Books about Books: Nonfiction
Updated June 16, 2023
Note: This set of checklists focuses on titles for nonprofessional book-loving adults. The lists do not include books about the publishing industry, manuals for book collectors, books about how to create or operate a bookselling business, books for children or books about children’s literature, manuals on the teaching of reading, library science textbooks or books about library science, handbooks for using books as materials for creating objects of art, collections of academic literary criticism, collections of book reviews, catalogs of particular libraries, or blank books designed for recording one’s own reading.
Titles are listed alphabetically within each section of these checklists.
Click on a topic listed below to jump to that section of the booklist.
Please email suggestions for additional titles to calgough@bellsouth.net
Book Collecting
Among the Gently Mad: Strategies and Perspectives for the Book Hunter in the 21st Century by Nicholas Basbanes. Henry Holt, 2002.
The Anatomy of Bibliomania by Jackson Holbrook. London: Soncino Press, 1930. Revised edition: Scribner’s Sons, 1932; republished by Creative Media Partners, 2018.
Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction by Tom Raabe. Fulcrum Publishing, 1996.
Bibliomania; or Book Madness by Thomas Frognall Dibdin. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, 1809; McCreery, 1811.
Bibliosophia, or Book Wisdom, Containing Some Account of the Pride, Pleasure, and Privileges, of That Glorious Vocation, Book-collecting by James Beresford. London: William Miller, 1810. Republished in two volumes by Velikovsky Press, 2011. Republished by Palala Press, 2015.
The Book Addict: Stories of Bibliomania edited by David Christopher Lane. Mount San Antonio College, 2019.
The Book Fancier, Or The Romance of Book Collecting by Percy Fitzgerald. Lippincott, 1886; London: Sampson, Low, Marston, 1886. 2nd edition: Scribner & Welford, 1887; London: Sampson, Low, Marston, 1914. Reprinted by Nabu Press, 2010; by Sagwan Press, 2015. Published as Collecting Old Books: Percy Fitzgerald’s The Book Fancier by Westphalia Press, 2013.
The Book-Hunter in London by William Roberts. 1895.
The Book-Hunter in Paris by Octave Uzanne. 1895.
Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs by Henry H. Harper. 1904.
Book Madness: A Story of Book Collectors in America by Denise Gigante. Yale University Press, 2022.
Books and Bidders by A.S.W. Rosenbach. 1927.
Books and Bookmen by Andrew Lang. London: Longmans, Green & Company, 1887. (Many subsequent reprintings by various publishers.)
The Choice of Books by Charles Richardson. Alden, 1883.
Comfort Found in Good Old Books by George Hamlin Fitch. Paul Elder & Co., 1911.
The Delightful Diversion: The Whys and Wherefores of Book Collecting by Reginald Brewer. Macmillan, 1935. Republished by Literary Licensing, LLC, 2012.
For the Love of Books: The Adventures of an Impecunious Collector by Paul Jordan-Smith. Oxford University Press, 1934; reprinted by Books for Libraries Press, 1969.
A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas A. Basbanes. Henry Holt & Co., 1995.
The Great Book-Collectors by Charles Isaac Elton. K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Company, 1893.
The Groaning Shelf and Other Instances of Book Love by Pradeep Sebastian. Hachette India, 2010.
The House of Twenty Thousand Books by Sasha Abramsky. New York Review Books, 2015.
In the Track of the Bookworm: Thoughts, Fancies, and Gentle Gibes on Collecting and Collectors, by One of Them by Irving Browne. 1897.
The Last Bookseller: A Life in the Rare Book Trade by Gary Goodman. University of Minnesota Press, 2021.
The Library by Andrew Lang. Macmillan, 1881.
The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac by Eugene Field. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896.
The Love of Books: The Philobiblon by Richard de Bury. Written 1345; originally printed in Cologne, 1473; in England, 1599; numerous subsequent translations and printings.
Memoirs of a Book Snake: Forty Years of Seeking and Saving Old Books by David Meyer. Waltham Street Press, 2001.
Old Books, Rare Friends: Two Literary Sleuths and Their Shared Passion by Madeline B. Stern. Doubleday, 1997.
Portrait of an Obsession: The Life of Sir Thomas Phillipps, the World’s Greatest Book Collector by A.N.L. Munby. 1967.
Rare Book Hunting: Essays and Escapades by Kurt W. Zimmerman. Independently published, 2020.
Rare Books Uncovered: True Stories of Fantastic Finds in Unlikely Places by Rebecca Rego Barry. Voyageur Press, 2018.
Reading Matter: A Rabid Bibliophile’s Adventures Among Old & Rare Books by Jack Matthews. Oak Knoll Press, 2000.
Reading Room Only: Memoir of a Radical Bibliophile by Phil Cohen. Five Leaves Publications, 2013.
Slightly Chipped: Footnotes in Booklore by Lawrence Goldstone. St. Martin’s, 1999.
So You Think You’re a Bookworm? Over 20 Hilarious Profiles of the Literati by Jo Hoare. London: Dog ‘n’ Bone, 2018.
Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World by Lawrence Goldstone. St. Martin’s Griffin, 1998.
Wedded to Books by Leigh Hunt. [1850?]
Books & Readers in Art & Photography
The Art of Reading: A Photo Essay by Lawrence Schwartzwald. McNally Jackson Books, 2016.
The Art of Reading: An Illustrated History of Books in Paint by Jamie Camplin and Maria Ranauro. Getty Publications, 2018.
A Book of Books: Photographs by Abelardo Morell. Bullfinch Press / Little, Brown, 2002.
Books & Mortar: A Celebration of the Local Bookstore by Gibbs Smith. Self-published, 2018.
I’d Rather Be Reading: A Library of Art for Book Lovers by Guinevere De la Mare. Chronicle Books, 2017.
On Reading by Andre Kertesz. Grossman, 1971; republished by W. W. Norton, 2008.
Reading Art: Art for Booklovers by David Trigg. Phaidon Press Limited, 2018.
Reading Women by Stefan Bollmann and Karen Joy Fowler. Merrell, 2006.
Bookstores
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Against Amazon and Other Essays by Jorge Carrion. Biblioasis, 2020.
The Bankrupt Bookseller by William Y. Darling. Edinburgh: Grant, 1947.
Book Row: An Anecdotal and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade by Marvin Mondlin. Skyhorse (reprint), 2019.
Book Towns: Forty-Five Paradises of the Printed Word by Alex Johnson. Francis Lincoln, 2018.
Books and Mortar: A Celebration of the Local Bookstore by Gibbs Smith. Self-published, 2018.
The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad. Little, Brown, 2013.
The Bookseller’s Tale by Martin Latham. Penguin, 2023.
The Bookshop Book by Jen Campbell. Constable, 2014; Little, Brown, 2015.
Bookshop Tours of Britain by Louise Boland. Fairlight Books, 2020.
Bookshops: A Reader’s History by Jorge Carrion. London: MacLehose Press, 2018.
The Bookstore That Floated Away by Sarah Henshaw. Constable, 2014.
Bookstores: A Celebration of Independent Booksellers by Horst A. Friedrichs. Prestel, 2021.
Browse: Love Letters to Bookshops Around the World edited by Henry Hitchings. Pushkin Press, 2017; reissued 2019. Originally published in 2016 as Browse: The World in Bookshops.
Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell. David R. Godine, 2020.
The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell. Profile Books, 2017.
Do You Read Me? Bookstores Around the World by Marianne Julia Strauss. Gestalten, 2020.
18 Bookshops by Anne Scott. Highland [Scotland]: Sandstone Press, 2016.
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. Grossman, 1970.
A Factotum in the Book in the Book Trade: A Memoir by Marius Kociejowski. Biblioasis, 2022.
Feminist Revolution in Literacy: Women’s Bookstores in the United States by Junko R. Onosaka. Routledge, 2006.
Fifty Years in My Bookstore: Or a Life With Books by Harry W. Schwartz. Booksellers House, 1992.
Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores: True Tales and Lost Moments from Book Buyers, Booksellers, and Book Lovers by Bob Eckstein. Clarkson Potter, 2016.
I Can’t Remember the Title but the Cover is Blue by Elias Greig. Allen & Unwin, 2018.
In Praise of Good Bookstores by Jeff Deutsch. Princeton University Press, 2022.
