Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books.
 
One morning on his daily walk, Bob encounters a confused elderly woman and returns her to the senior centre that is her home. Hoping to fill the void he's known since retiring, he begins volunteering there.
 
Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around him, and following a brush with a painful complication from his past, the story of Bob's life is revealed: the story of an unhappy child's runaway adventure during the last days of the Second World War; of true love won and stolen away; of the purpose and pride found in the librarian's vocation.
 
Written with deWitt's inimitable verve, skewed humour and compassion for the outcast, The Librarianist celebrates the extraordinary in the so-called ordinary life.