Bookish Books

We love our books, but we especially love books about books, those that celebrate the importance of stories and the beauty of language. To celebrate the magic of books and their importance, we’ve composed a list of our top five favourite books about books!

Is your favourite book on this list? If not, please tell us about it!

Matilda by Roald Dahl

This is such a nostalgic book, and one that really emphasises the ways in which our lives are touched and changed by books, the ways in which they become our companions and friends in moments of darkness.

Matilda Wormwood is an extraordinary genius with really stupid parents.
Miss Trunchbull is her terrifying headmistress who thinks all her pupils are rotten little stinkers.

But Matilda will show these horrible grown-ups that even though she’s only small, she’s got some very powerful tricks up her sleeve.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Barcelona 1945: young Daniel Sempere is taken to a fabulous secret library called the Cemetery of Forgotten Books where he is told he must ‘adopt’ a single book, promising to care for it and keep it alive always.

Entranced by his chosen book, The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax, Daniel begins a quest to find the truth about the life and death of its mysterious author.

He starts to fall into a game of mirrors, reflecting strange discoveries about obsession and love, and how they are entwined within the shadow world of books.

The Book Ninja by Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus

This is a hilarious and heartwarming book about the ways in which books connect us.
Frankie Rose is desperate for love. Or a relationship. Or just a date with a semi-normal person will do.

It’s not that she hasn’t tried. She’s the queen of online dating. But enough is enough. Inspired by her job at The Little Brunswick Street Bookshop, Frankie decides to take fate into her own hands and embarks on the ultimate love experiment.

Her plan? Plant her favourite books on trains inscribed with her contact details in a bid to lure the sophisticated, charming and well-read man of her dreams.

The Binding by Bridget Collins

This newly-released book is a spell-binding tale about the secrets that books can keep, and the magic that they are bound with…

Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a letter arrives summoning him to begin an apprenticeship. He will work for a Bookbinder, a vocation that arouses fear, superstition and prejudice – but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse.

He will learn to hand-craft beautiful volumes, and within each he will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there’s something you want to forget, he can help. If there’s something you need to erase, he can assist. Your past will be stored safely in a book and you will never remember your secret, however terrible.

In a vault under his mentor’s workshop, row upon row of books – and memories – are meticulously stored and recorded.

Then one day Emmett makes an astonishing discovery: one of them has his name on it.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This is a gripping historical fiction book that emphasises the important role that books play in our world, and the power that words can hold.

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.
By her brother’s graveside, Liesel’s life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger’s Handbook, left there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery.

So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordion-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor’s wife’s library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel’s foster family hides a Jewish fist-fighter in their basement, Liesel’s world is both opened up, and closed down.