The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap: A Memoir of Friendship, Community, and the Uncommon Pleasure of a Good Book by Wendy Welch. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2013.
My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop edited by Ronald Rice. Black Dog & Leventhal, 2012.
On The Books: A Graphic Tale of Working Woes at NYC’s Strand Bookstore by Greg Farrell. Microcosm Publishing, 2014.
Rebel Bookseller: Why Indie Bookstores Represent Everything You Want to Fight for from Free Speech to Buying Local to Building Communities by Andrew Laties. Seven Stories Press, revised edition 2011.
Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption by Laura J. Miller. University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops by Shaun Bythell. David R. Godine, 2020.
Shakespeare and Company by Sylvia Beach. Harcourt, Brace, 1959.
Shakespeare and Company, Paris: A History of the Rag & Bone Shop of the Heart edited by Krista Halverson. 2016.
Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller by Nadia Wassef. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2021.
Shelf Life: Romance, Mystery, Drama, and Other Page-Turning Adventures from a Year in a Bookstore by Suzanne Strempek Shea. Beacon Press, 2004.
Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books by Paul Collins. Bloomsbury, 2004.
Sunwise Turn: A Human Comedy of Bookselling by Madge Jenison. Self-published, 2020.
Time Was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare & Co. by Jeremy Mercer. St. Martin’s Press, 2005.
Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores by Jen Campbell. Constable and Robinson, 2012; Overlook Press, 2016.
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, a History by Lewis Buzbee. Graywolf Press, 2006.
The Classics
The Book of Great Books: A Guide to 100 World Classics by W. John Campbell. Barnes & Noble Books, 2000.
Books and Reading: Or What Books Shall I Read and How Shall I Read Them? by Noah Porter. Charles Scribner’s Sons,1882.
Books that Changed History: From The Art of War to Anne Frank’s Diary. New Delhi: Doring Kindersley, 2017.
Books That Changed the World by Robert B. Downs. Revised edition. Signet, 2004. (Original edition published by The New American Library, 1959.)
Books That Changed the World: The 50 Most Influential Books in Human History by Andrew Taylor. Quercus Books, 2016.
Classics for Pleasure by Michael Dirda. Harcourt, 2007.
Classics Revisited by Kenneth Rexroth. New Directions, 1986. Also: More Classics Revisited (edited by Bradford Morrow), New Directions, 1989.
Famous Books, Ancient and Medieval: Outlines of 108 Great Works That Have Shaped Modern Civilization by Robert B. Downs. Barnes & Noble, 1964.
Great Books: My Adventure with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World by David Denby. Simon & Schuster, 1996; 2nd ed., 2005.
A Great Idea At the Time: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books by Alex Beam. Public Affairs, 2009.
The Harvard Guide to Influential Books edited by C. Maury Devine, Claudia M. Dissel, and Kim D. Parrish. Harper & Row, 1986.
How to Be Well-Read: A Guide to 500 Great Novels and a Handful of Literary Curiosities by John Sutherland. London: Random House Books, 2014.
How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom. Scribner / Touchstone Books, 2001.
Indispensable Reading: 1,000 Books from ‘The Arabian Nights’ to Zola by William Roger Louis. I.B. Tauris & Company, 2018.
A Lifetime’s Reading: The World’s 500 Greatest Books by Philip Ward. Stein & Day, 1983.
Masterpieces of World Literature by Frank. N. Magill. Collins Reference, 1991.
On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through the Great Books by Karen Swallow Prior. Brazos Press, 2018.
One Hundred Best Books by John Lubbock. London, 1895.
100 Books That Changed the World by Scott Christianson and Colin Salter. Universe, 2018.
One Hundred Great Books: Masterpieces of All Time edited by John Canning. 1974.
The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written: The History of Thought from Ancient Times to Today by Martin Seymour-Smith. MJF Books, 2004.
Outline of Great Books by John Alexander Hammerton. London: Amalgamated Press, 1937; New York: Wise and Company, 1937.
The Penguin Classics Book by Henry Eliot. Penguin/Random House, 2018.
The People and the Books: 18 Classics of Jewish Literature by Adam Kirsch. W.W. Norton, 2016.
Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 Books You Haven’t Touched Since High School
by Kevin Smokler. Prometheus Books, 2013.
Remarkable Books: A Celebration of the World’s Most Beautiful and Historic Works by Michael Collins, Alexandra Black, Thomas Cussans, John Farndon, and Philip Parker. DK Publishing, 2017.
A Short History of the World in 50 Books by Daniel Smith. Michael O’Mara, 2023.
The Story about the Story: Great Writers Explore Great Literature edited by J.C. Hallman. Tin House Books, 2009.
10 Books that Screwed Up the World and 5 Others that Didn’t Help by Benjamin Wiker/ Regnery Press, 2008; reprinted 2020.
12 Books That Changed the World by Melvyn Bragg. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2006.
Vintage Reading from Plato to Bradbury: A Personal Tour of Some of the World’s Best Books. Bancroft Press, 1997.
Voices that Endured: The Great Books and the Active Life by Stringfellow Barr. Prentice-Hall, 1971; originally published 1948.
The Well-Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had by Susan Wise Bauer. W.W. Norton, 2003.
Why Read the Classics? by Italo Calvino. Pantheon, 1999.
Compendiums of Literary Lore
The Art of the Epigraph: How Great Books Begin edited by Rosemary Ahern. Atria Books, 2012.
Benet’s Reader Encyclopedia, 4th ed. by Bruce Murphy. Collins Reference, 1996.
Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany by Jane Mount. Chronicle Books, 2018.
The Bibliophile’s Devotional: 35 Days of Literary Classics by Hallie Ephron. Adams Media, 2009.
Bibliotopia, or, Mr. Gilbar’s Book of Books & Catch-All of Literary Facts & Curiosities compiled by Steven Gilbar; illustrations by Elliott Banfield. David R. Godine, 2005. Originally published as The Book Book: A Compendium of Lists, Quizzes, & Trivia about Books by Steven Gilbar. St. Martin’s Press, 1981 and by Bell Publishing, 1985.
Book Love by Debbie Tung. Andrew McMeel Publishing, 2019.
The Book Lovers’ Miscellany by Claire Cock-Starkey. Bodleian Library, 2018.
A Book of Days for the Literary Year by Neal Jones. Thames & Hudson, 1984. [At least five subsequent editions.]
The Book of Literary Lists: A Collection of Annotated Lists, Statistics, and Anecdotes Concerning Books by Nicholas Parsons. Facts on File, 1987.
A Book of the Book edited by Jerome Rothenberg and Steven Clay. Granary Books, 2000.
The Booklovers Almanac by Robert Brittain. Beil, 1986. Republished by Perennial, 1991.
Bookman’s Pleasure: A Recreation for Booklovers compiled by Jackson Holbrook. Farrar, Straus & Co., 1947. Published in London as Bookman’s Holiday by Faber & Faber, 1947. Reprinted by Kessinger Publishing, 2010.
Bouillabaisse for Bibliophiles: A Treasury of Bookish Lore, Wit & Wisdom, Tales, Poetry & Narratives & Certain Curious Studies of Interest to Bookmen & Collectors by William Targ. Philip C. Duschnes, 1947. Reissued as Carrousel for Bibliophiles: A Treasury of Tales, Narratives, Songs, Epigrams and Sundry Curious Studies Relating to a Noble Theme edited by William Targ. Philip C. Duschnes, 1947. Reprinted by Scarecrow Reprint Corporation, 1967.
The Call Me Ishmael Phonebook: An Interactive Guide to Life-Changing Books by Logan Smiley and Stephanie Kent. Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, 2020.
The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures by the Library of Congress. Chronicle Books, 2017.
Casanova Was a Book Lover: And Other Naked Truths and Provocative Curiosities about the Writing, Selling and Reading of Books by John Maxwell Hamilton. Louisiana State University Press, 2000.
The Chatto Book of Cabbages and Kings: Lists in Literature. London: Chatto & Windus, 1989.
Curiosities of Literature by Isaac D’Israeli. Frederick Warne and Co., 1881. (Three volumes)
The Curious Reader: A Literary Miscellany of Novels & Novelists by Eric McCarthy and others. Weldon Owen, 2021.
