I have always loved books about books ever since reading William Goldman's The Princess Bride. After reading this book I went looking for S. Morgenstern's book and was disappointed to find it did not exist.
Over years of reading, I find that I am still drawn to stories about books, either real or imagined. Such as
It's a Book by Lane Smith is a children's book that will be enjoyed by all ages but especially appreciated by bibliophiles. This is a fun look at books versus computers that many readers will appreciate and is worth adding to your own library. You may also want to add the board book for babies, It's a Little Book, also by Smith.
Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan also looks at books and computers, taking the idea up a few notches and comparing libraries with Google. I like some of the descriptions of information used in this book; Old Knowledge, or OK, refers to information held in books, and accounts for most things people know or have ever known. Traditional Knowledge, TK, is what we hold in our heads. These two overlap somewhat and there is further overlap with information available on the internet but the internet as yet only holds a fraction of the OK/TK available while offering the big improvement of the time and ease of finding any particular piece of required information. This book is about solving a puzzle. I enjoyed the conclusion and appreciated how the puzzle was solved.
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde is a mystery set partially within Emily Bronte's Jane Eyre, and if you know the story you will recognize and appreciate this literary crime novel. Tuesday Next, as Literary Detective, has the job of finding out who has been kidnapping characters from works of fiction. In this first book of the series, her main goal is to find Jane Eyre and maybe fix the end of the novel while she's on the job. This book includes time travel, vampires and discussion about who really wrote Shakespeare's works, and does not fit any genre very well but crosses in and out of many.
Last Chance Book Club by Hope Ramsey is a nice, cozy romance, perfect for a relaxing read after a hard day. Lovers of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice will be able to compare this modern tale with many of the same plot lines, matchmaking relatives, proposals from the wrong man, dislike becoming love and, of course, a happy ending.
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett tells what might happen if the queen, while out walking her corgis, comes across a travelling library. It follows a possible reading progression for someone who has rarely had the time or opportunity to read for pleasure. What consequences may occur if Her Majesty discovers a passion for reading to the point of letting it interfere with her stately duties? The Uncommon Reader is a short but fun read.
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester is the story of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. In the age of the internet, it is easy to forget the amount of work that went into creating dictionaries, especially ones as complex as the OED. I have always loved words and their meanings but the idea of creating such a work is staggering, so this book is worth reading just to get an idea of the amount of work involved. In 1857, James Murray started work on the creation of The New English Dictionary, expecting to include all of the English language in four volumes and completed in 10 years. Apparently after five years, writers had only reached the word "ant." It took 70 years and 12 tombstone-sized volumes to make up the first edition. This work was completed with the help of volunteer contributors. The madman in this story was one of those contributors, and this is the story of the relationship between him and Murray and the creation of this incredible work.
A Passion for Books, edited by Harold Rabinowitz and Rob Kaplan, is the perfect read to fill the odd moment. Stories, essays, lists, cartoons and an epitaph, from one to 16 pages long, make it a great book to pick up and read in between all of those distractions that take us away from our passion, books.
Find these books on books and more at your local library.
A Good Read is a column by Tri-City librarians that is published every Wednesday. Bronwyn Punch works at Terry Fox Library in Port Coquitlam.
