The library of lost and found

Martha Storm works as a volunteer in an English public library though she hopes to shortly obtain permanent employment. Martha obviously loves working with and helping people, most of the time, but eventually she decides that it is time to declutter her house and reorganise her life.

Martha has always helped other people including looking after her parents for many years when they were ill instead of marrying the man she loved. Martha's childhood memories, however, are of good times spent with her grandmother, Zelda, and the stories that they would write. But then in 1982 Zelda died.

Many years later Martha found a book of short stories with the inscription - June 1985, To my darling, Martha Storm. Be glorious always, Zelda x. - a book containing many of the stories Martha had written as a child.

This was the beginning of new life for Martha as she strove to discover not only the whereabouts of her grandmother but why she had been told that her grandmother had died. Other family stories are also revealed as Martha reunites with her grandmother and learns about her past. Martha also learns the true meaning of friendship and independence.

This gentle, often amusing, book by Phaedra Patrick is a story about relationships including discovering oneself. It is also a book about reading and libraries and many of us who have worked in public libraries will recognise some of the incidents and perhaps even people as described in this book about life.