As an avid reader, one of my favorite type of books is books about books. I love bookshops, libraries, references to books. Anything down that line. Anything that brings books into focus. Here is a list of favorites that I have read over the years. Be thinking of your own list. I want to hear your favorites in the comments.

I’d Rather be Reading

-Anne Bogel of ModernMrsDarcy – one of my favorite bookish blogs

In this small non-fiction book, Anne Bogel talks about books and the place they have had in her life. This book is a collection of essays and can be read in just a couple hours. A few of the chapters are Confess Your Literary Sins, The Books that Find You, The Books Next Door, How to organize Your Bookshelves and Bookworm Problems. This book would make a great gift for the reader on your list.

The Words Between Us

-Erin Bartels

Robin Windsor has spent almost her entire life running trying to keep her past a secret. She enjoys years running a bookshop in a small backwater town in Michigan.

But the past has a way of catching up.

In high school, she recieved gifts of books from one of the popular boys. She pays him in poetry. When things fall apart, she leaves town after dropping all those books on his doorstep one very early morning.

One morning in her bookshop, she gets an anonymous package. Upon opening it she sees that it is the first book that Peter gave her years ago when she was just a freshman in high school. One by one, he sends them all to her. What is he trying to say to her and why is he getting in contact with her after all these years?

This book is written in one of my favorite styles. It goes back and forth between the present and the past. I love seeing what is happening now and then going back and seeing how the past is still affecting the future.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

-Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

In Janurary 1946 London is just coming out of the shadow of WWII. Juleit Ashton is looking for the subject of her next book. She is surprised to get a letter from a man she has never met from the island of Guernsey. They continue to exchange letters and Juliet is drawn into this man’s world. He and his friends are all book lovers.

This book is written as a series of letters, and Juliet learns many things, not only about the group she is corresponding with, but about the island, their taste in literature and the impact the German occuaption has had on the inhabitants of the island. (The German occupation part of this book is true. I looked it up! I hope in that dark time The Society was also true.)

We clung to books and to our friends; they reminded us that we had another part to us.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Last Bookshop in London

-Madeline Martin

This book starts out with a girl that needs a job. In wartorn London one cannot be picky, so Grace accepts the positon at Primrose Hill, a dusty old bookshop with dusty old owner. She doesn’t know anything about books, due to the fact that she has never been a reader. Slowly, her interest in books begins to blossom and she takes a place in her area of London as a piece of calm among blackouts and air raids.

This is truly a sweet story where storytelling takes center stage and helps to unite her community.

The Little Bookshop in Paris

-Nina George

Monsier Perdu calls himself a literary opothecary. He prescribes books novels for the hardship of life. His bookshop is a floating barge on the Seine. He heals broken hearts, but cannot seem to heal his own. He is haunted by the fact that his one true love disappeared with no forwarding address.

She did leave him a letter, though, which he cannot make himself read.

He eventually hauls anchor and leaves on a mission to make peace with himself and his past. He is joined by two other misfits on his journey. Perdu travels the countries rivers dispensing his wisdom and his books.