This is part of a trilogy..!

Audible hasn't sorted it correctly, but be sure to check The Library Trilogy for the other titles. Great fun to read library fantasy. A bit tedious at times, but I loved every part with Livera in it

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A book of wonder

Mark Lawrence's The Book that Wouldn't Burn, the first in his The Library Trilogy and narrated by the inestimable Jessica Whittaker, is a book of fabulous world building and fantastic time travelling.

The story follows Livira and Evar as they discover the library, each other and the world(s) they inhabit. Finding out their history is one of the themes which runs throughout the book, as is Livira's growing knowledge of the Library and its inhabitants.

Jessica Whittaker narrates very well, and you can imagine the places in your minds eye, due to her narration as well as Mark's fine prose.

If you're looking for a new book to listen to, look no further than this, you won't be disappointed.

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2 people found this helpful

Gripped from the start

So good, I listened again as soon as I had finished. As the author says

One of the earliest philosophers told us you can’t step into the same river twice. The library taught me you can’t read the same book twice either. You’re the river.

I loved the characters and the flow of the story. There were unexpected twists that I didn’t see coming, Mark Lawrence’s wry sense of humour is clear in the ‘quotes’ from books at the start of each chapter-tipping his hat to other authors, fantastically insulting at times. I don’t often pay full price for books, but will be purchasing the next instalment straight away.
Excellent narration throughout from Jessica Whittaker. She made the characters come alive .

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Disjointed

Neither the uninteresting characters nor the rather disjointed storyline works for me. Really struggling to finish this one and I really like most of his other books.

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ohh my godddd!

I was absolutely captivated by this book! I found myself staying up later to listen to more of it. the story is so cleverly written. I think this may just be my new favourite book. my mind is left reeling at the concepts and ideas in the story.

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Excellent

That was the best book I’ve listened to in a long time, and I’ve listened to/read a lot of books. What book lover doesn’t want to be drawn into a magical library crossing time, dimensions and space?
The book flicks between the narrative of the two main characters who’s tales draw together over the space of the book, intersecting at times before being torn apart again. There are more twists and turns in this book than I can count, some of which turn the plot entirely on its head. It keeps you guessing at the impossible nature of the library until the last page. The performance suits the story perfectly. Can’t wait for the next one.

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Took me a while to get into it, but was enjoyable

The blurb doesn't give a great deal away with this one, so I had only a basic idea of what to expect. The story itself took me a fair while to get into, more so with Evar's chapters (I found Livira's far easier to keep up with and enjoy). I couldn't quite decide whether the difficulty in keeping up was because of the lack of info in the blurb or whether it was just me struggling with this one in general.

Fast forward through the book and everything I struggled with before seemed to drop into place and mean so much more with revelations that happen later on. I went from thinking it would turn out to be a slow, average read, to enjoying it immensely and thinking how clever a tale Mark Lawrence had managed to weave.

With that being said, I still, even with those revelations, found Livira's parts far more interesting and in-depth than Evar's, but that could be due to what we find out later. So perhaps it was intentional to a degree. 

I love the idea of a library that is infinite to the point where if you can think of it, it's probably in there somewhere (pretty much like a fantasy version of the internet). Even more so when you factor in there are an infinite number of libraries across and infinite number of timelines. The library itself is so big that 'it's always burning somewhere within the library' but you never really see it because of how vast a network it is.

Overall, I enjoyed the concept and the story as a whole. I'll force myself to pay more attention when I get around to book two but look forward to it nonetheless.

The narration was wonderful :)

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Great plot twist!

At first I found this a little wordy but I got used to it. Loved the twist in the tale!

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Truly Phenemonal. Near Perfection.

I find it hard to put into words just how much I fell in love with this book, it's characters, and the fascinating and intriguing worldbuilding. To think I picked this up completely at random and it's genuinely one of the best fantasy books I've ever read.

The core elements are classic: plucky, precocious, outsider young girl is taken from all she knows through tragedy and does the incredibly talented inquisitive and cheeky fish out of water thing. There's a lovable, foul-mouthed soldier bodyguard, well-written romance, a split narrative with that comes together, and the futility and pointlessness of war and hatred of one people for another. But what Lawrence does with those elements, the world they create, and the way concepts are explored and extrapolated through a fantastic, wondrous, and terrifying library that straddles all dimensions, is a work of utter brilliance.

The ideas and message are great, combining mind-bending speculative sci-fi concepts and epic fantasy fun with humour, intrigue and human emotion.

I really need to go back and listen to the last handful of chapters, as some of the reveals and elements genuinely had me sobbing my heart out, while pleasantly baffled. This definitely took my brain on a long walk and made my emotions work out.

I'm absolutely gutted this came out this year and absolutely need the next book as soon as humanly possible!

The performance by Jessica Whittaker is out of this world and absolutely top tier. The range of accents, age, and emotion they embody are mind blowing! An absolutely breathtaking performance that makes me genuinely want to listen to anything and everything they narrate.

I loved this book so very much, but I do have two issues that, while absolutely weren't deal breakers, did impact my enjoyment and make me question how much I can trust the author and their views. The first is a fictional quote heading up one of the chapters that discusses very stereotypical and not gender-inclusive depictions of mothers, fathers, and pregnancy. The other is this quote:
"If a civilization is not capable of keeping a book from burning then perhaps it wasn't ready for whatever knowledge was held within"
The point is a good an interesting one in the context of the book with it referring to knowledge, particularly that of weapons of mass destruction. However, we live in a world where fascist and bigoted book burnings have taken place, and we are currently seeing truly wild and dangerous censorship and removal of books from schools and other places due to ignorance, bigotry, and rightwing propaganda. There has to be a better say to phrase this. All I could think of were the Nazi book burnings, which the famous photos come from the destruction of the research and writing of the Hirschfeld Institute, particularly those on sexuality and gender identity. We have always been ready for Queer/ trans folx because we have always existed.

I don't think either of the above points was done maliciously, but it does come across as some cisnormative ignorance that was a small blemish on an otherwise utterly brilliant book.

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A gripping listern

New to this author, I was impressed at how the book drew me in with its intricately described characters and world. I found myself listening every chance I had to reach the carefully constructed conclusion, just superb! Narration was expansive giving unique tones to each character bringing the story alive, a very comfortable listen. I hope they team up for book 2!

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