The Book That Wouldn’t Burn cover art

The Book That Wouldn’t Burn

The Book That Wouldn’t Burn, Book 1

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The Book That Wouldn’t Burn

By: Mark Lawrence
Narrated by: Jessica Whittaker
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About this listen

All books, no matter their binding, will fall to dust. The stories they carry may last longer. They might outlive the paper, the library, even the language in which they were first written.

The greatest story can reach the stars . . .

This is the start of an incredible new journey from the internationally bestselling author of Prince of Thorns, in which, though the pen may be mightier than the sword, blood will be spilled and cities burned…

Evar has lived his whole life trapped within a vast library, older than empires and larger than cities.

Livira has spent hers in a tiny settlement out on the Dust where nightmares stalk and no one goes.

The world has never noticed them.

That’s about to change.

As their stories spiral around each other, across worlds and time, each will unlock vast secrets about the world and themselves. This is a tale of truth and lies and hearts, and the blurring of one into another.

©2023 Mark Lawrence (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers Limited Action & Adventure Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Historical Fiction Heartfelt

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Critic reviews

Praise for Mark Lawrence

‘An excellent writer’
George R.R. Martin, #1 SUNDAY and NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of GAME OF THRONES

‘Dark and relentless…A two in the morning page turner. Jaw-dropping’
Robin Hobb, the NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of THE ASSASSIN’S APPRENTICE

‘Excellent – on par with George R.R. Martin’
Conn Iggulden, author of GENGHIS

‘Mark Lawrence gets better with every book. It has a drive to it, a pulse, a gearshift that kicks higher and higher.’
Fantasy Book Review

‘This tale of knowledge and its cost flies by thanks to the gripping mystery and beautiful worldbuilding…readers will be desperate for more.’
Publishers Weekly

‘Lawrence works with many threads here, but none feels misused or insufficiently explored. Rather, the author unspools them masterfully, leaving behind a tightly woven tapestry that readers will ache to see finished even if they can predict one or two of the tale’s myriad twists and turns. Gripping, earnest, and impeccably plotted.’
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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

This is part of a trilogy..!

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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.

A book of wonder

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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 .

Gripped from the start

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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.

Disjointed

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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.

ohh my godddd!

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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.

Excellent

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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 :)

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

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

Great plot twist!

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Mark is an auto-buy author for myself and this book is in my top 3 all-time favourite fantasy books.

The dual POVs were so well done and the characters jump off the page to life in my head, the joys of being a visual reader.

Evar had been very young when had been trapped in the library megastructure and he had lived there his whole life, with his found family 3 brothers and a sister. Supervised by 2 of the library's many intriguing workers.

Livira was a young duster girl who lived far away from Crath City, which holds the library. Livira's small settlement was destroyed by Sabbers (meaning enemy). Sabbers are an interesting race and I will let you find out more about them from the book, so to keep the mystery.

Livira(10) journeys across the desert and finds her friends and herself in the city. She is met by a very old Librarian called Yute and put into the trainee library class.

Livira is highly intelligent with an eidetic memory and she has a thirst for knowledge and wants to know how all things work.

She has made some enemies over the years and they are always looking for ways to hinder her progress.

Livira and Evar meet when she is 11,15 and then 20 via time-traveling portals as they are searching the vast library in different time periods. The threads of the story were woven like a tapestry through Mark's amazing gift for prose. The descriptions make the story travel at a steady pace and the main characters make you want to find out more about them and the history of the library and the races of people in the land.

The races seem to be in an endless loop of fighting, winning,losing rinse and repeat. Why and can Livira and Evar break this loop?

Some of the other side characters weren’t fully fleshed out and I look forward to getting to know them as the series continues.

What is the significance of the library and its history? Can Livira and Evar break the endless loop of fighting between races? What will happen to Livira and Evar's relationship as they continue to search the library in different time periods?

There were some nods to old friends from previous trilogies, loved this and the quotes at the start of each chapter were a blink into what was to come.

Book 2 won't be out for a year but I dearly wish I could read it now.

New favourite of the year

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Having read almost all of ML’s other books and loved many (I have re-read the Prince of Thorns trilogy 4x) I was thoroughly excited for a new book.

Unfortunately, I felt this was very different from his usual style and personally not up to the level of his other works. Maybe it’s just not for me, but I found the world of the library pretty static and unexciting and the characters limited and difficult to invest in.

All in all, a far way away from the Prince of Thorns and Book of the Ancestor trilogys and I’m not sure I’ll bother with the next instalment.

Quite different from ML’s other works and not for me

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