Books about Books, Libraries, and Bookstores You Need to Read

I’ll say it loud and proud. I am a bookworm, a book nerd, a bibliophile. Books are some of my favorite friends. I love to read. There is always a pile of books next to my bed. They’re on the floor because there isn’t room on the nightstand for all of them. My husband gave me a iPad for Christmas. It’s great for lots of things, but I didn’t think I’d like reading on it because I prefer paper. Books smell better and feel better than screens. It is handy for articles, cookbooks, and short stories, but it can’t replace a good book in my hands.

There is just something about books. When I was a young child, my father introduced me to the local library. I can still close my eyes and picture my favorite corner where I would read and daydream. I can still see the card files (yes, I am that old). There was always something exciting to find in those drawers.  I can even picture the shelves where my favorite book series were located. There have been a lot of libraries in my life since then and I have loved them all.

Bookstores are also one of my happy places. In fact, one of my very first jobs was in a bookstore. Some of my favorite things about working in a bookstore were unpacking new shipments and seeing the new books before anyone else did, helping customers find just the right book, and just being surrounded by books and book related items. There is a bookstore memory from my childhood that always sticks with me. My family often went to Bookshop Santa Cruz and my favorite thing to look for, besides books, was the bookshop cat. Doesn’t every good bookstore need a cat sleeping somewhere among the shelves?

 

Books About Books

Is it any wonder that I have a Goodreads  shelf called Books About Books? It may not be as full as some of my other bookshelves, but most of the books on it are among my very favorites. Here are some of my top-rated books about books, bookstores, and libraries. Please note this post contains affiliate links. See disclosure page for details.

 

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

The main character of this book, Clay, loses his web-design job during the great recession and in desperation applies for a job at a strange bookstore. The bookstore has only a few customers and they don’t buy anything. Instead, they check out seemingly random books and then return them. If you love bookstores and a little mystery, try this book.

 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

 

This is one of my favorite books of all time. If you haven’t read it yet, you must do it now.  They made a film version in 2013 which is good, but the book is so much better.  Death is the narrator of this story. He describes how he first saw  the girl he calls the Book Thief. The book is really her story, but is told through death’s observations as he regularly stops by while going about his work during World War II. Liesel (the thief) is a girl left by her mother in the care of others near Munich, Germany. Her foster father teaches her how to read and her love affair with words begins. She steals books from Nazi book burnings, from the library of  the mayor’s wife, and anywhere else she can. She also befriends a young German boy who idolizes Jesse Owens and a Jewish man who they hide in their basement. There are moments of great joy in the book, but it is also incredibly sad. But then, what else would you expect from a book set in Nazi Germany.

 

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

 

This is the first in a trio of books by children’s author, Cornelia Funke. If you read this, you’ll want, maybe even need, to read the other two (Inkspell and Inkdeath). This is the story of a Meggie and her bookbinder father, Moe. He has a special gift. When he reads aloud, sometimes the characters from the book he is reading leave their story world and enter ours. When this happens, something from our world goes into the story. Unfortunately, he lost his wife (Meggie’s mother) this way. He also set free some terrible criminals who try to make him read more for them. A movie was made in 2009, but I really don’t recommend it.

 

 The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

If the Salem Witch Trials hold any interest for you, try this book out. This story travels back and forth between Connie Goodwin,a Harvard graduate student working on her dissertation, and a woman convicted of witchcraft named Deliverance Dane. What is their connection? Read and find out.

 

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

 

This story begins in 1945 in Barcelona. Daniel is the son of an antiquarian book seller. His father takes him to a secret vault of books and he is allowed to pick one to care for. He chooses a rare book by Julian Carax. Unfortunately, the book has a dark background that involves murder, insanity and lost love. As Daniel searches for more books by the author, he finds that someone is purposely destroying every copy in existence. A creepy, but fun read.

 

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

 

This is the first in a series. I especially enjoyed the first couple of books, but the latter ones not as much. The story is set in alternate reality Britain in the 1980s. The Crimean War is still being fought, cloning pets is a hobby (the heroine has a pet Dodo), and literature is taken very seriously. It’s a world where you can literally get lost in a book. Thursday Next, our heroine, is a special operative in literary detection. Someone is kidnapping characters from novels and she has to find out who and why and save some of literature’s most beloved icons. This quirky and fun and sure to be favored by book lovers.