A Dab of Dickens & A Touch of Twain: Literary Lives from Shakespeare’s Old England to Frost’s New England by Elliot Engel. Pocket Books, 2002.
Dancing with Mrs. Dalloway: Stories of Inspiration Behind Great Works of Literature by Celia Blue Johnson. Perigee, 2011.
Don’t Know Much About Literature: What You Need to Know But Never Learned About Great Books and Authors by Kenneth C. Davis and Jenny Davis. Harper, 2009.
For the Love of Books: A Celebration of the Written Word by Graham Tarrant. Summersdale, 2018. Republished as For the Love of Books: Stories of Literary Lives, Banned Books, Author Feuds, Extraordinary Characters, and More by Skyhorse, 2019.
I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf by Grant Snider. Harry N. Abrams, 2020.
In the Stacks: Short Stories about Libraries and Librarians by Michael Cart. Harry N. Abrams, 2002.
Invisible Forms: A Guide to Literary Curiosities by Kevin Jackson. Thomas Dunne Books / St. Martin’s Press, 2000.
Librorum Ridiculorum: A Compendium of Bizarre Books by Brian Lake. HarperCollins, 2023.
Literary Almanac: The Best of the Printed Word, 1900 to the Present by Tamara Straus. MUF Books, 1997.
A Literary Book of Days: American Voices. Library of Congress. Universe, 1990.
The Literary Life: A Scrapbook Almanac of the Anglo-American Literary Scene from 1900 to 1950 by Robert Phelps and Peter Deane. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1968.
The Literary Life and Other Curiosities by Robert Hendrickson. Revised edition published by Harvest Books/ Harcourt Brace, 1994. First published by Viking, 1981.
Literary Miscellany: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Literature by Alex Palmer. Skyhorse, 2022.
Literary Wonderlands: A Journey Through the Greatest Fictional Worlds Ever Created by Laura Miller. Black Dog & Leventhal, 2016.
The Literature Lover’s Book of Lists: Serious Trivia for the Bibliophile by Judie L.H. Strouf. Prentice-Hall, 1998.
The Madman’s Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History by Edward Brooke-Hitching. Simon & Schuster, 2020.
The Magic of Books: An Anthology for Book Week edited by A.P. Sanford and Robert Haven Shauffler. Dodd, Mead, 1929. Reissued 1934, 1938, 1941, 1946.
Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books by H.J. Jackson. Yale University Press, 2001.
Nabokov’s Butterfly: And Other Stories of Great Authors and Rare Books by Rick Gekoski. Da Capo Press, 2004.
Now All We Need Is a Title: Famous Book Titles and How They Got That Way by Andre Bernard. W. W. Norton, 1994.
Oddities and Curiosities of Words and Literature by C.C. Bombaugh; edited and annotated by Martin Gardner. Dover, 1961.
On Reading, Writing and Living with Books. London: Pushkin Press, 2016.
Once Again to Zelda: The Stories Behind Literature’s Most Intriguing Dedications by Marlene Wagman-Geller. Putnam, 2008.
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 and Rob Kaplan. Times Books, 1999; Three Rivers Press, 2001.
Peppercorn Papers: A Miscellany on Books and Book-Collecting by Claude A Prance. Golden Head Press, 1964.
The Pleasures of Bookland compiled by Joseph Shaylor. Self-published, 1898. A revision of The Pleasures of Literature and the Solace of Books, self-published 1898. Republished London: Truslove and Hanson, 1914. Reprinted by Palala Press, 2016. Reprinted by Forgotten Books, 2018.
Plotted: A Literary Atlas by Daniel Harmon and Andrew DeGraff. Zest Books, 2015.
Printer’s Error: Irreverent Stories from Book History by J.P. Romney and Rebecca Romney. HarperPerennial, 2018.
A Reader’s Book of Days: True Tales from the Lives and Works of Writers for Every Day of the Year by Tom Nissley. W.W. Norton, 2013.
The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History by Oliver Terle. Michel O’Mara, 2017.
Serendipitous Discoveries from the Bookshelf by Alexander Atkins. Independently published, 2021.
Tolkien’s Gown and Other Stories of Great Authors and Rare Books by Rick Gekoski. Constable and Robinson, 2004.
Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum. Overdue Media, 2004.
Where Books Fall Open: A Reader’s Anthology of Wit & Passion edited and illustrated by Bascove. 2001. David R. Godine, 2001.
History
Americanon: An Unexpected U.S. History in Thirteen Bestselling Books by Jess McHugh. Dutton, 2021.
Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing edited by Stephanie Stokes Oliver. 37 Ink, 2018.
Blurb Your Enthusiasm: An A-Z of Literary Persuasion by Louise Willder. Oneworld Publications, 2022.
The Book by Amaranth Borsuk. MIT Press, 2018.
The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time by Keith Houston. W.W. Norton, 2016.
The Book: A Global History edited by Michael F. Suarez, S.J. Woudhuysen, and H.R. Woudhuysen. Oxford University Press, 2013.
The Book in Society: An Introduction to Print Culture by Solveig C. Robinson. Broadview Press, 2013.
The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petroski. Knopf, 1999.
Book Parts edited by Dennis Duncan and Adam Smyth. Oxford University Press, 2019.
Book Row: An Anecdotal and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade by Marvin Mondlin. Skyhorse, 2019.
The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis by David E. Fishman. ForeEdge, 2017.
Book Wars: The Digital Revolution in Publishing by John B. Thompson. Polity, 2021.
Bookishness: Loving Books in a Digital Age by Jessica Pressman. Columbia University Press, 2020.
Books: A Living History by Martyn Lyons. Thames & Hudson, 2011.
A Book about Books by Frederick Harrison. London: John Murray, 1943; 4th ed. 1948.
Books and History by Robert Bingham Downs. University of Illinois Graduate School of Librarianship, 1974.
Books and Reading in the Lives of Notable Americans: A Biographical Sourcebook by John A. McCrossan. Greenwood Press, 2000.
Books and the Founding Fathers by George H. Nash. Butler Books, 2007. [Originally published by the Library of Congress, 1989.
Books and the Man by John T. Winterich. Greenberg, 1929.
Books as History by David Pearson. Oak Knoll Press, revised edition, 2011.
Books in the Renaissance by Andrew Pettegree. Yale University Press, 2011.
Books of the Century: A Hundred Years of Authors, Ideas, and Literature from The New York Times edited by Charles McGrath and the Staff of the Book Review. Times Books, 1998.
Books That Changed America by Robert B. Downs. Macmillan, 1972.
Books That Changed Our Minds: A Symposium by Malcolm Cowley and Bernard Smith. Kelmscott Editions,1938.
Books That Changed the World by Robert B. Downs. 1956.
Books That Changed the World: The 50 Most Influential Books in Human History by Andrew Taylor. London: Quercus, 2008.
Books That Have Changed the World by Fred Eastman. American Library Association, 1937.
Books: Their History, Art, Power, Glory, Infamy, and Suffering According to Their Creators, Friends, and Enemies by Gerald Donaldson. Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1981.
The Bookseller of Florence: The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance by Ross King. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2021. (Published 2021 in London by Chatto and Windus as The Bookseller of Florence: Vespasiano da Bisticci and the Manuscripts that Illuminated the Renaissance.)
The Bookseller’s Tale by Martin Latham. London: Particular Books, 2020.
Bookshelf by Lydia Pyne. Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
The Bookshop of the World: Making and Trading Books in the Dutch Golden Age by Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen. Yale University Press, 2020.
The Broadview Introduction to Book History by Michelle Levy and Tom Mole. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview, 2017.
Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge by Richard Ovenden. Harvard University Press, 2020.
The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book by Leslie Howsam. Cambridge University Press, 2015.
The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future by Robert Darnton. Public Affairs, 2010.
Chasing the Sun: Dictionary-Makers and the Dictionaries They Made by Jonathon Green. London: Pimlico, 1988.
The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450-1800, 3rd ed. by Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin. Verso Books, 2010.
The Country House Library by Mark Purcell. Yale University Press, 2019.
Dirt for Art’s Sake: Books on Trial from “Madame Bovary” to “Lolita” by Elisabeth Ladenson. Cornell University Press, 2006.
Dr. Bowdler’s Legacy: A History of Expurgated Books in England and America by Noel Perrin. David R. Godine, 1992.
