Ian Sansom Books In Order

Publication Order of The County Guides Books

Publication Order of Mobile Library Mystery Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Ian Sansom is a published English journalist, novelist, broadcaster, and an academic.

He is known to most readers for being the creator and the author of The Mobile Library series and the Country Guides series. He has also written numerous columns for publications and has been a frequent contributor to literary journals as well as British and Irish newspapers.

Ian has also worked in academia a fair bit and has held a variety of posts in that world, from working at the University of Warwick as a Professor of Creative Writing and a Director of the Warwick Writing Programme to working at the Queen’s University Belfast as their Professor and Head of the School of English, and at Trinity College Dublin as their Director of the Oscar Wilde Centre. He also serves as a Research Fellow in English at Emmanuel College in Cambridge.

Ian has written for various publications as a critic and journalist. These include but are not limited to The London Review of Books, The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, the New Statesman, and The Spectator. In 2025, he had the honor of being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Sansom has also written his fair share of fictional works as well. He is the author of The Mobile Library series, which kicked off with its debut novel The Case of the Missing Books. The series features a main character that works as a librarian in northern Ireland and combines elements of comedy and crime fiction.

He is also the author of the Country Guides series of fictional novels. These extend to The Norfolk Mystery, Death in Devon, Westmorland Alone, Essex Poison, and The Sussex Murders. He has written fiction such as the 2004 work Ring Road, which also was broadcast as the Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4.

Ian has written nonfiction that includes the 2012 cultural history of paper Paper: An Elegy, a study of a W.H. Auden poem, and Reading Room: A Year of Literary Curiosities. He is also a co-author of The Enthusiast Almanack and The Enthusiast Field Guide to Poetry with David Herd, written in 2007.

He has written and had published criticisms, essays, and short fiction in various journals that include The London Review of Books, The Dublin Review, The Yale Review, Salmagundi, and Raritan. Ian has also contributed to edited collections and exhibition catalogues and has been an editor of different literary magazines such as Thumbscrew and The Enthusiast.

He has written and presented for BBC Radio, especially Radio 3 and 4. Sansom has contributed his own short stories, essay series, documentaries, and literary features. The work that he has done extends to contributions to The Essay, Opening Lines, and different stand alone series and features.

The Case of the Missing Books is the first book in The Mobile Library Mystery series by Ian Sansom. This is a fun mystery book that is guaranteed to keep you entertained whether you’re reading it in parts or all the way through. Love mystery but don’t have as many books on hand to get through as you’d like? This book is for you.

Main character Israel Armstrong is the type of man who is passionate down to the very depths of his soul. He has been pulled to Ireland thanks to the chance to start a new career and is quite excited at the prospect. Once he gets there, however, Israel finds that the job that is waiting for him is a little bit different than the one that he was expecting.

Israel is a little bit let down but is not going to allow his sense of disappointment to rule him. If he has to drive a mobile library around, he’s going to do his very best at it and fulfill the requirements of the position. He’ll take this mobile library all around this small Irish town and over the damp streets so that people can get their literary desires met.

Once he starts, he is pleasantly surprised that there’s a lot to like about this job. The scenery all around him is wonderful to look at and take in, and the people who live there are friendly and extremely charming. The only issue is that the library on wheels seems to have diminished in a sizable manner as fifteen thousand of the books have disappeared.

Unfortunately, that’s pretty much the library itself. If Israel cannot recover the books, he just may be out of a job. The only possible explanation is that someone has decided to steal them, but who would want to lift that many books and why?

It’s up to Israel to take on the task that has landed before him, even as he is just getting accustomed to the town. He was hoping to take on the mystery off where he finds a quality cappuccino and a good newspaper, but now finds himself having to tackle a bigger mystery instead.

Can Israel recover the missing contents of the mobile library or is he about to find out that his rolling days are about to be over just as they have begun? In order to save his new job and help the people of the town get their book library back, he’s going to have to embrace his new job of amateur detective. Will his sleuthing pay off or are the books forever gone, never to be recovered? Find out by reading the fun first book in Ian Sansom’s Mobile Library series!

Mr. Dixon Disappears is the second book in The Mobile Library Mystery series by Ian Sansom. If you thought that the first book in this series was interesting, keep things going by checking out another mystery featuring main character Israel Armstrong.

A man who belongs to the Ulster Association of Magicians has disappeared along with 100,000 pounds cash. Israel is busy with his mobile library job but can’t resist getting involved in the investigation. Unfortunately, this means that his job gets placed on hold and police are now even more suspicious of him.

Israel is on a mission to clear his name, find the missing Mr. Dixon, and get his mobile library van back along with his job. Can he track down the missing magician or has this man truly disappeared? Does his curiosity mean that he’s permanently out of a job? And is the beautiful barmaid Rosie romantically interested in him the way that he is in her? Read the second mystery in Ian Sansom’s series to find out!