Orlean had already been interested in how modern libraries function, with their complex networks of departments and branches—but the great library fire of 1986 gave her book a center.

  On February 19, when the American pair Madison Chock and Evan Bates glided onto the ice for the free-dance competition at the Winter Olympics in Pyenogchang, some Darwinian instinct in me whispered, Root for them. You won’t be disappointed. The…