Every Book Its Reader: The Power of the Printed Word to Stir the World by Nicholas A. Basbanes. HarperCollins, 2005.
The Fear of Books by Holbrook Jackson. Soncino Press/Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932; reprinted by Greenwood Press, 1982. Republished by University of Illinois Press, 2001.
A Feeling for Books: The Book-Of-The-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire by Janice A. Radway. University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
The Footnote: A Curious History by Anthony Grafton. Faber and Faber, 1997.
Gutenberg: How One Man Remade the World with Words by John Man. John Wiley & Sons, 2002.
Gutenberg’s Fingerprint: Paper, Pixels and the Lasting Impression of Books by Merilyn Simonds. Toronto: ECW Press, 2017. (Reissued as Gutenberg’s Fingerprint: A Book Lover Bridges the Digital Divide.)
A History of Cookbooks: From Kitchen to Page over Seven Centuries by Henry Notaker. University of California Press, 2017.
A History of Reading in the West edited by Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier. University of Massachusetts Press, 1999.
A History of the Book in America: Volume I: The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World edited by Hugh Amory and David D. Hall. University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
A History of the Book in America: Volume II: An Extensive Republic: Print, Culture, and Society in the New Nation, 1790-1840 by Robert A. Gross. University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
A History of the Book in America: Volume III: The Industrial Book, 1840-1880 edited by Scott Jasper and others. University of North Carolina Press, 2007.
The History of the Book in 100 Books: The Complete Story, from Egypt to E-Book by Roderick Cave and Sara Ayad. Firefly Books, 2014, 2017.
The History of the Library in Western Civilization, Volume I: From Minos to Cleopatra by Konstantinos Staikos. Oak Knoll Press, 2004.
The History of the Library in Western Civilization: Volume II: The Roman World – From Cicero to Hadrian by Konstantinos Staikos. Oak Knoll Press, 2005.
The History of the Library in Western Civilization, Volume III: The Byzantine World – From Constantine the Great to Cardinal Bessarion. Oak Knoll Press, 2007.
The History of the Library in Western Civilization, Volume IV: The Medieval World in the West, from Cassiodorus to Fournival by Konstantinos Staikos. Oak Knoll Press, 2010.
The History of the Library in Western Civilization, Volume V: The Renaissance – from Petrarch to Michelangelo by Konstantinos Staikos. Oak Knoll Press, 2012.
How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain by Leah Price. Princeton University Press, 2012.
Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age by Dennis Duncan. Allen Lane, 2021; W.W. Norton, 2023.
Indexes and Indexers in Fact & Fiction edited by Hazel K. Bell. University of Toronto Press, 2002.
Indexing from A to Z by Hans H. Wellisch. H. W. Wilson, 1995.
Inky Fingers: The Making of Books in Early Modern Europe by Anthony Grafton. Belknap / Harvard University Press, 2020.
The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control by Ted Striphas. Columbia University Press, 2011.
The Literary Mafia: Jews, Publishing, and Postwar American Literature by Josh Lambert. Yale University Press, 2022.
The Look of the Book: Jackets, Covers, and Art at the Edges of Literature by Peter Mendelsund and David J. Alworth. Ten Speed Press, 2020.
Lost for Words: The Hidden History of the Oxford English Dictionary by Lynda Mugglestone. Yale University Press, 2005.
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. Penguin, 2009.
The Map of Knowledge: A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found by Violet Moller. Doubleday, 2019.
Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts: Twelve Journeys into the Medieval World by Christopher Hamel. 2016.
The New York Times Book Review: 125 Years of Literary History edited by Tina Jordan. Clarkson Potter, 2021.
Not Forgotten: American Writers Remember the Lives of Literary Mentors, Friends, & Rivals by Steven Gilbar. David R. Godine, 2006.
Of Making Many Books: A Hundred Years of Reading, Writing, and Publishing by Roger Burlingame. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.
The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written by Martin Seymour-Smith. Citadel Press / Carol Publishing Group, 1998.
The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe Between the 14th and 18th Centuries by Roger Chartier. Stanford University Press, 1994.
Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books by Aaron Lansky. Algonquin, 2005.
The Oxford Companion to the Book (2 volumes) edited by Michael J. Suarez, S.J. & H.R. Woudhuysen. Oxford University Press, 2010.
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Book edited by James Raven. Oxford University Press, 2020.
Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World by Irene Vallejo. Translated from the Spanish by Charlotte Whittle. Knopf, 2022.
Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers by Emma Smith. Knopf, 2022.
Printer’s Error: Irreverent Stories from Book History by Rebecca Romney. HarperCollins, 2017.
Promised Land: Thirteen Books that Changed America by Jay Parini. Doubleday, 2008; Anchor Books, 2010.
Published and Perished: Memoria, Eulogies & Remembrances of American Writers edited by Steven Gilbar and Dean Stewart. 2002.
Publishing Romance: The History of an Industry, 1940s to the Present by John Markert. McFarland, 2016.
Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America by Paul S. Boyer. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968.
Reading Matters: Five Centuries of Discovering Books by Margaret Willes. Yale University Press, 2010.
Reading the Decades: Fifty Years of the [British] Nation’s Bestselling Books by John Sutherland. British Broadcasting Company, 2002.
Remarkable Books: The World’s Most Beautiful and Historic Works by Michael Collins and others. DK Publishing, 2017.
The Secret Library: A Book-Lover’s Journey through Curiosities of History by Oliver Tearle. London: Michael O’Mara Books, 2017.
The Secret Life of Books: Why They Mean More Than Words by Tom Mole. London: Elliott and Thompson Limited, 2019; Simon & Schuster, 2019.
A Short History of the Printed Word by Warren Chappell. Alfred A. Knopf, 1970; reprinted by David R. Godine, 1980.
The Smithsonian Book of Books by Michael Olmert. Smithsonian Books, 1992.
The Social Life of Books: Reading Together in the Eighteenth-Century Home by Abigail Williams. Yale University Press, 2017.
A Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World by Nicholas Basbanes. HarperCollins, 2003.
The Thing the Book: A Monument to the Book as Object by Jonn Herschend and Will Rogan. Chronicle Books, 2014.
The Untold Story of the Talking Book by Matthew Rubery. Harvard University Press, 2016.
What is the History of the Book? by James Raven. Polity, 2018.
What We Talk About When We Talk about Books: The History and Future of Reading by Leah Price. Basic Books, 2019.
When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014.
Why Women Read Fiction: The Stories of Our Lives by Helen Taylor. Oxford University Press, 2020.
Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature by Angus Fletcher. Simon & Schuster, 2021.
The Written World: The Story of Literature and How It Shaped History by Martin Puchner. Random House, 2017.
You Could Look It Up: The Reference Shelf from Ancient Babylon to Wikipedia by Jack Lynch. Bloomsbury Press, 2016.
Home Libraries
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At Home with Books: How Book Lovers Live With and Care For Their Libraries by Estelle Ellis, Caroline Seebohm, and Christopher Simon Sykes. Carol Southern Books, 1995.
Bibliostyle: How We Live at Home with Books by Nina Freudenberger. Clarkson Potter, 2019.
Books Do Furnish a Room by Leslie Geddes-Brown. Merrell, 2009.
Books Make a Home: Elegant Ideas for Storing and Displaying Books by Damian Thompson. Ryland Peters and Small, 2017.
Bookshelf by Alex Johnson. Thames & Hudson, 2012.
Decorating with Books by Marie Proeller Hueston. House Beautiful/Hearst, 2006.
For the Love of Books: Designing and Curating a Home Library by Thatcher Wine and Elizabeth Lane. Gibbs Smith, 2019.
Living with Books by Alan Powers. Sterling, 2006.
Living With Books by Dominique Dupuich & Roland Beaufre. Thames & Hudson, 2010.
Phantoms on the Bookshelves by Jacques Bonnet. Translated from the French. Overlook Press, 2012.
The Private Library: The History of the Architecture and Furnishing of the Domestic Bookroom by Reid Byers. Oak Knoll Press, 2021.
Libraries
The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer. Simon & Schuster, 2017.
Before the Public Library: Reading, Community, and Identity in the Atlantic World, 1650-1850 by Mark Towsey and Kyle B. Roberts. Brill, 2018.
BiblioTech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google by John Palfrey. Basic Books, 2015.
