#Books About Books

[freckles-and-books]

I’ve been amassing books about magical libraries/books. It’s time I read some of them. This one is first!

#books #currently reading #the last heir to blackwood library #hester fox #books about books

[drawdownbooks]

Diagramming Modernity: Books and Graphic Design in Latin America, 1920–1940 This massive publication offers the first comprehensive panorama of the Latin American illustrated book between the 1920s and 1940s, a period characterized by the region's rapid modernization. The books reproduced here encapsulate this transformative era, expressing and embodying emergent national and continental narratives in Latin American countries.

Diagramming Modernity reproduces more than 1,000 illustrated first editions, analyzing the cornucopia of cultural narratives they contain. In addition to showcasing relatively unknown work by many consecrated artists, the publication also boasts an extensive repertoire of avant-garde artists largely forgotten until today.

Chapters are devoted to countries and to specific themes such as Word-Image, Verbal Visualities, Pre-Columbianisms and Ancestralisms, and Social and Political Graphics.

Writers and thinkers Rodrigo Gutiérrez Viñuales, Riccardo Boglione, Juan Manuel Bonet, Mariana Garone Gravier and Dafne Cruz Porchini conscientiously investigate these themes and more.

Edited by Rodrigo Gutiérrez Viñuales and Riccardo Boglione

With texts by Juan Manuel Bonet, Rodrigo Gutiérrez Viñuales, Riccardo Boglione, Marina Garone Gravier, and Dafne Cruz Porchini

Designed by José Luis Lugo

Published by Editoriale RM and Ediciones La Bahía, 2023

Hardcover, 876 pages, 1500 color images, 9 × 12.25 inches

ISBN: 978-8-41-797579-1

#Diagramming Modernity #Latin American graphic design #graphic design books #books about books #Latin American visual history #Latin American graphic design history #graphic design history #Rodrigo Gutiérrez Viñuales #Riccardo Boglione #José Luis Lugo #Editoriale RM #Ediciones La Bahia #Draw Down Books

[clockworkbee]

For some reason, books with books inside them, especially the ones without a title on them and/or anonymous authors, are almost always intriguing.

#whether they end being great is an entirely different matter tho #the shadow of the wind #the book that wouldn't burn #the starless sea #and more #books about books

[desdasiwrites]

– Satoshi Yagisawa, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

#book quote of the day #satoshi yagisawa #days at the morisaki bookshop #breakups #books about books #japanese author #contemporary fiction #romance #short reads #book recommendations

[tomesofthetrade]

“Men are more interesting in books than they are in real life.”

- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

#the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society #mary ann shaffer #annie barrows #books #booklr #reading #bookish #book nerd #bookworm #booklover #booksbooksbooks #book photography #book picture #historical fiction #books about books #war books

[randomgirl005]

Closing a book that has meant so much while reading it, you feel empty at first, but then you can only be grateful for all it has shown you.

#books and reading #books #books & libraries #reading #aesthetic book #writing #writters on tumblr #writers on tumblr #writers and poets #poetry #poets on tumblr #dark acadamia quotes #dark academia #dark aesthetic #books about books #books and libraries #books and coffee #books and literature #books aesthetic #poetic #books quotes #motivation #quotes #words #readers #readers on tumblr

[mask131]

The book of all books

If you are an avid reader, if you are a book lover, if you are a recurrent visitor of libraries and bookshops, if you are a collector of rare books, or if you are a fan of the hilarious literary comic strips of @myjetpack​ , this book is for you and I cannot advise you enough to try to read it at least once.

“The City of Dreaming Books”. A wonderful, hilarious, fascinating, bizarre fantasy adventure created by famous German author and illustrator Walter Moers. I read it in French, but an English translation exists - and you, lucky English-speakers, can even read the sequel to this wonderful novel, “The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books”, which is currently unavailable to non-German speaking Frenchies like me. Of course, if you can read German, I also suggest you try to enjoy these marvelous tomes in their original language - but even if you do not understand the text the bizarre, crazy, demented but deeply charming and hypnotizing illustrations of Moers are enough to plunge you into a twisted, inventive, genius world of puns, obsessions, beauties and treacheries. 

What is the story of “The City of Dreaming Books”? It is quite simple. They are the memoirs of an elderly lindworm scholar, Optimus Yarnspinner, retelling the greatest adventure he lived in his youth (I am using the English translations for the names - given everything is a pun in this world, the names change from language to language - in French it is Hildegunst Taillemythes, Hildegunst Myth-carver, and in German Hildegunst von Mythenmetz). As a young dinosaur-man of barely 77 years, Optimus is an avid bibliophile and aspiring author, who, on the death-bed of his mentor, inherits a manuscript. Not any manuscript: the manuscript of the best novel ever written in the history of the fantasy world of Zamonia. Reading this breaks you soul, makes you feel every emotions in the most intense way possible, and leaves you a forever changed being. 

