All human life is there

This book kept reminding me of Robin Williams in One Hour Photo. Just as his character spied on customers’ private lives while developing their pictures, so Chris Paling gets to know the readers at the library where he works. Unlike Williams he doesn’t follow them home at the end of the day (in fact some of the female librarians have the opposite problem), but Paling’s anonymous, functional role lets him observe without being observed. He sees the woman with two small children who takes out Is Daddy Coming Back in a Minute?, explaining sudden death to children in words they can understand. The ‘effete, shaven-headed man in a well-cut suit’ who angrily discusses his new shrink on his mobile phone. The woman who snaps at her husband to hide the tube of Anusol he’s just bought, then orders: ‘Now choose your books.’

What makes Paling so suited for the role is his career as a novelist.