Books and Libraries: Poems edited by Andrew D. Scrimgeour. Everyman’s Library, 2021.
Books on Fire: The Destruction of Libraries throughout History by Lucien X. Polastron. Inner Traditions, 2007.
The Burning Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack by Richard Ovenden. London: John Murray, 2020.
The Care of Books: An Essay on the Development of Libraries and Their Fittings, from the Earliest Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century by John Willis Clark. Cambridge University Press, 1909.
The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books: Christopher Columbus, His Son, and the Quest to Build the World’s Greatest Library by Edward Wilson-Lee. Scribner, 2018.
Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron. Grand Central Publishing, 2010.
Down Cut Shin Creek: The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky by Kathi Appelt and Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer. Purple House Press, 2019.
Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library by Don Borchert. Virgin Books, 2007.
The History of the Library in Western Civilization by Konstantinos Staikos. [6 volumes] Oak Knoll Press, 2004-2013.
I Work at a Public Library: A Collection of Crazy Stories from the Stacks by Gina Sheridan. Adams Media, 2014.
Improbable Libraries: A Visual Journey to the World’s Most Unusual Libraries by Alex Johnson. Thames & Hudson, 2015.
Institutions of Reading: The Social Life of Libraries in the United States by Thomas Augst. University of Massachusetts Press, 2007.
Librarian Tales: Funny, Strange, and Inspiring Dispatches from the Stacks Paperback by William Ottens. Skyhorse, 2020.
The Librarian’s Book of Lists by George M. Eberhart. ALA Editions, 2010.
Libraries. Photographs by Candida Hofer. Thames and Hudson, 2004; Schimer/Mosel, 2006, 2014; Prestel, 2019.
Libraries in the Ancient World by Lionel Casson. Yale University Press, 2002.
The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders by Stuart Kells. Overlook Press, 2018.
The Library: A Fragile History by Arthur der Weduwen and Andrew Pettegree. Profile Books, 2021.
The Library: A World History by James W.P. Campbell. University of Chicago Press, 2013.
The Library: An Illustrated History by Stuart A. P. Murray. Skyhorse Publishing, 2009; reprinted by Skyhorse, 2019.
Library: An Unquiet History by Matthew Battles. W.W. Norton, 2003.
The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel. Yale University Press, 2008.
The Library Book by Thomas R. Schiff. Aperture, 2017.
The Library Book by Susan Orlean. Simon & Schuster, 2018.
Library Book: Writers on Libraries by Steven Gilbar. Kieran Publishing, 2017.
The Library in America: A Celebration in Words and Pictures by Paul Dickson. Facts on File Publications, 1986.
A Library Miscellany by Claire Cock-Stockey. Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2018.
The Little Free Library Book by Margret Aldrich. Coffee House Press, 2015.
The Meaning of the Library: A Cultural History by Alice Crawford. Princeton University Press, 2015.
The Most Beautiful Libraries in the World by Jacques Bosser. Harry N. Abrams, 2003.
Not Free, Not for All: Public Libraries in the Age of Jim Crow by Cheryl Knott. University of Massachusetts Press, 2015.
Part of Our Lives: A People’s History of the Public Library by Wayne Wiegand. Oxford University Press, 2015. Repubished 2017 as Part of Our Lives: A People’s History of the American Public Library.
Patience and Fortitude: A Roving Chronicle of Book People, Book Places, and Book Culture by Nicholas Basbanes. HarperCollins, 2001.
Patience and Fortitude: Power, Real Estate, and The Fight to Save a Public Library by Scott Sherman. Melville House, 2015
Placing Papers: The American Literary Archives Market by Amy Hildreth Chen. University of Massachusetts Press, 2020.
The Public Library: A Photographic Essay by Robert Dawson. Princeton Architectural Press, 2014.
Quiet, Please: Dispatches from a Public Librarian by Scott Douglas. Da Capo Press, 2008.
Reading Allowed: True Stories and Curious Incidents from a Provincial Library by Chris Paling. Little Brown Book Group, 2018.
Reading Places: Literacy, Democracy, and the Public Library in Cold War America by Christine Pawley. University of Massachusetts Press, 2010.
Reading Rooms: America’s Foremost Writers Celebrate Our Public Libraries by Susan Allen Toth and John Coughlan. Washington Square Press, 1992.
Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian by Avi Steinberg. Nan A. Talese, 2010.
The Story of Libraries: From the Invention of Writing to the Computer Age by Fred Lerner. Continuum, 2009.
Syria’s Secret Library: Reading and Redemption in a Town Under Siege by Mike Thomson. Public Affairs, 2019.
Temples of Books: Magnificent Libraries Around the World by Marianne Julia Strauss. Gestalten, 2022.
The World’s Most Beautiful Libraries by Massimo Listri, Georg Ruppelt, and Elisabeth Sladek. Koln: Taschen, 2018.
This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson. HarperPerennial, 2011.
Treasures of the New York Public Library edited by Mark D. Greenberg. Harry N. Abrams, 1988.
Literary Travel Guides
The Book Lover’s Bucket List: A Tour of Great British Literature by Caroline Taggart. British Library Publishing, 2021.
Book Lovers’ London by Lesley Reader and Lesley Gilmour. Metro Publications, 2010 (4th edition).
Booked: A Traveler’s Guide to Literary Locations Around the World by Richard Kreitner. Black Dog & Leventhal, 2019.
A Booklover’s Guide to New York by Cleo Le-Tan. Rizzoli, 2019.
Britain by the Book: A Curious Tour of Our Literary Landscape by Oliver Tearle. John Murray, 2019.
A Literary Guide and Companion to Northern England by Robert M. Cooper. Ohio Univesity Press, 1995.
A Literary Guide and Companion to Southern England by Robert M. Cooper. Ohio University Press, 1998.
Literary Lodgings by Elaine Bovish. Fideleo Press, 1995.
Literary Places by Sarah Baxter; illustrated by Amy Grimes. White Lion Publishing, 2019.
Novel Destinations: A Travel Guide to Literary Landmarks from Jane Austen’s Bath to Ernest Hemingway’s Key West, 2nd ed. by Joni Rendon and Shannon Schmidt. National Geographic, 2017.
Rooms of One’s Own: 50 Places That Made Literary History by Adrian Mourby. London: Icon Books, 2017.
Treasured Island: A Book Lover’s Tour of Britain by Frank Barrett. [London:] AA Publishing, 2016.
A Writer’s Britain: Landscape in Literature by Margaret Drabble. Thames & Hudson, 1987.
Quotation Collections
All the Good Books: Quotations for Bibliophiles compiled by J. Kevin Graffagnino. Vermont Heritage Press, 2006.
A Book Addict’s Treasury compiled by Julie Rugg and Linda Murphy. Frances Lincoln, 2006.
A Book in the Hand is Worth Two in the Library: Quotations on Books and Librarianship by Les Harding. McFarland, 1994.
The Book Lover’s Treasury of Quotations: An Inspired Collection on Reading, Writing and Literature. Hatherleigh Press, 2016.
A Booklover’s Companion edited by Matthew Reisz. London: The Folio Society, 2006.
The Booklover’s Enchiridion: Thoughts on the Solace and Companionship of Books by Alexander Ireland. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1883; Revised and enlarged edition published by J.B. Lippincott, 1883. Reprinted by Gale Research, 1969; by Kessinger Publishing, 2010; by Palala Press, 2015; by Andesite Press, 2015; by Franklin Classics, 2018; by Wentworth Press, 2019.
Bookmen on Books: A Collection of Choice Extracts by Graham Griffith. London: Hills, 1912 [?].
Books: An Anthology compiled by James Thompson. London: Bingley, 1968.
Books and Reading: A Book of Quotations edited by Bill Bradfield. Dover, 2002.
Books are Basic: The Essential Lawrence Clark Powell. 1985.
Books, Books, Books: An Anthology of Quotations and Epigrams on the Subject of Books by William Rueter. Aliquando Press, 1986.
Books Change Lives: Quotes to Treasure. American Library Association., 1994.
“Books … the quietest and most constant of friends”: Book Lovers Quotations by Helen Exley. Privately published, 1993.
Books: What They Represent to Some of Those Who Have Written, Read, and Loved Them compiled by Bruce Rogers. Privately printed, 1945.
Buried in Books: A Reader’s Anthology compiled by Julie Rugg. Frances Lincoln, 2010.
