Books about books (...call it book-ception 🤓)
Nonfiction about the history, development, and impact of books, literature, storytelling, knowledge, reading, archives, information, and related subjects. Always open to suggestions!
created by ayzrules
last updated September, 2026
Comments
I love a meta list 😂 and I think Reading Art: Art for Book Lovers would fit perfectly here! It's a book about paintings and pieces of art that include or were inspired by books, and the effect that books have had in the visual arts world
ayzrulesOP
oooh - thank you for the suggestion! i've added it, that sounds like a fascinating book
this sounds so cool!! i might steal this for one of my lists too 👀
Oooh, for the art history one?
yeah! i'm gonna try to get my hands on a copy so i can dig through the contents page first
love this list! not fully sure if this fits but maybe "jane austen's bookshelf" would? i heard it's both about the books that inspired her, but there are also a lot of information when it comes to the history of female writers themselves
ayzrulesOP
That sounds absolutely fascinating! I think it fits so I’ve added it now, thank you so much 💕
My recent favorite of this kind was Salvage: Reqdings from the Wreck by Dionne Brand. I also enjoyed Read Until You Understand by Farah Jasmine Griffin. From my TBR, there’s Well-Read Black Girl ed. by Glory Edim (& I think her memoir Gather Me is also heavily about books?) This is such a wonderful list concept, as always, ayz! 💖
ahhh you're too kind!! thanks so much for these suggestions, i've added them! (I’ll do some research on Gather Me as well, that sounds so interesting! Let me know if you have any other recs from her as well, would love to check it out 🙂↕️)
love your mind 🫶 gonna tbr so many of these you have no idea
ayzrulesOP
YAY would love to read your thoughts on like, any of these
i might start with the wwii one you were reading! also i went digging through my library and found two books that might fit this list: meeting with remarkable manuscripts and the bookseller of florence
ayzrulesOP
!!!! Thanks so much, adding them both!
Love this list! The book “Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise” by Katherine Rundell would fit this list! It was amazing!
ayzrulesOP
Oh that sounds so cool? Tysm for the suggestion, I’ve added it! 💕
this was exactly what i was looking for thank youuuuu
ayzrulesOP
Ahhhh yay! Glad this list is helpful 💖🫡
I really love this list!! so many of these I want to read - book and manuscript and library lover that I am!! I would like to suggest the following three books, which I think would fit - check them out and see if you agree and want to add them:
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The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: and their race to save the world's most precious manuscripts by Joshua Hammer - truly amazing and heroic telling of how a band of librarians managed to save tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts from al-Qaeda invaders in the 1980s who were intent on destroying anything that they felt didn't fit with their corrupted view of Islam. I was absolutely mesmerized by this account - and learned A LOT about how Timbuktu was truly a major cultural center.
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The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester, which recounts how the famous Oxford English Dictionary (OED) came to be, and how the linguist Professor James Murray (the director of the OED project) found out that among the many contributors to the project was an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane (committed there for life after committing a murder) - that inmate had contributed more than 10,000 definitions and usage entries. Fascinating story!
And 3) The Library by Susan Orlean, which has as it's focus the 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Central Public Library (that destroyed thousands of books and damaged countless others, but includes fascinating history of libraries and librarians across the world, and truly interesting history of the LA Central Library itself, as well as how they managed to rebuild the library and restore the majority if the fire damaged books.
ayzrulesOP
aaaa so so thrilled you like the list! and thank you so much for these suggestions, i will take a look asap!!!
Such a fun list! Make Believe by Mac Barnett might fit :)
ayzrulesOP
thanks so much! that looks like such a cool read, thank you for the rec!
