Hi everybody, I hope that you're all
doing really well! So recently
Beth from Books Nest did a video where
she talked about her favourite fiction
books
which are all about books- books where
the plot is very much
influenced by books, by literature, by
publishing,
and since some of my favourite books
include the Binding by bridget collins
and the Book Thief by Markus Zusak, it
was a
video that i very much enjoyed and
i will link it down below for you to all
watch.
It also made me think about some of my
favourite books about books and so i've
compiled a little list here of some
non-fiction
recommendations that are all about
people who love books, who love reading,
who love the publishing industry, who
love libraries. It's just
a great time! I do love a good book about
why books are great, it's the best
kind of confirmation bias. You're just
there sat reading and your book is
telling you
about what a great thing it is that
you're reading, it's like having a little
cheerleader pepping you up and telling
you to keep going keep reading!
I'd also love it if you could see this
video as being a little bit of an
incentive to support
your local bookshops, particularly your
independents. As far as i know
Independent Bookshop Week will be taking
place between the 20th
to the 27th of June this year and i know
that there are a lot of bookshops
especially independent bookshops
who are really struggling at the moment
with lockdown, so any support that you
can do
to those independent branches would be
absolutely fantastic. I'll be leaving
some details down below
about Independent Bookshop Week and what
you can do to support.
And so now on to these book lover books!
The first book that i wanted to
recommend to you today is The Bookshop
Book by Jen Campbell-
I'll obviously be linking down below
Jen's youtube channel but i'm sure that
you all watch her!
In this book, Jen talks about different
book shops all over the world-
from converted churches to book barges-
and how all of these different bookshops
have so many different stories about how
they bring books to the public. The blurb
on the dust jacket says that this is
just a love letter to book shops and
it is definitely that, there is so much
love in this project that Jen did
to talk about all of these different
bookshops and it is well well worth a
read!
And i couldn't talk about The Bookshop
Book without mentioning Weird Things
Customers Say in Bookshops also by Jen
Campbell- i've still not gotten around to
More Weird Things Customers Say in
Bookshops.
In this book, Jen Campbell reflects on
all of the strange
bizarre things that people have asked
her when she used to work as a
bookseller at Ripping Yarns in London
which is a bookshop i have visited
myself and it was really lovely and i
think it's such a shame that it's closed
now! This is just absolutely hysterical,
there are so many entries in here where
you're just like
"why did that person ask that?". Next we
have Stop What You're Doing and Read
This!
This is a collection of essays by
multiple different authors including
Zadie Smith, Jeanette Winterson. I believe
I came across this book
way way back when i think it was on Leena
Norm's channel. This was the very first
kind of
'book lover book' that I ever came across,
it was back in 2014
when i had just started getting back
into reading and this
was just the motivation that i needed to
keep on going and be like yeah i'm doing
the right thing getting back into
reading!
This collection of essays just talks
about so many different facets to do
with the power of reading- for example
how books can affect our personalities
and our beliefs and our behaviours, why we
should be supporting libraries.
The one thing that I will say about this
book is that it is very much
of its time, it was written in 2011 there
is one essay in which an author
kind of laments about the fact that
eBooks are becoming so popular and that
eBooks are just 'not the same as reading'
and I feel like that is a conversation
that has just been so well trodden, i
think by now
most of us should all know that just
because you're reading an eBook and not
a physical book
does not mean that you are a lesser
reader in any way! But aside from that,
the the rest of the collection is
absolutely fantastic and
really will just motivate you to keep on
reading.
Some more essays for you, we have Books
vs Cigarettes by George Orwell.
This is part of the Penguin Geat ideas
-I believe it is number 57
in the Great Ideas series. This
collection isn't just about
books and reading but i do believe the
first four essays in here are about
George Orwell's relationship to books. In
these essays, George Orwell reflects on
being a critic, he reflects on how much
books cost and how much
he spends on books each year, he talks
about his memories of working in a
second-hand bookshop.
Obviously it is very much of its time
but i think there's a lot of sentiments
here
that are applicable to today as well and
it's a nice little introduction to
George Orwell's essays.