This discovery prompts Optimus to search for the mysterious author of this manuscript - a brilliant young man that was last seen decades and decades ago, trying to have his novel published, in a town called Bookholm, where Optimus goes to investigate. Begins a exploration and investigation tale in this grand city at the center of the book industry, a quest of unnerving discoveries, hilarious encounters, heart-breaking tragedies, goofy plot twists and sordid crimes, in the beating heart of the literary arts - in the City of Dreaming Books, where reading can kill, and authors can become gods... or devils. 

The most intense pleasure brought by this novel is the universe of the titular City, the fabulous, fantastical, mind-blowing creation of Bookholm (Bouquinbourg in French, Buchhaim in German), a fantasy city that is all about books. Five hundred second hands bookshops, a million or so semi-legal book shops, with six hundred different publishing houses, fifty-five printing businesses and twelve paper factories. It is the city where all young authors go to get published, where all famous authors go to be recognized, praised and criticized, where all old authors go to die. All the books of history passed at one point by this wonderful city, where all the shops are centered around reading.

The opticians only give prescriptions for the best reading-glasses. All the alcohol and drugs sold are designe to enhance the reading experience. The pastries are shaped like books, the wood-carvers specialize in building bookshelves and book-holders, every pub has a public reading instead of an happy hour, and there are entire shops merely selling bookmarks. Linguists work in laboratories, dissecting words like animals, and book-binders are this city’s equivalent of trained surgeons. Scientists of Bookholm even go as far as to practice their psychological or biological projects in relation to literature - such as how one species’ literature was influenced by their biology, or the reverse. There are no big sports match - but rhyming competitions in literary salons. And the firemen are excepted to save the books first, the people afterward. 

The other great charm of this novel being the whimsical, medieval bestiary-like, borderline-surrealist fantasy world it takes place in. Zamonia is a recurring setting of Moers, who wrote other fantasy books taking place in this “time of myths and legends” supposedly taking place millenias and millenias before the history of the world as we know it today - when there was more continents than today, and when mankind was but a planetary minority believed to be more legend than reality. In this book every character is unique, ranging from talking animals, humanoid reptiles, yetis and giant worms to extremely alien and cartoonesque species that could be coming out of a UFO. Being familiar with the Germanic European folklore can help, since many mythological and fairytale creatures can be found back in those pages (the very protagonist is a lindworm, and in other places German bogeymen such as the rye-wolves can be encountered). All of course, with the unique and strangely superb illustrations of Moers, of which I offer you a quick sample. 

But let’s return to the books! Because this book is about books, all books, and literature, and book-selling, and the love and hate of books. Everything is described with such lavish details and such an imaginative mind - it is the most book-loving fantasy work I have ever read. And it is not without its dark side... Because in this world, there are demonology books, and cursed books, and trap-books designed to kill those that open them, and poisoned pages straight out of “The Name of the Rose”, and obscure literary-alchemists practicing strange editing experiences in the depths of the night, summoning golems of paper and demons of inks... And many of these forbidden and dangerous books are locked up in the catacombs below the city, a gigantic and ancient labyrinth that is regularly visited by the Book-Hunters, terrifying and deadly warriors trained to survive the treacherous paths and many deadly traps of the catacombs, so talented in their quest for books they can identify the nature of a tome merely by its smell. 

Because the catacombs of Bookholm are filled with some of the most precious treasures one can imagine. Books of times so ancient they are forgotten ; first editions thought to be lost to the world ; manuscripts that never saw the printing press ; prints with typos so rare they become worth a lot of money... These are precious treasures for a city where dubious dwarfs sell the blood of authors under their coat, and where the finest and most renowned book-shops sell books the same way high-class, luxury-brand clothes sell their products. 

And even beyond books, Moers keeps sliding here and there absolutely fantastic little stories, fleshing out the world - ghost legends and fairytales and imaginary geography - to keep us entertained while our sympathetic but also very unfit for adventure (he is a young author after all) has to make his way throughout scheming critics, bloodthirsty book-hunters, excentric dragon-witches, toasts of bees, haunted wines and criminal book-collectors.

And all that I describe... IS BUT THE FIRST PART OF THE BOOK!