 

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

 

 

Everyone I know who has read this book loved it. When I was finished, I wanted to read more. The story is told through letters between a female writer in London, and her correspondent on the isle of Guernsey. The communications tell how the inhabitants of the island persevered during Nazi occupation. Their book club plays a central role.. I love the cast of wonderful characters, book lovers, from many different walks of life.

 

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

 

 

This is a story of two women. One is a young antiquarian bookseller and amateur biographer named Margaret Lea. She is asked to write the biography of a famed, but reclusive author, Vida Winters. Ms. Winters has never given a straight forward interview about her life and background. In preparation for their meeting, Margaret reads a copy of Vida’s “Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation.” Strangely, there are only twelve stories in the book. Where is the thirteenth tale? This is the story that Vida wants to tell Margaret before she dies. It is sad, mysterious, and slightly disturbing, but an incredible tale nonetheless.

 

The Black Book of Secrets by F.E. Higgins

Running from a terrible past, Ludlow Fitch arrives in a small village and begins working for a local loan shark. Joe Zabbidou is not your ordinary pawnbroker, because he trades in secrets. And this village has an awful lot of secrets. It is Ludlow’s job to write them all down in the Black Book of Secrets. The story is a little dark and creepy, but really entertaining.

 

Escape From Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein

 

A great book for kids and book lovers of all ages. Mr. Lemoncello is a famous game maker who builds a new town library. Twelve kids are chosen to spend the night as part of the opening celebrations. What they don’t know is Mr. Lemoncello has devised a game for them to play. This is sort of a twist between Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Night at the Museum. A fun read, especially for those of us who love libraries and learning.

 

Here There Be Dragons by James A, Owens

The dramatic murder of a professor brings together three strangers, John, Jack, and Charles, on a rainy night in London. An man called Bert tells them that they are now the caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica. It is an atlas of all the lands that have ever existed in myth, legend, and fairy tale. They embark on an adventure via a ship called the Indigo Dragon. It is one of only seven vessels that is able to cross the border between our world and the Archipelago of Dreams. There is a twist at the end I should have seen coming. It is the first in a series.

 

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester

I really enjoy reading books by Simon Winchester. He has a way of making history read more like a novel. In this book, he takes on the fascinating story of the creation of the first Oxford English Dictionary. People from all walks of life contributed to the definitions in the book, but one of the most prolific writers turned out to be an American civil war veteran and doctor who was an inmate in a hospital for the criminally insane.

 

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

 

Mr. Fikry is having a rough time. He mourns for his deceased wife, his bookshop sales keep declining, and one of his most valuable books is stolen. But then a baby is left on the steps of his shop, and life begins to turn around. This story is filled with lovely characters, quirky bookstore culture, and an unconventional island population.

From My To-Read List

 

The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

I want to read this book for several reasons…the cover (just look at it), the title, and the description. It’s about a woman who;s passion in life is matching the book to its reader. But when she loses her job at the city library, she begins again, buying a mobile book store and meeting all sorts of characters along the way. Sounds like a dream job!

 

Every Book Its Reader: The Power of the Printed Word to Stir the World by Nicholas A. Basbanes

 

Nicholas A. Basbanes is an expert in the literary history. He looks at what books have changed the way people think. Especially of interest are his studies of texts studied by major players in world history such as Adolph Hitler, Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, John Adams and Helen Keller. What did they read and how did it influence them?

 

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman

 

A collection of essays on the authors love affair with books. Fadiman grew up in a literary family where she gained a love of the written word at a very young age. She once read an auto repair manual belonging to a roommate because it was the only book in the apartment that she had read multiple times. One of her favorite birthday gifts was 19 pounds of dusty old books. She sounds like my kind of girl.

 

A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas A. Basbanes

Yes, this is another book by Nicholas A. Basbanes. This one is a detailed history of book collecting through the ages. What makes book collectors tick? What lengths do they go through to obtain the rare books they want? How much money do they spend on their collections?

 

Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores: True Tales and Lost Moments from Book Buyers, Booksellers, and Book Lowers by Bob Eckstein

 

 

And one last one I found in my local bookstore. This one is beautiful. I want to buy it. Usually I borrow most of my books from my local library, but this is one I definitely want to own. It is a collection of watercolor paintings and stories about some of the world’s most famous bookstores.

Wow. That’s a lot of book about books. I’ll bet you know more. Share them with me in the comment section. And please share this post with other book lovers. Thanks for reading.