The paris library book