Book people love books. They love how they look. They love how they feel. And they love the stories they contain. Few bibliophiles can resist the charms of a book reflecting the reader’s own deep love of books.
Books about books are myriad. There are stories in which books play a crucial role, and there are books that discuss the impact of books and reading on people’s everyday lives. The characters in some books are readers, and there are some books in which a character reads a particular book. Sometimes a story is set in a library or bookstore, and sometimes a character visits a bookstore or library.
The following are all books that share the love of books:
Fiction
The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald
Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara, who traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her pen pal, Amy. When she arrives, however, she finds that Amy's funeral has just ended. Unwilling to return home without getting to know firsthand the people and places Amy described in her correspondence, Sara decides to rescue one of the town's many abandoned storefronts and open a shop using Amy's eclectic trove of books.
The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler
Simon Watson, a young librarian on the verge of losing his job, receives a mysterious package from an antiquarian bookseller. It contains a mysterious volume that documents suicides by drowning dating back to the early nineteenth century, many of whom turn out to be Simon's female ancestors.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer
As London is emerging from the shadow of World War II, writer Juliet Ashton discovers her next subject in a book club on Guernsey--a club born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi after its members are discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel -- a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.
The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
A. J. Fikry, the cantankerous owner of Island Books, is despondent after the death of his beloved wife and theft of his prized rare edition of Tamerlane. When he discovers an abandoned baby at his store, he undergoes a dramatic transformation.
Non-Fiction
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett
Journalist Allison Hoover Bartlett recounts the crimes of John Charles Gilkey -- an obsessed, unrepentant book thief who stole hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of rare books from book fairs, stores, and libraries around the country -- and of Ken Sanders, the a book collector and self-appointed book detective, who finally caught him.
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
Literature professor Azar Nafisi recounts how in the Islamic Republic of Iran, she and seven of her female students secretly gathered for two years every Thursday morning to read forbidden Western classics.
When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning
This book chronicles the joint effort of the U.S. government, the publishing industry, and the nation's librarians to boost troop morale during World War II by shipping more than one hundred million books to the front lines for soldiers to read during what little downtime they had.
Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose
A consummate novelist and critic as well as a seasoned teacher approaches the art of writing through the art of reading.
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
What started as a request for an out-of-print book evolved into a 20-year friendship between Helene Hanff, a freelance writer living in New York, and Frank Doel, a used-book dealer in London.