The Underground Library

Juliet Lansdown arrives in London at the beginning of the World War II Blitzkrieg to be the new deputy director of the Bethnal Green Library. Her boss wants to close the library, but Julia has other ideas. She establishes a book club, a newsletter, and a social gathering place for the community. As the Blitz begins, underground subway stations become bomb shelters. Julia brings books from the library to help keep people occupied, eventually moving the whole operation underground when the library is destroyed in a bombing. Julia holds a live reading event every evening, aided by library assistant Katie Upwood and Jewish refugee Sofie Baumann, and camaraderie blooms during their long hours in the underground. Narrator Fenella Woolgar performs an excellent array of voices and accents, communicating the characters’ hopes, strength, and sense of community.