100 Must-Read Books about Books

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 visitorâ€"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 togetherâ€"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 youre 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 Booksellers 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 Mans Struggle with the Monthly Tide of the Books Hes Bought and the Books Hes 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!