What’s in it
Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.
24 books with the same feel
Hide books by the same authorA History of Reading
Alberto Manguel · 372 pages
At one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of a book—that string of confused, alien ciphers—shivered into meaning. Words spoke to you, gave up their secrets; at that moment, whole universes opened. You became, irrevocably, a reader. Noted essayist Alberto Manguel moves from this essential moment to explore the 6000-year-old conversation between words and that magician without whom th
A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books
Nicholas A. Basbanes · 638 pages
The passion to possess books has never been more widespread than it is today; indeed, obsessive book collecting remains the only hobby to have a disease named after it. A Gentle Madness is an adventure among the afflicted. Author Nicholas Basbanes, a dedicated bibliophile himself, begins his book 2,200 years ago in Alexandria, when a commitment was made to gather all the world's knowledge benea
The Book on the Bookshelf
Henry Petroski · 290 pages
"He has been called "the poet laureate of technology". Now Henry Petroski turns to the subject of books and bookshelves, and wonders whether it was inevitable that books would come to be arranged vertically as they are today on horizontal shelves. As we learn how the ancient scroll became the codex became the volume we are used to, we explore the ways in which the housing of books evolved. Petrosk
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Simon Winchester · 265 pages
My Ideal Bookshelf
Maira Kalman, Jennifer Egan, Dave Eggers, Alex Ross, David Chang, Michael Chabon, Thomas Keller, Malcolm Gladwell, Alice Waters, James Patterson, Jonathan Lethem, David Sedaris, Stephenie Meyer, Rosanne Cash, James Franco, Kim Gordon, Tony Hawk, Nico Muhly, Thurston Moore, George Saunders, Nancy Pea · 225 pages
"The books that we choose to keep-let alone read-can say a lot about who we are and how we see ourselves. In THE IDEAL BOOKSHELF, dozens of leading cultural figures share the books that matter to them most-books that define their dreams and ambitions and in many cases helped them find their way in the world. With colorful and endearingly hand-rendered images of book spines by Jane Mount, and first
The Shelf: From LEQ to LES: Adventures in Extreme Reading
Phyllis Rose · 271 pages
"Phyllis Rose embarks on a grand literary experiment--to read her way through a random shelf of library books, LEQ-LES. Can you have an Extreme Adventure in a library? Phyllis Rose casts herself into the wilds of an Upper East Side lending library in an effort to do just that. Hoping to explore the "real ground of literature," she reads her way through a somewhat randomly chosen shelf of fiction,
More Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops
Jen Campbell · 121 pages
"Illustrated by the Brothers McLeod, this collection includes peculiar queries and incidents from bookshops (and libraries!) around the world, and even a section of Weird Things Customers Say at Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops Book Signings."---Front flap.
Library: An Unquiet History
Matthew Battles · 258 pages
On the survival and destruction of knowledge, from Alexandria to the Internet. Through the ages, libraries have not only accumulated and preserved but also shaped, inspired, and obliterated knowledge.Matthew Battles, a rare books librarian and a gifted narrator, takes us on a spirited foray from Boston to Baghdad, from classical scriptoria to medieval monasteries, from the Vatican to the british L
Plotted: A Literary Atlas
Andrew DeGraff · 127 pages
"This incredibly wide-ranging collection of maps -- all inspired by literary classics -- offers readers a new way of looking at their favorite fictional worlds. Andrew DeGraff's stunningly detailed artwork takes readers deep into the landscapes from The Odyssey, Hamlet, Pride and Prejudice, Invisible Man, Lord of the Flies, A Wrinkle in Time, Watership Down, The Handmaid's Tale, and more. Sure to
A Room of One's Own
Virginia Woolf · 129 pages
A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published on 24 October 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. While this extended essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers of and characters in fiction, the m
When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II
Molly Guptill Manning · 288 pages
"When America entered World War II in 1941, [it] faced an enemy that had banned and burned over 100 million books and caused fearful citizens to hide or destroy many more. Outraged librarians launched a campaign to send free books to American troops and gathered 20 million hardcover donations. In 1943, the War Department and the publishing industry stepped in with an extraordinary program: 120 mil
The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child
Donalyn Miller · 227 pages
Donalyn Miller says she has yet to meet a child she couldn't turn into a reader. No matter how far behind Miller's students might be when they reach her 6th grade classroom, they end up reading an average of 40 to 50 books a year. Miller's unconventional approach dispenses with drills and worksheets that make reading a chore. Instead, she helps students navigate the world of literature and gives t
The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared
Alice Ozma, Jim Brozina · 299 pages
The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future
Robert Darnton · 218 pages
"In The Case for Books, Robert Darnton offers an in-depth examination of the book from its earliest beginnings to its shifting role today in popular culture, commerce, and the academy. In a lasting collection drawn from previously published and new work alike, Robert Darnton lends unique authority to the life and role of the book in society. The resulting book is a wise work of scholarship - one t
The End of Your Life Book Club
Will Schwalbe · 344 pages
This is the inspiring true story of a son and his mother, who start a "book club" that brings them together as the mother faces an advanced form of pancreatic cancer. The result is a profoundly moving tale of loss that is also a joyful, and often humorous, celebration of life.
This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All
Marilyn Johnson · 280 pages
Buried in info? Cross-eyed over technology? From the bottom of a pile of paper and discs, books, e-books, and scattered thumb drives comes a cry of hope: Make way for the librarians! They want to help. They're not selling a thing. And librarians know best how to beat a path through the googolplex sources of information available to us, writes Marilyn Johnson, whose previous book, The Dead Beat, br
Ruined By Reading: A Life in Books
Lynne Sharon Schwartz · 123 pages
Schwartz, an author, offers insight into why we read and how what we read shapes us.
Book Lust to Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers
Nancy Pearl · 301 pages
Includes both nonfiction and fiction reading recommendations for armchair or "real" travelers. This librarian famous for reader's advisory covers places as diverse as Afghanistan, Appalachia, Arizona, Baltimore, Boston, Burma, Congo, Corfu, Detroit, England, Finland, the Galapagos, Guernica, Hawaii, Iceland, Iran, Ireland, Jordan, Korea, Law Vegas, Los Angeles, Maine, Malaysia, Martha's Vineyard,
52 YA Books Every Book Lover Should Read : A One Year Journal and Recommended Reading List from the American Library Association
American Library Association · 113 pages
Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist
Tim Federle · 148 pages
Features 65 drink recipes inspired by history's most loved novels. A fun gift for barflies and a terrific treat for book clubs, Tequila Mockingbird is the ultimate cocktail book for the literary obsessed. Featuring 65 delicious drink recipes, paired with wry commentary on history's most beloved novels, the book also includes bar bites, drinking games, and whimsical illustrations throughout.
The Size of Thoughts: Essays and Other Lumber
Nicholson Baker · 355 pages
The essay entitled "Discards" references library catalog retrospective conversion projects and discusses Harvard University's disposal of its card catalog in particular.
The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You
Ella Berthoud, Susan Elderkin · 420 pages
A novel is a story transmitted from the novelist to the reader. It offers distraction, entertainment, and an opportunity to unwind or focus. But it can also be something more powerful - a way to learn about how to live. Read at the right moment in your life, a novel can - quite literally - change it. The Novel Cure is a reminder of that power. To create this apothecary, the authors have trawled tw