I do not dare say more of it, out of fear of spoiling the surprise for you - but if you are a bibliophile, go check this beautiful novel. Let yourself sink in a world where books are law, justice, art, food, drugs and life, let yourself sink into a fantasy adventure with an ordinary bibliophile and aspiring author as a hero for once, and fall deep, deep into the depths of the labyrinthine catacombs of the books that dream but never die... 

#the city of dreaming books #walter moers #literature #book love #book passion #bibliophilia #german literature #fantasy book #fantasy literature #book recommendations #books about books

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

[ Find my review here. ]

#book tropes #sapphic books #lesbian romance #opposites attract #books about books #sapphic romance #lesbian pride #lesbian books #lesbian fiction #lesbian #booklr #book blog #batty about books #battyaboutbooks

[blogmollylane]

Currently reading: Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slate

#fiction #reading #books #currently reading #mystery #thriller #crime #suspense #books about books #death of a bookseller #Alice slater #tea and books

[rockislandadultreads]

Read-Alike Friday: What You Are Looking Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama

What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama

What are you looking for?

This is the famous question routinely asked by Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi. Like most librarians, Komachi has read every book lining her shelves—but she also has the unique ability to read the souls of her library guests. For anyone who walks through her door, Komachi can sense exactly what they’re looking for in life and provide just the book recommendation they never knew they needed to help them find it.

Each visitor comes to her library from a different juncture in their careers and dreams, from the restless sales attendant who feels stuck at her job to the struggling working mother who longs to be a magazine editor. The conversation that they have with Sayuri Komachi—and the surprise book she lends each of them—will have life-altering consequences.

With heartwarming charm and wisdom, What You Are Looking For Is in the Library is a paean to the magic of libraries, friendship and community, perfect for anyone who has ever found themselves at an impasse in their life and in need of a little inspiration.

The Girl Who Reads on the Métro by Christine Féret-Fleury

Juliette leads a perfectly ordinary life in Paris, working a slow office job, dating a string of not-quite-right men, and fighting off melancholy. The only bright spots in her day are her metro rides across the city and the stories she dreams up about the strangers reading books across from her: the old lady, the math student, the amateur ornithologist, the woman in love, the girl who always tears up at page 247.

One morning, avoiding the office for as long as she can, Juliette finds herself on a new block, in front of a rusty gate wedged open with a book. Unable to resist, Juliette walks through, into the bizarre and enchanting lives of Soliman and his young daughter, Zaide. Before she realizes entirely what is happening, Juliette agrees to become a passeur, Soliman's name for the booksellers he hires to take stacks of used books out of his store and into the world, using their imagination and intuition to match books with readers. Suddenly, Juliette's daydreaming becomes her reality, and when Soliman asks her to move in to their store to take care of Zaide while he goes away, she has to decide if she is ready to throw herself headfirst into this new life.

Big-hearted, funny, and gloriously zany, The Girl Who Reads on the Metro is a delayed coming-of-age story about a young woman who dares to change her life, and a celebration of the power of books to unite us all.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

What would you change if you could go back in time?

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?

This is the first volume of the "Before the Coffee Gets Cold" series.

The Lending Library by Aliza Fogelson

For fans of Jane Green and Loretta Nyhan, a heartwarming debut novel about a daydreamer who gives her town, and herself, an amazing a lending library in her sunroom while confronting an even higher stakes, life-changing, decision. When the Chatsworth library closes indefinitely, Dodie Fairisle loses her sanctuary. How is a small-town art teacher supposed to cope without the never-ending life advice and enjoyment that books give her? Well, when she’s as resourceful and generous as Dodie, she turns her sunroom into her very own little lending library. At first just a hobby, this lit lovers’ haven opens up her world in incredible ways. She knows books are powerful, and soon enough they help her forge friendships between her zany neighbors—and attract an exciting new romance. But when the chance to adopt an orphaned child brings Dodie’s secret dream of motherhood within reach, everything else suddenly seems less important. Finding herself at a crossroads, Dodie must figure out what it means to live a full, happy life. If only there were a book that could tell her what to do…

#contemporary fiction #books about books #reading recommendations #reading recs #book recommendations #book recs #library books #tbr #tbr pile #to read #booklr #book tumblr #book blog #library blog #readers advisory

[the---hermit]

How We Read Now by Naomi S. Baron

I don't know where this book review will go, but to be honest I can predict it will kinda look like a rant at some point, because me and this book got beef. The worse 25 euros I have ever had to spend for uni. This is one of the books I have to study for my history of libraries and reading class, and if it weren't for that I would have dnf-ed this pretty quickly.

