Nonfiction Books about Bookshops, Libraries, & Reading
By Nava Atlas | On May 23, 2021 | Updated December 12, 2024 | Comments (5)
For bibliophiles, it’s not enough to be so obsessed with books that we’re reading four or five works of fiction or nonfiction at any given time. We also love books about bookshops, libraries, and even books about books and reading! This might seem eccentric at first glance, but for the devout book lover, it makes perfect sense.
Here’s a slew of books for book lovers that celebrate the passion for the page. At left, Bibliophile: An Illustrated History by Jane Mount, which kicks off this list.
In this list you’ll find a book about so-called “book towns” around the world; a celebration of libraries; a musing on the art of reading itself; a collection on the thrill of finding rare books; a few books on bookshops, and a book on the joy of bibliomania. What perfect gifts these make for the book nerds in your life — or for yourself, if you fit that description!
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Bibliophile: An Illustrated History by Jane Mount
A love letter to all things bookish, book people and places are curated by Jane Mount, who illuminates them with the vibrant illustrations she’s known for.
You’ll find literary trivia, see the world’s beautiful bookstores, workplaces of famous authors, and even get a taste of famous fictional meals. Best of all, it’s a wonderful resource for discovering some of the greatest reads ever.
“In this love letter to all things bookish, Jane Mount brings literary people, places, and things to life through her signature and vibrant illustrations … A source of endless inspiration, literary facts and recommendations, Bibliophile is pure bookish joy.” Bibliophile is followed by Bibliophile: Diverse Spines.
Bibliophile on Bookshop.org*
Bibliophile on Amazon*
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Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores
by Bob Eckstein
A 100 postcard set from this book are available as well*
New Yorker cartoonist Bob Eckstein presents Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores: True Tales and Lost Moments from Book Buyers, Booksellers, and Book Lovers. It’s a collection of 75 gorgeous detailed paintings of some of the world’s most iconic bookstores, served up with the inside scoop about what goes on inside them.
Quirky and charming, the anecdotes and stories feature many of today’s most renowned authors and thinkers.Some of these bookstores have gone by the wayside, many, thankfully, are still open for business.
“Page by page, Eckstein perfectly captures our lifelong love affair with books, bookstores, and book-sellers that is at once heartfelt, bittersweet, and cheerfully confessional.” Read an excerpt from this book on this site.
Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores on Bookshop.org*
Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores on Amazon*
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The Curious Reader
From the publisher: Readers rejoice! From Mental Floss, an online destination for more than a billion curious minds since its founding in 2001, comes the ultimate book for lovers of literature. From Americanah to War and Peace, from Chinua Achebe and Jane Austen to Jesmyn Ward and George R.R. Martin, learn surprising facts about the world’s most famous novels and novelists.
“With sumptuous, visually stimulating spreads, this book delivers on its promise– to unearth strange stories, bizarre facts, or unexpected details about the books on our shelves. Good for curious readers, whether they want to delve into authors and books they love, feel competent faking knowledge about books everyone else seems to have read, or just dip into and out of literary worlds” – Library Journal
The Curious Reader on Amazon*
The Curious Reader on Bookshop.org*
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Book Towns: Forty Five Paradises
of the Printed Word by Alex Johnson
“Book Towns” of the world are hamlets, villages, and towns center on literature and bookshops — in other words, paradises for book lovers.
Book Towns will take you on a tour of the recognized literary towns around the world, with stories of how they grew and offering information on how to get there. But even if you never get to any of them, the beautiful photos and charming stories are perfect for the book-loving armchair traveler.
“Amid the beauty of the Norwegian fjords, among the verdant green valleys of Wales, in the shadow of the Catskill mountains and beyond, publishers and printmakers have banded together to form unique havens of literature.” Read more about Book Towns on this site.
Book Towns on Bookshop.org*
Book Towns on Amazon*
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I’d Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas
of the Reading Life by Anne Bogel
I’d Rather Be Reading is a collection of witty reflection that any voracious reader will relate to. Blogger and author Anne Bogel (known for her popular podcast What Should I Read Next?) invites book lovers into a virtual community that’s as cozy as it is fascinating.
