The Book That Wouldn't Burn

Written by British American author Mark Lawrence, The Book That Wouldn’t Burn (2023) is the first installment of The Library Trilogy fantasy series. The narrative follows two characters: Livira, a young orphan from a war-torn region known as the Dust, and Evar, one of five children who have spent their lives trapped in a strange, immense library. It is a story about stories, the way that connections through books persist across time and space and despite forces that attempt to stifle or censor them.

This guide refers to the 2023 e-book edition published by ACE, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Content Warning: Both the source text and this guide describe scenes that deal with enslavement and racism.

Plot Summary

Livira is a young girl living in a desolate place called the Dust. Her life is upended when wolf-like creatures called canith attack the village, killing many of the villagers and taking Livira and the other children. However, the children are eventually rescued by soldiers, one of whom, Malar, leads them to the distant Crath City. While the other children are allocated to positions of manual labor, Livira’s curiosity and unwillingness to bow to societal expectations catch the attention of Master Yute, one of the deputy librarians at the library from which the city derives its power.

Despite the prejudices against the people who live in the Dust, Yute chooses Livira to become a trainee. The library is an endless maze of chambers, many of which are only accessible with the help of the automaton guides and assistants that predate the city. Despite Livira’s illiteracy, she quickly catches up with the rest of the trainees. As part of the training, she and a group of trainees are sent into the labyrinthine library to locate a book. If they fail to find it within two days, one of them will be permanently removed from the library. Realizing that this assignment is a ploy to remove her from her position, Livira strays from the group to look for the book herself. On the way, she meets an automaton raven, one of the library’s guides, who leads her to a strange portal.

In an isolated library chamber, Evar Evantari lives with his four adopted siblings: Kerrol, Starval, Clovis, and Mayland. For generations, their people have been trapped in this one massive room, which contains nothing but books, a pool of water by which they grow food, and a strange device called the Mechanism. Those who enter the Mechanism while holding a book are transported into the story’s pages, but sometimes the user does not leave the Mechanism for decades. This happened to the five children, each of whom entered the Mechanism with a different book. By the time they emerged, their people were long dead, and they were raised by two of the automatons: the Soldier and the Assistant. While the other four siblings learned valuable skills from their respective books, Evar has no memory of his book. He only knows that he is trying to find and save a woman that he met there.

One day, Evar must fight a monster called an Escape when it emerges from the Mechanism, and he also finds a book containing a cryptic message addressed to him. The writer urges him to meet her in a place called the Exchange. Realizing that this exchange is at the bottom of the pool, he dives in and emerges in a strange forest full of trees and portals. Livira’s hand suddenly emerges from a portal, so Evar reaches out and pulls her through. They talk and share their respective quests before Livira is pulled away again. (The two will later discover that the portals in the Exchange offer access to different time frames within the world. Travelers who visit a different time emerge into that reality as ghosts.) As Evar continues his search within the Exchange, he witnesses the past massacre of his people as a ghost.

Meanwhile, Livira learns about the rigid social order and the library’s influence on the city’s politics. In their infrequent meetings, Yute tells her about the cyclical effect that the library has on civilization, which is doomed to undergo cycles of knowledge and progress followed by collapse. A new period of destruction now looms as the canith approach from beyond the walls and threaten Crath. 

Livira returns to the exchange and finds Evar, realizing that little time has passed for him since their last meeting. They also discover that the Exchange is a space outside the normal flow of time; the portals allow them to travel between different times. They explore several of them, only to be separated again when Escapes ambush them. Livira is drawn back to her own time (which is later revealed to be much earlier than Evar’s). While she is determined to find Evar, she is forced to continue her life in her version of the library.

Years pass for Livira, and while some higher-ranked librarians try to block her progress, Yute convinces the head librarian, Yamala, to allow Livira’s promotion to junior librarian. As time passes, Livira also writes her own stories and thoughts into the margins of the various books stored in the library, as well as tales of fictional travels with Evar; these will eventually be collected into a book of her own. Intent upon finding the Exchange, she breaks into Yamala’s private quarters, where she finds a book on the subject. After discovering that an assistant’s silver blood can unlock the Exchange, Livira opens her own portal and reunites with Evar. The two navigate portals together, finding a desolate, post-apocalyptic city in which a past conflict has eradicated both the humans and canith. Evar and Livira, having grown closer over their meetings, share a kiss, but their happiness is broken when Clovis finds them in the Exchange and accuses Evar of being a traitor. It is revealed that Evar is a canith: a fact that was hidden by the Exchange’s magic. Livira returns to Crath feeling betrayed.

The city is attacked by the canith, and as Crath’s defenses fall, Livira, Yute, Malar, and other survivors retreat through the burning library, hoping to hide in the Exchange. Meanwhile, Evar convinces his siblings to help him reunite with Livira. When both groups meet in the Exchange, a fight breaks out, only to be broken by Yute. The librarian reveals that he was once an assistant of the library. He became mortal after witnessing the destruction of the city whose ruins Livira and Evar saw earlier in the narrative. That city had been a harmonious settlement of humans and canith, and it was destroyed by a different enemy. Yute became mortal to find a way to stop the cycle of destruction.

While the others argue, Livira gets Evar to help her save Malar, who was wounded during the attack. They take Malar to Evar’s time frame and version of the library for healing, and Livira soon realizes that Evar’s book is the same one that she has been writing over the years. When Livira unlocks a door, she accidentally lets in the insectoid creatures called skeer. In the ensuing attack, Livira, Evar, and Malar flee back to the Exchange while the Soldier and the Assistant hold off the skeer.

Once in the Exchange, Livira realizes that some of her people are trapped in the library. In a desperate bid to save them, she and Malar—now in ghost form because they are no longer in their own time—possess the bodies of two automaton assistants. The narrative reveals that with this choice, they become the timeless Soldier and the Assistant: the same ones who raise and protect the five canith siblings in Evar’s time. However, this transformation comes at the cost of their memories and selves, which fade. When Evar realizes that the Assistant is really Livira, he rushes to save the Assistant in his own time, only to find that she has been destroyed by the skeer. However, unbeknownst to him, Livira herself still exists in ghost form, and she watches him grieve for her. Clovis and Kerrol arrive and help him to fight off the remaining creatures. In the aftermath, the three leave the chamber for the first time, determined to find a way to reunite Evar with Livira. The story continues with The Book that Broke the World.