The Book That Wouldn't Burn
core novel 2023 The Library Trilogy
Record
| First published | 2023 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.95 (46,132 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 559 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780593437919 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
The Book That Wouldn't Burn follows Livira, a sharp, resourceful orphan from a desert settlement known as the Dust, who is taken from her impoverished circumstances to an immense, seemingly endless library and apprenticed there as a librarian, beginning to learn the scope and danger of the institution's vast, labyrinthine collection. In a separate, seemingly disconnected thread, Evar is one of five children raised for years entirely within that same library after being cut off from their own place in time, growing up isolated from the wider world with only the library's contents and rules to shape them. As Livira's and Evar's stories begin to edge toward one another across the library's endless shelves, both must reckon with just how much the institution is hiding about its own true nature and origins.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Library Trilogy
- Series: The Library Trilogy core; position 1 of 3 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Mark Lawrence
Notes
- From the series record (The Library Trilogy): A completed trilogy set around an impossibly vast, reality-spanning Library that exists outside of time, following two people trapped inside it and the wider conflict it turns out to be quietly holding back.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series The Library Trilogy: position 1 of 3: next The Book That Broke the World (2024)
Sources
← The Library Trilogy dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.