The Delights of Reading: Quotes, Notes & Anecdotes selected by Otto Bettmann. David R. Godine / Library of Congress Center for the Book, 1987.
A Dictionary of Literary Quotations compiled by Meic Stephens. Routledge, 1990.
Ex Libris: A Small Anthology compiled by Christopher Morley. Lippincott, 1938.
In Praise of Books: An Enchiridion for the Booklover compiled by Helena Swan. E.P. Dutton, 1906; republished 1910.
Infinite Riches: Gems from a Lifetime of Reading by Leo Rosten. McGraw-Hill, 1979.
Maxims of Books and Reading by Holbrook Jackson. The First Edition Club, 1934; Folcroft, 1974.
No Two Persons Ever Read the Same Book: Quotes on Books, Reading, and Writing by Bart Van Aken and Gert Dooreman. Antwerp: Luster, 2015.
Pleas for Books: Selections for Lovers of Books. Toronto: Hart & Rawlinson, 1879.
The Quotable Book Lover edited by Ben Jacobs and Helena Hjalmarsson. Lyons Press, 1999; Skyhorse Press, 2013.
Quotable Quotes: The Book Lover by Tony Mills and Penny Mills. London: Magpie Books, 2004.
The Reader’s Quotation Book: A Literary Companion edited by Steven Gilbar. Pushcart Press, 1990; Barnes & Noble Books, 1999.
Reading Maketh a Full Man: A Collection of Favorite Quotations about Books. Scott Foresman and Company, 1959.
Reading Pleasures compiled by Jennifer Byrne. National Library of Australia, 2016.
Speaking of Books: The Best Things Ever Said About Books and Book Collecting edited by Rob Kaplan and Harold Rabinowitz. Crown, 2001.
Why We Read: Quotations for Book Lovers compiled by Ellen Surrey. Gibbs Smith, 2019.
Reader Memoirs
Adventures Among Books by Andrew Lang. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1905.
All the Books of My Life: A Bibliobiography by Sheila Kaye-Smith. Harper & Brothers, 1956.
Am I Alone Here? Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live by Peter Orner. Catapult, 2016.
An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland by Michael Dirda. Norton, 2004. Republished as Book by Book: Notes on the Reading Life by Henry Holt, 2006. Reissued as An Open Book: Chapters from a Reader’s Life by Norton, 2007.
Avid Reader: A Life by Robert Gottlieb. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.
Bibliomania 101: A Brief History of My Love Affair with Books by David Christopher Lane. Mount San Antonio College, 2019.
A Bite of the Apple: A Life with Books, Writers and Virago by Lennie Goodings. Oxford University Press, 2020.
Book Girl: A Journey through the Treasures and Transforming Power of a Reading Life by Sarah Clarkson. Tyndale Momentum, 2018.
Book Marks: An Artist’s Card Catalog: Notes from the Library of My Mind by Barbara Page. Bauer and Dean Publishers, 2021.
Book Reports: A Music Critic on His First Love, Which Was Reading by Robert Christgau. Duke University Press Books, 2019.
Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow Prior. T.S. Poetry Press, 2012.
The Book-Lover’s Enchiridion: Thoughts on the Solace and Companionship of Books, and Topics Incidental Thereto by Alexander Ireland. Samuel Mullen, 1887.
Bookmarked: How the Great Works of Western Literature F*cked Up My Life by Mark Scarbrough. Lulu.com, 2021.
Booknotes: America’s Finest Authors on Reading, Writing, and the Power of Ideas edited by Brian Lamb. Three Rivers Press, 1998.
Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry. Simon & Schuster, 2008.
Books in My Baggage: Adventures in Reading and Collecting by Lawrence Clark Powell. World Publishing, 1960.; Greenwood Press, 1973.
The Books in My Life by Henry Miller. New Directions, 1952.
Books in My Life by Robert B. Downs. University of California Press, 1985.
A Bookman’s Budget by Henry Austin Dobson. Oxford University Press, 1917. Reprinted by Kessinger Publishing, 2009; by Scholar’s Choice, 2017; by Wentworth Press, 2019.
Books and Authors by Robert Lynd. Originally published in 1923. Republished by Books for Libraries Press, 1968. Reprinted by Forgotten Books, 2019.
Books That Saved My Life: Reading for Wisdom, Solace, and Pleasure by Michael McGirr. Melbourne: The Text Publishing Company, 2018.
The Bookshopper: A Life in Review by Murray Browne. Paul Dry Books, 2009.
Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading by Lucy Mangan. Square Peg, 2018.
Bookworms: Great Writers and Readers Celebrate Reading by Laura Furman and Elinore Standard. Carroll & Graf, 1997.
Bound to Last: 30 Writers on Their Most Cherished Book edited by Sean Manning. Da Capo Press, 2010.
Brought to Book: The Balance of Books and Life edited by Ian Breakwell and Paul Hammond. Penguin, 1994.
Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books by Michael Dirda. Pegasus Books, 2016.
The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahiri. Vintage Books, 2016.
The Companionship of Books and Other Papers by Frederic Rowland Marvin. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905.
Confessions of a Book-Lover by Maurice Francis Egan. Doubleday, 1922.
Curiosity by Alberto Manguel. Yale University Press, 2015.
Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks: A Librarian’s Love Letters and Breakup Notes to the Books in Her Life by Annie Spence. Icon Books, 2019.
Dear Reader: The Comfort and Joy of Books by Cathy Rentzenbrink. Picador, 2021.
The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff. Publishers Group West, 1995; reissued by Harper Perennial, 2016.
Editions & Impressions: Twenty Years on the Book Beat by Nicholas A. Basbanes. Fine Books Press / OP Media, 2007.
The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe. Alfred A. Knopf, 2012; Vintage, 2013.
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman. Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1998.
The Excursions of a Book-Lover. Being Papers on Literary Themes by Frederic Rowland Marvin. Sherman, French, 1910. Republished by Core Collection Books, 1978. Reprinted by Forgotten Books, 2025; by Palala Press, 2016.
Fiction Ruined My Family by Jeanne Darst. 2011.
The Gifts of Reading by Robert Macfarlane. Penguin, 2016.
How Literature Saved My Life by David Shields. 2013.
How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen. Ballantine, 1998.
How to Be a Heroine: Or, What I’ve Learned to by Reading Too Much by Samantha Ellis. Vintage, 2015.
Howard’s End is On the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home by Susan Hill. Profile Books, 2010.
I’d Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life by Anne Bogel. BakerBooks, 2018.
In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing by Elena Ferrante. Europa Editions, 2022.
Into the Looking-Glass Wood: Essays on Books, Reading, and the World by Alberto Manguel. London: Bloomsbury, 1999; Harcourt, 2000.
Judging a Book by Its Lover: A Field Guide to the Hearts and Minds of Readers Everywhere by Lauren Leto. Harper Perennial, 2012.
The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel. Yale University Press, 2008.
Literary Life: A Second Memoir by Larry McMurtry. Simon & Schuster, 2010.
Memories of Books and Places by J. A. Hammerton. Books for Libraries Press, 1968.
The Merry Heart: Reflections on Reading, Writing, and the World of Books by Robertson Davies. Penguin Books, 1998.
More Alive and Less Lonely: On Books and Writers by Jonathan Lethem. Melville House, 2018.
My Books: An Essay by Leigh Hunt. Originally published in The Literary Examiner, July 5 and 12, 1823. Republished by Cambridge University Press, 1910. Republished by A.R. Tommasini, 1949.
My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues by Pamela Paul. 2017.
My Reading Life by Pat Conroy. Nan A. Talese / Doubleday, 2010.
One for the Books by Joe Queenan. Viking/Penguin, 2012.
Outside of a Dog: A Bibliomemoir by Rick Gekowski. London: Constable, 2010.
Packing My Library: An Elegy and Ten Digressions by Alberto Manguel. Yale University Press, 2018.
A Passion for Books by Lawrence Clark Powell. World Publishing, 1958.
Patience & Fortitude: A Roving Chronicle of Book People, Book Places, and Book Culture by Nicholas Basbanes. Harper-Collins, 2001.
The Pleasure of Reading edited by Antonia Fraser. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015.
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby. Believer Books, 2004.
Read All About It: My Year of Falling in Love with Literature Again by Paul Cuddihy. 2014.
