Apple Books keeps crashing

I have an early 2015 MacBook Air, with OS 10.14.1. Using my account Books crashes after about a second. an error report opens up. Clicking Reopen results in the app opening and crashing again. Books still crashes with the MacBook in Safe Mode. Opening Books under the MacBook Guest account is OK, and I am able to open a test PDF without crashing.

I conclude that the Books App under my account has a corrupt library file. Trouble is that I am unable to open Books long enough to clear the library or diagnose the problem. Any suggestions as to how I can overcome this problem?