For book lovers, nothing beats a good book. Except, maybe, a good book about books! Bibliophiles rejoice, here are 6 great novels that celebrate the written word and those who treasure it.
1. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. In a world where you can actually get lost (literally) in literature, Thursday Next, a notorious Special Operative in literary detection, races against time to stop the world’s Third Most Wanted criminal from kidnapping characters, including Jane Eyre, from works of literature, forcing her to dive into the pages of a novel to stop literary homicide.
2. The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble. The Reading Group follows the trials and tribulations of a group of women who meet regularly to read and discuss books. Over the course of a year, each of these women become intertwined, both in the books they read and within each other’s lives.
3. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. Meggie, 12, lives a quiet life alone with her father, a bookbinder. But her father has a deep secret–he possesses an extraordinary magical power – he can “read” fictional characters to life. Trouble begins when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service.
4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Living with a foster family in Germany during World War II, a young girl struggles to survive her day-to-day trials through stealing anything she can get her hands on, but when she discovers the beauty of literature, she realizes that she has been blessed with a gift that must be shared with others, including the Jewish man hiding in the basement.
5. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. A boy named Daniel selects a novel from a library of rare books, enjoying it so much that he searches for the rest of the author’s works, only to discover that someone is destroying every book the author has ever written.
6. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. After a layoff during the Great Recession sidelines his tech career, Clay Jannon takes a job at the titular bookstore in San Francisco, and soon realizes that the establishment is a facade for a strange secret.
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