“With fascinating new things about books and publishing, and reflect on the role reading plays in their lives. The perfect gift for the bibliophile in everyone’s life, I’d Rather Be Reading will command an honored place on the overstuffed bookshelves of any book lover.”
I’d Rather be Reading on Bookshop.org*
I’d Rather Be Reading on Amazon*
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I’d Rather be Reading: A Library of Art
for Book Lovers by Guinevere de la Mare
Echoing the title of the previous entry, this gifty book is more visually oriented. From the publisher: For anyone who’d rather be reading than doing just about anything else, this book is the ultimate must-have.
In this visual ode to all things bookish, readers will get lost in page after page of beautiful contemporary art, photography, and illustrations depicting the pleasures of books.
A pocket-sized book of less than 100 pages, it’s rounded out with poems, quotations, and aphorisms celebrating the joys of reading, this lovingly curated compendium is a love letter to all things literary, and the perfect gift for bookworms everywhere.
I’d Rather Be Reading on Bookshop.org*
I’d Rather be Reading on Amazon*
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Rare Books Uncovered: True Stories of Fantastic Finds
in Unlikely Places by Rebecca Rego Barry
From the publisher: Feed your inner bibliophile with this volume on unearthed rare and antiquarian books. Few collectors are as passionate or as dogged in the pursuit of their quarry as collectors of rare books. In Rare Books Uncovered, expert on rare and antiquarian books Rebecca Rego Barry recounts the stories of remarkable discoveries from the world of book collecting.
Read about the family whose discovery in their attic of a copy of Action Comics No. 1— the first appearance of Superman — saved their home from foreclosure. Or the Salt Lake City bookseller who volunteered for a local fundraiser — and came across a 500-year-old copy of the Nuremberg Chronicle. These tales and many others will entertain and inspire casual collectors and hardcore bibliomaniacs alike.
Rare Books Uncovered on Bookshop.org*
Rare Books Uncovered on Amazon*
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The Bookshop Book by Jen Campbell
From the publisher: Here’s a book in which the bookshop, even more than the book itself, is the center of curiosity and fascination. Here you’ll find more than 300 weird and wonderful bookstores around the world, in every form imaginable: shops on buses, in converted churches, abandoned factories, on barges, and even odder places.
You’ll encounter stories of bookshops that moveable, mutable, and that are even folded into vending machines. “From the oldest bookshop in the world, to the smallest you could imagine … The Bookshop Book is a love letter to bookshops all around the world.” From the bestselling author of Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops.
The Bookshop Book on Bookshop.org*
The Bookshop Book on Amazon*
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The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell
You wouldn’t think that the journals of a bookseller would be so comedic, but The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell is laugh-out-loud-funny. The owner of a used bookstore, appropriately called The Book Shop, Shaun’s story takes place in Wigtown, Scotland.
This rural town was the first of the forty-some odd “Book Towns” compiled into the book of the same name, above. Bythell dishes on how he buys books, how he makes his old-fashioned business thrive in the modern world, and more. The heart of the book is his the hilarious interactions with staff and customers, adding up to an entertaining romp for book nerds. Shaun Bythell is also the author of Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops.
The Diary of a Bookseller on Bookshop.org*
The Diary of a Bookseller on Amazon*
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The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders by Stuart Kells
From the publisher: Ancient libraries, grand baroque libraries, scientific libraries, memorial libraries, personal libraries, clandestine libraries: Stuart Kells tells the stories of their creators, their prizes, their secrets, and their fate.
To research this book, Kells traveled around the world with his young family like modern-day ‘Library Tourists.’” So states the description of this book that will surely thrill devoted library lovers.
The Library is a celebration of libraries as places of wonder, and of the physical book as a thing of beauty. And it explores the human element, the very thing that has made libraries enduring institutions in a rapidly changing world. By the author of Shakespeare’s Library: Unlocking the Greatest Mystery in Literature.
The Library on Bookshop.org*
The Library on Amazon*
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The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Susan Orlean has created a wondrous love letter to libraries. From Amazon: “Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before …
Brimming with her signature wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research, The Library Book is Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks that reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country. It is also a master journalist’s reminder that, perhaps especially in the digital era, they are more necessary than ever.”