This is a non-fiction book that focuses on the differences between physical, digital and audiobooks. Its aim is to analize data to conclude on which is the best option for learning. It is said that the audience it is aimed at is made of teachers, educators and parents. I don't know if it was reading it from a student perspective, but the tone of the author felt so patronizing. It was incredibly annoying, and the worse thing is that I agree with a good amount of what the author is writing about, but the tone was so annoying it made it difficult to read and to agree with. There's so many things I didn't like about this book, I don't even know if I'll remember all of them. The general critique I have read about this book is that it's pretty dry, because there's a lot of statistics, and technical stuff about researches and analysis they did. It's true, but it's not the worse part of the book in my oprion. Firstly this book is so repetitive it hurts. If you could eliminate all the times the author adds unnecessary lines to say "as we have said in chapter x" or "as we will see in chapter y" the book would miss a good 50 pages at least, it was so overdone it made it difficult to focus on what the author was trying to say (and to be honest at a certain point it looked like it was simply a way to make the book longer). And then as if that wasn't enough the chapters in which she tries to give advices on how to have the best results from different types of reading the tips are always more or less the same for all three kinds of books, so again repetitive like crazy. While we are on the topic of these tips let's just say that they are beyond the line of being banal. I spent all that money and time to have someone tell me that to have a productive reading session I have to focus on what I read and minimize the potential distractions. As I mentioned reading it from a student perspective made the tone of the author feel incredibly patronizing, anytime she talks about students it feels like she comes from the point of view that all young people are drowned by technology and social media to the point of being stupid. I am not saying this is the opinion of the author, but it's the feeling I got while reading the entire book, and it was so annoying. Another thing I personally didn't like at all is how this person is trying to find the way™ to get people to read productively, almost without considering that not only everyone has their preferences but depending on what and how you study and who you are things might change drastically. The general idea given by the author is that at the end of the day you should mix mediums but physical books are the best for learning/studying. I do agree, because I prefer physical book, but the way this opinion is carried in the book made me want to disagree just to go against the author. Not the most mature way of dealing with this but that was my natural reaction. Overall the writing annoyed me so much to the point I struggled to focus, and against the author's advices I did way more skimming than close reading because of how repetitive this thing was. I do not recommend at all this book, it's not worth it. Read articles online if you are interested on the topic, this was a waste of money, ans if you couldn't tell I am still very much pissed at this book.

I read this for the non fiction prompt of the 2023 genre bingo.

#bookblr #booklr #2023 book #book #books #non fiction #how we read now #naomi s. baron #bookish #books about books #book cover #book rec #book recommendation #book review #bad book reviews #reading #uni book #mine #the---hermit

[macrolit]

Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading Maureen Corrigan

#leave me alone i'm reading #maureen corrigan #reading #readers #books #design #lamp #books about books

[dark-academic-dead-poet]

"Maybe love shouldn’t be built on a foundation of compromises, but maybe it can’t exist without them either. Not the kind that forces two people into shapes they don’t fit in, but the kind that loosens their grips, always leaves room to grow. Compromises that say, there will be a you-shaped space in my heart, and if your shape changes, I will adapt. No matter where we go, our love will stretch out to hold us, and that makes me feel like … like everything will be okay."

Emily Henry, Book Lovers

#book lovers #emily henry #romance books #romcom #books about books #quotes #dark academia #literature #dark acadamia aesthetic #light academia #coffee #autumn #fall #books #aesthetic #a e s t h e t i c #chaotic academia aesthetic #rain #chaotic academia #romanticizing life #sad quotes #deadpoetsociety #book aesthetic #book quotes #brown aesthetic #snow #winter aesthetic #Christmas aesthetic #snowy weather #cozy aesthetic

[desdasiwrites]

I don’t think it really matters whether you know a lot about books or not. That said, I don’t know that much myself. But I think what matters far more with a book is how it affects you.

– Satoshi Yagisawa, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

#book quote of the day #satoshi yagisawa #days at the morisaki bookshop #the joy of reading #books about books #japanese author #contemporary fiction #romance #short reads #森崎書店の日々 #translated literature

[tomesofthetrade]

“Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true.”

- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

#the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society #mary ann shaffer #annie barrows #books #booklr #reading #bookish #book nerd #bookworm #booklover #booksbooksbooks #book photography #book picture #historical fiction #books about books #war books

[tuuliareads]

My current TBR-hopefuls. Some light reading. Current read is Bookshops & Bonedust

#tbr list #tbr pile #TBR hopefuls #bookshops and bonedust #starling house #crescent city #hoeab #cc hoeab #murtagh #books about books #Books about dragons #iron flame #book girlies #fantasy books