Next we have The Unknown Unknown:
Bookshops and the Delight of Not Getting
What You Want by Mark Forsyth.
Mark Forsyth is probably best known for
his books The Horologican and The
Etymologican and, my personal favourite, A
Short History of Drunkenness.
This is just a teeny tiny little
pamphlet in which Mark Forsyth talks
about
just the delight of being in a bookshop
and that moment of discovery when you
find a book that you'd never heard of
before
and it just prompts you to engage more
with a different author or with a different
genre that maybe
you hadn't considered before and how you
just really do not get that from online
shopping. He doesn't condemn
online shopping in any way, but you just
cannot mimic that same
emotion of going into a bookshop and
finding something that you've never
heard of before
the opportunity that bookshops give you
to really read outside of your comfort
zone, an algorithm just cannot provide
that same experience.
Like i say it is just a teeny tiny
little thing, I think it's about 20-
25 pages, so it can take no time at all.
Next we have Dear Fahrenheit 451 by
Annie spence. This is the one and only
proof
copy that i have on my shelves, in which
the author Annie Spence writes letters
personal to
each individual book that has made some
sort of impact, whether good or bad,
and talks about the lessons that each of
those books had for her over
her life of reading. It's a really really
lovely concept and i do highly recommend
it.
On a similar theme, we have Bookworm: A
Memoir of Childhood Reading by Lucy
Mangan.
In this book, Lucy Mangan talks about all
of her childhood favourites-
from Narnia to Wonderland to The Secret
Garden to
so many books that I'd never heard of
before, I looked in the back and I was
just shocked at how many books I had
never heard of before. What I will say
about this book is that some of
the book entries in here are very very
specific to when Lucy Mangan grew up,
like I say, there were a lot of
books in here that I never
read as a child who grew up in the late
90s early noughties. But still
very engaging, very much worth a
read. I think if you were the
little child who would always take a
book to a party and then would like try
and
find a corner to go read like me,
then this is definitely going to be a
book for you. And then finally we have
The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun
Blythell. Sean
actually owns the largest secondhand
bookshop in Scotland and this is exactly
what it says on the tin, it is all of the
trials and tribulations of being a
bookseller- the day-to-day life
of book selling and all of the anecdotes
that come with that.
It is very much unromanticised, it's not
like this quaint and lovely experience
that i think a lot of people imagine of
being a bookseller, it is very much
the admittance that there are both
moments of hilarity and moments of
boredom
that come from being a bookseller. It's
very real, it's very funny
I highly recommend. I also thought I'd
take a moment to talk about some of the
books that I haven't read yet that I'm
really keen to get to and
two of them are very much on the history
side because
it's me! I'm really keen to get to The
Social Life of Books
reading together in 18th century home. As
we know, I am a big fan of early modern
history
and i'm always really interested in
particularly
the growth of literacy and print
culture and this book
explores 18th century reading habits and
I believe, in particular,
the kind of shift from reading aloud to
reading solo and silently. It ticks a lot
of history boxes for me, so i really want
to get to it soon.
I'm also really keen to get to The
Written World: The Power of Stories to
Shape People, History and Civilization by
Martin
Puchner. From Homer, to The Tale of Genji,
to Don Quixote to Harry Potter, it just
highlights the power of
books and a good story to shape world
history and i'm really really keen to
get to it.
And then finally we have Reading the
World: Confessions of a Literary Explorer
by Ann Morgan. Ann
Morgan did a project in which she tried
to read one book from every country in
the world
and she documented her experiences. I
remember Sophie from Portal in the
Pages
took up this project, I think it was last
year and so this has been on my radar
since then.
And i think it's always such a great
thing to do to
read diversely from different corners of
the world, from as many countries as you
can
to really broaden your knowledge and
your experience. So once again
very keen to get to this one and to read
about her experiences of reading around
the world.
So that's everything for today, I'd
love to hear some of your
recommendations down in the comments for
'book lover books', are there any books
both fiction and non-fiction that
talk about the love of books and reading
that you'd really recommend, do leave me
a comment
down below to tell me about them and
just anything else that you want to
discuss!
I hope you're all having a fantastic day
and i look forward to talking to you
soon!
Thanks, bye!