The Library Book on Bookshop.org*
The Library Book on Amazon*
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The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures
by The Library of Congress
From the publisher: The Library of Congress brings book lovers an enriching tribute to the power of the written word and to the history of our most beloved books.
Featuring more than 200 full-color images of original catalog cards, first edition book covers, and photographs from the library’s magnificent archives, this collection is a visual celebration of the rarely seen treasures in one of the world’s most famous libraries and the brilliant catalog system that has kept it organized for hundreds of years.
Packed with engaging facts on literary classics — from Ulysses to The Cat in the Hat to Shakespeare’s First Folio to The Catcher in the Rye — this package is an ode to the enduring magic and importance of books.
The Card Catalog on Bookshop.org*
The Card Catalog on Amazon*
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Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks
by Annie Spence
From the publisher: A librarian’s laugh-out-loud funny, deeply moving collection of love letters and breakup notes to the books in her life. If you love to read … you know that some books affect you so profoundly they forever change the way you think about the world.
Some books, on the other hand, disappoint you so much you want to throw them against the wall. Either way, it’s clear that a book can be your new soul mate or the bad relationship you need to end.
In Dear Fahrenheit 451, librarian Annie Spence has crafted love letters and breakup notes to the iconic and eclectic books she has encountered over the years.
From breaking up with The Giving Tree (a dysfunctional relationship book if ever there was one), to her love letter to The Time Traveler’s Wife (a novel less about time travel and more about the life of a marriage, with all of its ups and downs), Spence will make you think of old favorites in a new way.
Dear Fahrenheit 451 on Bookshop.org*
Dear Fahrenheit 451 on Amazon*
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Schomberg: The Man Who Built a Library
by Carole Boston Weatherford
From the publisher: In luminous paintings and arresting poems, two of children’s literature’s top African-American scholars track Arturo Schomburg’s quest to correct history. Amid the scholars, poets, authors, and artists of the Harlem Renaissance stood an Afro–Puerto Rican named Arturo Schomburg.
This law clerk’s life’s passion was to collect books, letters, music, and art from Africa and the African diaspora and bring to light the achievements of people of African descent through the ages … A century later, his groundbreaking collection, known as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, has become a beacon to scholars all over the world.
Though this book is meant for grades 3 to 6 (illustrated by Eric Velasquez), it can really be enjoyed by “children of all ages,” and is a wonderful way to learn about an amazing, under-appreciated personage in American literary history.
Schomberg on Bookshop.org*
Schomberg on Amazon*
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Read These Banned Books:
A Journal and 52-Week Reading Challenge
From the publisher: The American Library Association presents a must-read banned book for every week of the year in this beautiful book lover’s reading log. Expand your reading list and stand against literary censorship with this one-year reading challenge and book journal!
Featuring 52 modern and classic books that have been challenged or banned, from The Hunger Games to Maus, this book log includes ALA’s insights into each title as well as writing prompts for further reflection. A perfect holiday stocking stuffer, birthday present, or gift for bibliophiles, librarians, teachers and educators, activists, and rebel readers of all genres!
Read These Banned Books on Bookshop.org*
Read These Banned Books on Amazon*
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*This post contains Bookshop Affiliate and Amazon Affiliate links. If a product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
Love this. I read The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and found it so interesting and I have it on my keeper shelf. But some of my favorites in fiction aren’t on the list. I just finished Bookworm and loved it. Also, The Sentence, set in a Native American bookshop is wonderful, and a book about and set in the New York library, the lions of 5th Avenue by Fiona Davis, and there is also The Brass Octopus set in the Victorian era in a London library.
Thank you, Cornelia! I must add these
Mark, as you can see, I do suggest Bookshop.org first, for books to be shipped. My preference is always for supporting indies. Sometimes people don’t live near a bookstore, or just don’t have access to harder to find titles. Alas, Amazon has pretty much everything, so in my mind it’s better to find a book one wants than not. It all creates ripples across the book-loving world.
In a time when independent bookstores are struggling against Amazon, why do you suggest that readers find the books at Amazon?
If you try hard, you can find many fine bookstores online and do not have to patronize Amazon.