A Reading Diary: A Passionate Reader’s Reflections on a Year of Books by Alberto Manguel. 2004.
Reading Life: Adventures in the World of Books by Bob Carr. Penguin (Australia), 2008; Viking, 2008.
Reading Life: On Books, Memory, and Travel by Michael Pearson. Mercer University Press, 2015.
The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared by Alice Ozma. Grand Central Publishers, 2012.
Reading the World: Confessions of a Literary Explorer by Ann Morgan. Harvill Secker, 2021.
Reading with the Stars: A Celebration of Books and Libraries by Leonard Kniffel. American Library Association, 2014.
Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments by Michael Dirda. Indiana University Press, 2000. Republished by Norton, 2003.
Reality Hunger: A Manifesto by David Shields. 2010.
Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why they Matter for a New Generation by Roosevelt Montas. Princeton University Press, 2021.
Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books by Lynne Sharon Schwartz. Beacon Press, 1996.
Selected Works on the Pleasures of Reading by Robertson Davies. 2008.
The Seven Stairs: One Man’s Joyful Love Affair with Life and Literature by Stuart Brent. Houghton, 1962. (An illustrated edition was published by Touchstone in 1989.)
The Shelf: Adventures in Extreme Reading by Phyllis Rose. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2015.
Silent Conversation: A Reader’s Life by Anthony Rudolf. Seagull Books, 2013.
So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading by Sara Nelson. 2003.
Speaking of Books – and Life by J. Donald Adams. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1965.
Ten Years in the Tub: A Decade of Soaking in Great Books by Nick Hornby. McSweeney’s/Believer Books, 2014.
Through the Magic Door by Arthur Conan Doyle. London: G. Bell, 1907; also London: Smith, Elder & Company, 1907. McLure, 1908. Reprinted numerous times by numerous publishers, including Forgotten Books, 2015.
Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading by Nina Sankovitch. HarperCollins, 2011.
Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader by Vivian Gornick. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020.
Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books edited by Leah Price. Yale University Press, 2011.
Unpacking My Library: Architects and Their Books edited by Jo Stephans. Yale University Press, 2009.
The Unpunished Vice: A Life of Reading by Edmund White. Bloomsbury, 2019.
Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves edited byGlory Edim. Ballantine Books, 2018.
Why I Read: A Booklover’s Investigations by Wendy Lesser. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2014; republished 2015 as Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books.
The World’s Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette’s, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family by Josh Hanagarne. Avery, 2013.
The Writer’s Library: The Authors You Love on the Books That Changed Their Lives edited by Nancy Pearl and Jeff Schwager. HarperOne, 2020.
Reading
The Art of Mindful Reading: Embracing the Wisdom of Words by Ella Berthoud. London: Leaping Hare Press, 2019.
Better than Life by Daniel Pennac. Coach House Books, 1994. Republished by Stenhouse Publishers, 1999.
Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times by Andrew Piper. University of Chicago Press, 2012.
Books and Reading by William P. Atkinson. Crosby, Nichols, Lee, & Company, 1860.
Books and You by Somerset Maugham. William Heinemann, 1940.
Books Promiscuously Read: Reading as a Way of Life by Heather Cass White. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2021.
Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader’s Guide to a More Tranquil Mind by Alan Jacobs. Penguin Press, 2020.
The Browser’s Ecstasy: A Meditation on Reading by Geoffrey O’Brien. Counterpoint, 2000.
The Diversions of a Bookworm by J Rogers Rees. London: Elliot Stock, 1886; London: G.J. Coombs, 1887. Numerous republications, including Kessinger Publishing, 2010; Forgotten Books, 2015; Wentworth Press, 2019.
Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood by Maria Tatar. W.W. Norton, 2009.
An Everywhere: A Little Book about Reading by Heather Reyes. Oxygen, 2014.
The Fate of Reading in a Digital World by Naomi Baron. Oxford University Press, 2015.
Further Reading edited by Matthew Rubery and Leah Price. Oxford University Press, 2022.
Genius and Ink: Virginia Woolf on How to Read. London: TLS Books, 2019.
The Gentle Reader by Samuel McChord Crothers. 1903. Republished by Books for Libraries Press, 1972; by Cornell University Library, 2009. Reprinted by Leopold Classic Library, 2016; by Wentworth Press, 2019.
The Gifts of Reading by Robert Macfarlane. London: Penguin Books, 2017.
The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age by Sven Birkerts. Faber & Faber, 1994.
A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel. Viking Penguin, 1996.
A History of Reading by Steven Roger Fischer. Reaktion Books, 2019.
How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren. Revised and updated edition published by Touchstone, 1972. Reprinted 2014.
How to Read Now: Essays by Elaine Castillo. Viking, 2022.
I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf by Grant Snider. Harry N. Abrams, 2019.
In Defense of Reading by Sarah E. Worth. Rowan & Littlefield, 2017.
The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life: How to Get More Books in Your Life and More Life from Your Books by Steve Leveen. Levenger Press, 2005.
The Lost Art of Reading by Gerald Stanley Lee. GP Putnam’s Sons, 1907. Republished by Wentworth Press, 2019.
The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time by David L. Ulin. Sasquatch Books, 2010.
Lost in a Book: The Psychology of Reading for Pleasure by Victor Nell. Yale University Press, 1988.
Loving Literature: A Cultural History by Deidre Shauna Lynch. University of Chicago Press, 2018.
The Novel Cure: An A-Z of Literary Remedies by Ella Berthoud. Canongate Books, 2015.
On Reading by Marcel Proust. Translated by Jean Auret and William Burford. Macmillan, 1971.
On Reading Books by John Livingston Lowes. The Riverside Press, 1929.
On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books by Karen Swallow Prior. Brazos Press, 2022.
On Rereading by Patricia Meyer Spacks. Belknap Press / Harvard University Press, 2011, 2013.
Only in Books: Writers, Readers & Bibliophiles on Their Passion by J. Kevin Graffagnino. Madison House, 1996.
Pen in Hand: Reading, Rereading and other Mysteries by Tim Parks. Alma Books, 2019.
The Pleasures of Reading: A Booklover’s Alphabet by Catherine Sheldrick Ross. California Libraries Unlimited, 2014.
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs. Oxford University Press, 2011.
The Pleasures of Reading in an Ideological Age by Robert Alter. Simon & Schuster, 1989.
Power of Reading: From Socrates to Twitter by Frank Furedi. London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2015.
Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf. Harper Perennial, 2007.
Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World by Maryanne Wolf. Harper, 2018.
A Reader on Reading by Alberto Manguel. Yale University Press, 2010.
Reader’s Block: A History of Reading Differences by Matthew Rubery. Stanford University Press, 2022.
Reading: A Very Short Introduction by Belinda Jack. Oxford University Press, 2019.
Reading and the Body: The Physical Practice of Reading by Thomas McLaughlin. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Reading and the Reader by Philip Davis. Oxford University Press, 2013.
Reading in Bed: Brief Headlong Essays about Books & Writers & Reading and Readers by Brian Doyle. ACTA Publications, 2017; 2nd edition published by St. Mary’s Press, 2017.
Reading in Bed: Personal Essays on the Glories of Reading edited by Steven Gilbar. David R. Godine, 1995.
Reading Life: Books for the Ages by Sven Birkerts. Greywolf, 2007.
The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds through Others’ Eyes by C.S. Lewis. HarperOne, 2019.
The Reading of Books by Holbrook Jackson. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947; University of Illinois Press, 2001.
The Rights of the Reader by Daniel Pennac. Candlewick Press, 2008.
Scribbles in the Margins: 50 Eternal Delights of Books by Daniel Gray. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017.
Shelf Life: How Books Have Changed the Destinies and Desires of Men and Nations by George Grant; and Karen B Grant. Cumberland House, 1999.
Shelf Life: Writers on Books and Reading by Alex Johnson. London: British Library, 2018.
Slow Reading by John Miedema. Litwin Books, 2009.
Slow Reading in a Hurried Age by David Mikics. Belknap Press /Harvard University Press, 2013.
So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance by Gabriel Zaid; translated by Natasha Wimmer. Paul Dry Books, 2003.
The Solitary Vice: Against Reading by Mikita Brottman. 2008.
Speaking of Books and Life by J. Donald Adams. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966.
A Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World by Nicholas Basbanes. HarperCollins, 2003.
Theories of Reading: Books, Bodies, and Bibliomania by Karin Littau. Polity Press, 2006.
The Traveler, the Tower, and the Worm: The Reader as Metaphor by Alberto Manguel. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.
A Velocity of Being: Letters to A Young Reader edited by Maria Popova and Claudia Bedrick. Enchanted Lion Books, 2018.
Walking a Literary Labyrinth: A Spirituality of Reading by Nancy M. Malone. Riverhead Books, 2003.
What to Read and Why by Francine Prose. Harper Perennial, 2018.
What We See When We Read: A Phenomenology with Illustrations by Peter Mendelsund. Vintage Books, 2014.
Where I’m Reading From: The Changing World of Books by Tim Parks. Vintage, 2016.
Reading Recommendations
Around the World in 80 Books by David Damrosch. Penguin Press, 2021.
Around the World in 80 Novels by Henry Russell. CICO Books, 2019.
Best Fiction by Timothy Knight. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014.
Bibliophile: Diverse Spines by Jamise Harper and Jane Mount. Chronicle Books, 2021.
Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide by Nick Rennison. A & C Black, 2009.
Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide to Biography and Autobiography: One Good Book Leads to Another by Kenneth McLeish and Valerie McLeish. Bloomsbury, 1991.
A Book about Books by Robert Blatchford. Franklin Classics Trade Press, 2020. [Originally published in 1900 as My Favorite Books, reprinted 2015 by Forgotten Books.]
A Book about Books by E H Bernstein. Page Publishing: Volume I, 2018; Volume II, 2020.
Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason by Nancy Pearl. Sasquatch Books, 2003. Also: More Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason by Nancy Pearl. Sasquatch Books, 2005.
A Book of Book Lists: A Bibliophile’s Compendium by Alex Johnson. British Library Publishing, 2017.
The Book of Books: An Eclectic Collection of Reading Recommendations, Quirky Lists, and Fun Facts about Books by Les Krantz and Tim Knight. Wildwood Books, 2007.
The Book of Books: Explore America’s 100 Best-Loved Novels. Public Broadcasting Service, 2018.
The Book of Forgotten Authors by Christopher Fowler. Quercus Publishing, 2019.
The Book that Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books that Matter Most to Them edited by Roxanne J. Coady and Joy Johannessen. Gotham Books, 2006.
Booknotes: America’s Finest Authors on Reading, Writing, and the Power of Ideas by Brian Lamb. Crown, 1997.
Books and Reading: What Books Shall I Read, and How Shall I Read Them? by Noah Porter. Scribner’s Sons, 1882. Reprinted by Nabu Press, 2010.
Books for Living: A Reader’s Guide to Life by Will Schwalbe. Knopf, 2017.
Books: Over 100 Top Ten Lists. London: Bounty Books, 2014.
Books: The Essential Insider’s Guide edited by Mark Strand. Fang Duff Kahn Publishers, 2009.
Books That Made the Difference: What People Told Us by Gordon Sabine and Patricia Sabine. Shoe String Press, 1983.
Bound to Please: An Extraordinary One-Volume Literary Education by Michael Dirda. Norton, 2004.
Bowie’s Books: The Hundred Books That Changed David Bowie’s Life by John O’Connell. Gallery Books, 2019.
Check These Out: One Librarian’s Catalog of the 200 Coolest, Best, and Most Important Books You’ll Ever Read by Gina Sheridan. Adams Media, 2015.
Companionable Books by Henry Van Dyke. 1922. Also: More Companionable Books by George Stuart Gordon. London: Chatto & Windus, 1947.
A Company of Readers: Uncollected Writings of W.H. Auden, Jacques Barzun, and Lionel Trilling from the Readers’ Subscription and Mid-century Book Clubs edited by Arthur Krystal. Free Press, 2001.
The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction by M. A. Orthofer. Columbia University Press, 2016.
Crime and Mystery: The 100 Best Books by H.R. Keating. Carroll & Graf, 1987.
Ex Libris: 100+ Books to Read and Reread by Michiko Kakutani. Clarkson Potter, 2020.
500 Essential Cult Books: The Ultimate Guide by Gina McKinnon. ILEX, 2010; Sterling Publishing, 2010.
501 Must-Read Books by Emma Beare. London: Bounty Books, 2014.
For the Love of Books: 115 Celebrated Writers on the Books They Love Most edited by Ronald B. Schwartz. 1999.
The Gay Canon: Great Books Every Gay Man Should Read by Robert Drake. Knopf / Anchor Books, 1998.
Good Books: A Book Lover’s Companion by Steven Gilbar. 1982.
Great Novelists and Their Novels by Somerset Maugham. J.C. Winston, 1948.
Great Short Books: A Year of Reading―Briefly by Kenneth C. Davis. Scribner, 2022.
The Greatest Books You’ll Never Read: Unpublished Masterpieces by the World’s Greatest Writers by Bernard Richards. London: Cassell, 2015.
Horror: The One Hundred Best Books edited by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman. Carroll & Graf, 1988.
How to Be Well Read: A Guide to 500 Great Novels and a Handful of Literary Curiosities
by John Sutherland. Penguin, 2022; originally published London: Random House UK, 2012.
Library Lin’s Curated Collection of Superlative Nonfiction by Linda Maxie. Spoon Creek Press, 2022.
The List of Books by Frederic Raphael and Kenneth McLeish. Harmony Books, 1981.
The Literary Almanac: A Year of Seasonal Reading by Francesca Beauman. Greenfinch, 2021.
Lost Classics: Writers on Books, Loved and Lost, Overlooked, Under-read, Unavailable, Stolen, Extinct, or Otherwise Out of Commission by Michael Ondaatje. Anchor Books, 2001.
My Ideal Bookshelf edited by Thessaly La Force. Little, Brown, 2012.
My Favourite Books by Robert Blatchford. London: The Clarion Press, 1903. Republished by Forgotten Books (London), 2015. Republished as A Book about Books by Franklin Classics Trade Press, 2020.
The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin. Penguin Books, 2014.
100 One-Night Reads: A Book Lover’s Guide by David C. Major and John S. Major. Ballantine Books, 2001.
1000 Books to Change Your Life. Edited by Jonathan Derbyshire. Time Out Guides, 2007.
1,000 Books to Read Before You Die: A Life-Changing List by James Mutisch (and others). Workman Publishing, 2018.
1001 Books for Every Mood by Hallie Ephron. Adams Media, 2008.
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die by Peter Boxall. Cassell, 2018.; originally published by Universe Publishing, 2006.
The Pleasure of Reading: Novels and Their Writers and Readers by Eric Macfarlane. Matador, 2019.
Read This Next: 500 of the Best Books You’ll Ever Read by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman. Harper, 2010.
A Reader’s Delight by Noel Perrin. Dartmouth / University Press of New England, 1988.
A Reader’s Guide Book by May Lamberton Becker. Henry Holt, 1924.
Remarkable Diaries: The World’s Greatest Diaries, Journals, Notebooks, & Letters. Dorling Kimberly, 2020.
Rereadings: Seventeen Writers Revisit Books They Love by Anne Fadiman. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005.
Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels by David Pringle. Carroll & Graf, 1987.
Second Reading: Notable and Neglected Books Revisited by Jonathan Yardley. Europa Editions, 2011.
The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books edited by J. Peter Zane. W.W. Norton, 2007.
What Do I Read Next: A Reader’s Guide to Genre Fiction edited by Neil Barron and others. Gale, 2004; 2008; 2009.
What to Read and Why by Francine Prose. Harper Perennial, 2019.
The World Between Two Covers: Reading the Globe by Ann Morgan. Liveright, 2015.
Writer’s Choice: A Library of Rediscoveries by Lindy Sternberg Katz and Bill Katz. Prentice-Hall, 1983.
The Year of Reading Dangerously: How 50 Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life by Andy Miller. London: Fourth Estate, 2015.
They Died in Vain: Overlooked, Underappreciated and Forgotten Mystery Novels by Jim Huang. Crum Creek Press, 2002.
You’ve Got to Read This Book! 55 People Tell the Story of the Book that Changed Their Life compiled by Jack Canfield, Gay Hendricks, with Carol Kline. Collins, 2006.
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