100 Must-Read Books About Books
This installment of 100 Must-Read is sponsored by 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 book-loving pen pal, Amy. When she arrives, however, she finds Amy’s funeral guests just leaving. The residents of Broken Wheel are happy to look after their bewildered visitor—not much else to do in a small town that’s almost beyond repair. They just never imagined that she’d start a bookstore. Or that books could bring them together—and change everything.
***
When I worked in publishing, my colleagues and I had a weird ritual when new books arrived from the printer. We would all gather around the big shipping boxes and cut them open, then we’d each reach in for a copy, open it up, and put our noses to the pages.
“Ahhh, the smell of fresh books,” someone would always say, breathing in the inky scent.
When you’re a true-blue “book person,” you love everything about books: The way they smell. The way the pages feel. The weight they add to your bag. The way they look on your shelf. (Do I sound like a book stalker? Guilty.)
It’s only natural, then, that bibliophiles love reading books about books. Whether it’s cheering on the rebel readers in Fahrenheit 451 or following the true story of an infamous book thief in The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, novels and nonfiction that give books a starring role have an undeniable appeal for book lovers.
In How Reading Changed My Life Anna Quindlen writes, “There was waking, and there was sleeping. And then there were books.” If you’re nodding your head in agreement, this list of one hundred bookish books is for you:
Fiction
1. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
2. The Bestseller by Olivia Goldsmith
3. The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
4. The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler
5. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
6. The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald
7. The Bookstore by Deborah Meyler
8. Booked to Die (Cliff Janeway #1) by John Dunning
9. The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton
10. The Case of the Missing Books (Mobile Library Mysteries #1) by Ian Sansom
11. The Children’s Book by A. S. Byatt
12. The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
13. The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1) by Jasper Fforde
14. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
15. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
16. First Impressions by Charlie Lovett
17. The Forgers by Bradford Morrow
18. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer
19. The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley
20. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
21. Ink and Bone (The Great Library #1) by Rachel Caine
22. Inkheart (Inkworld #1) by Cornelia Funke
23. The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
24. The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
25. Matilda by Roald Dahl
26. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
27. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
28. The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
29. The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger
30. Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier
31. A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cossé
32. Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley
33. The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
34. Possession by A. S. Byatt
35. The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald
36. S. by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst
37. The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay
38. The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books #1) by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
39. The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
40. The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami
41. The Summer We Read Gatsby by Danielle Ganuk
42. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
43. Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal
44. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
45. An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine
46. Unwritten Vol. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity by Mike Carey and Peter Gross
47. The Violets of March by Sarah Jio
Nonfiction
48. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
49. 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die by Peter Boxall
50. At Home with Books: How Booklovers Live with and Care for Their Libraries by Estelle Ellis
51. Bibliotopia: Or, Mr. Gilbar’s Book of Books & Catch-All of Literary Facts & Curiosities by Steven Gilbar
52. The Book by Julius Friedman
53. Book Crush: For Kids and Teens – Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment and Interest by Nancy Pearl
54. Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason by Nancy Pearl
55. The Book of Lost Books: An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You’ll Never Read by Stuart Kelly
56. The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petroski
57. Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry
58. The Bookshop Book by Jen Campbell
59. Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books by Michael Dirda
60. Classics for Pleasure by Michael Dirda
61. The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe
62. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman
63. Forgotten Bookmarks: A Bookseller’s Collection of Odd Things Lost Between the Pages by Michael Popek
64. A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas A. Basbanes
65. A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel
66. The House of Twenty Thousand Books by Sasha Abramsky
67. How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen
68. How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler
69. Howards End Is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home by Susan Hill
70. Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books by Maureen Corrigan
71. The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time by David L. Ulin
72. The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett
73. My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop by Ronald Rice
74. My Ideal Bookshelf by Thessaly La Force
75. My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead
76. My Reading Life by Pat Conroy
77. The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You by Ella Berthoud
78. A Passion for Books: A Book Lover’s Treasury of Stories, Essays, Humor, Love and Lists on Collecting, Reading, Borrowing, Lending, Caring for, and Appreciating Books by Harold Rabinowitz
79. Phantoms on the Bookshelves by Jacques Bonnet
80. The Pleasure of Reading: 43 Writers on the Discovery of Reading and the Books that Inspired Them by Antonia Fraser
81. The Polysyllabic Spree: A Hilarious and True Account of One Man’s Struggle with the Monthly Tide of the Books He’s Bought and the Books He’s Been Meaning to Read by Nick Hornby
82. The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
83. Rare Books Uncovered: True Stories of Fantastic Finds in Unlikely Places by Rebecca Rego Barry
84. Read This! Handpicked Favorites from America’s Indie Bookstores by Hans Weyandt
85. A Reader on Reading by Alberto Manguel
86. Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose
87. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
88. The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared by Alice Ozma
89. Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books by Lynne Sharon Schwartz
90. Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books by Paul Collins
91. So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading by Sara Nelson
92. Ten Years in the Tub: A Decade Soaking in Great Books by Nick Hornby
93. Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading by Nina Sankovitch
94. Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone
95. Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell
96. When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning
97. Where I’m Reading From: The Changing World of Books by Tim Parks
98. The World Between Two Covers: Reading the Globe by Ann Morgan
99. The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life by Andy Miller
100. The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, a History by Lewis Buzbee
What other books about books did I miss? Share your favorites in the comments!
