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
- Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
- The Bestseller by Olivia Goldsmith
- The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
- The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler
- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
- The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald
- The Bookstore by Deborah Meyler
- Booked to Die (Cliff Janeway #1) by John Dunning
- The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton
- The Case of the Missing Books (Mobile Library Mysteries #1) by Ian Sansom
- The Children’s Book by A. S. Byatt
- The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
- The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1) by Jasper Fforde
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
- First Impressions by Charlie Lovett
- The Forgers by Bradford Morrow
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer
- The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley
- If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
- Ink and Bone (The Great Library #1) by Rachel Caine
- Inkheart (Inkworld #1) by Cornelia Funke
- The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
- The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
- Matilda by Roald Dahl
- Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
- The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
- The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
- The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger
- Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier
- A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cossé
- Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley
- The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
- Possession by A. S. Byatt
- The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald
- S. by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst
- The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay
- The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books #1) by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
- The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
- The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami
- The Summer We Read Gatsby by Danielle Ganuk
- The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
- Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal
- The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
- An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine
- Unwritten Vol. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity by Mike Carey and Peter Gross
- The Violets of March by Sarah Jio Nonfiction 48. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
- At Home with Books: How Booklovers Live with and Care for Their Libraries by Estelle Ellis
- Bibliotopia: Or, Mr. Gilbar’s Book of Books & Catch-All of Literary Facts & Curiosities by Steven Gilbar
- The Book by Julius Friedman
- Book Crush: For Kids and Teens – Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment and Interest by Nancy Pearl
- Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason by Nancy Pearl
- The Book of Lost Books: An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You’ll Never Read by Stuart Kelly
- The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petroski
- Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry
- The Bookshop Book by Jen Campbell
- Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books by Michael Dirda
- Classics for Pleasure by Michael Dirda
- The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe
- Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman
- Forgotten Bookmarks: A Bookseller’s Collection of Odd Things Lost Between the Pages by Michael Popek
- A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas A. Basbanes
- A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel
- The House of Twenty Thousand Books by Sasha Abramsky
- How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen
- How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler
- Howards End Is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home by Susan Hill
- Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books by Maureen Corrigan
- The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time by David L. Ulin
- 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
- My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop by Ronald Rice
- My Ideal Bookshelf by Thessaly La Force
- My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead
- My Reading Life by Pat Conroy
- The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You by Ella Berthoud
- 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
- Phantoms on the Bookshelves by Jacques Bonnet
- The Pleasure of Reading: 43 Writers on the Discovery of Reading and the Books that Inspired Them by Antonia Fraser
- 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
- The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
- Rare Books Uncovered: True Stories of Fantastic Finds in Unlikely Places by Rebecca Rego Barry
- Read This! Handpicked Favorites from America’s Indie Bookstores by Hans Weyandt
- A Reader on Reading by Alberto Manguel
- Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose
- Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
- The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared by Alice Ozma
- Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books by Lynne Sharon Schwartz
- Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books by Paul Collins
- So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading by Sara Nelson
- 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
- Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone
- Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell
- When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning
- Where I’m Reading From: The Changing World of Books by Tim Parks
- 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!
