Bibliophilia

I read Bibliophilia by Michael Griffith yesterday.  It's a book of short stories, but the longest one (which is actually a novella), is Bibliophilia.

It's about a librarian, who claims that she doesn't fit in with the librarian stereotype (the old, bitter, sex-less woman), but she really does.  And as the story goes on, you find out her past and why she fits it so well.

But that's not all.  Every other chapter is written by a man named Seti, who is in America (Louisiana, in particular), to get a degree in hydrology so he can go back to Egypt and find a way to get more water to people who need it.

So it's an odd mix of Seti's trying to figure out Americans (including his knowledge of slang...it's great), and the librarian's past.

That is, of course, until it all comes to a head.  When the librarian finds a young couple having sex in the stacks, and Seti comes to rescue her.  But the shock of it all...well, it's amazing.

Then she runs home to start her new life...and then the twist happens.

The ending is a little questionable, but still...the twist...oh, the twist rocked my world.  A word of warning though...the whole book is a little sex obsessed.  But I still really liked it. 

And!  If I were double dipping, it would fill 3 spots in the 9909 challenge: Southern, starring a librarian, and by a man.  Stellar.