Books about books, part II– 10 novels about bookstores and libraries

Following last week's collection of books about bookish things, here's some contemporary fiction for ultimate bibliophiles

For those of us who love (or make that obsessed with) books, novels about books, bookstores, and libraries are the icing on the cake. Reading about books and bookish people in fictional narratives might seem odd, but for the devout bibliophile, it makes perfect sense.

Presented here is a selection of contemporary novels whose stories are centered around bookstores or libraries. What could be cozier reading on a chilly day accompanied by a warm drink, a blanket, and a four-legged friend or two?

You may also enjoy last week’s Nonfiction Books About Bookshops, Libraries, and Reading.

I’m almost always reading classics, but I want to read and/or listen to all of these. The only one I’ve gotten to is The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (the only male author on this list; it seems to be a genre that women writers gravitate to more. It was for a community discussion, and while I thought it had a lot of interesting ideas to consider, it left me wondering, could our individual lives turn out to be so radically different with any slight turn of the cosmic dial? But then, that was precisely the point of the book.

I would very much like to read The Personal Librarian soon, because there’s an exhibit about the real-life subject of this novel, Belle da Costa Green at the Morgan Library and Museum. It’s my favorite NYC museum, both because the exhibits are incredibly interesting, and also because it’s one of the only NYC museum that’s not a constant mob scene.

What about you? Have you read any of these, and what did you think? Have I left any out?

Wishing all of my readers a peaceful, safe, and fulfilling holiday week. I’ll be back with the regular Wednesday edition as usual, even though it’s Christmas/Hanukkah!

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

From the publisher: Set in 1959, Florence Green, a kindhearted widow with a small inheritance, risks everything to open a bookshop—the only bookshop—in the seaside town of Hardborough. By making a success of a business so impractical, she invites the hostility of the town's less prosperous shopkeepers.

By daring to enlarge her neighbors’ lives, she crosses Mrs. Gamart, the local arts doyenne. Florence’s warehouse leaks, her cellar seeps, and the shop is apparently haunted. Only too late does she begin to suspect the truth: a town that lacks a bookshop isn’t always a town that wants one.

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald, published in 1978, was adapted to film in 2017, to mixed reviews by audiences and critics. Devotees of media about bookstores should nevertheless get some enjoyment from it.

The Bookshop on Bookshop.org*

The Last Bookshop in London: A Novel of World War II
by Madeline Martin

From the publisher: August 1939 — London prepares for war as enemy forces sweep across Europe. Grace Bennett has always dreamed of moving to the city, but the bunkers and drawn curtains that she finds on her arrival are not what she expected. And she certainly never imagined she’d wind up working at Primrose Hill, a dusty old bookshop nestled in the heart of London.

Through blackouts and air raids as the Blitz intensifies, Grace discovers the power of storytelling to unite her community in ways she never dreamed—a force that triumphs over even the darkest nights of the war. This 2021 publication has become a bestseller and a reader favorite.

The Last Bookshop in London on Bookshop.org*