Top Ten Tuesday (books about books)

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This week the ladies at The Broke and the Bookish are asking us to suggest books for folks

who like ________. I filled in the blank with "books about books." Theses are some of my favorite books to read, even if they mention books I will never read or haven't heard of. I like the community feeling I get from reading books by readers.

 

Shall we?

 

 

The first three books about books I ever read are these. Anna Quindlen's How Reading Changed My Life (which I just recently re-read), Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris, and Lynne Sharon Schwartz's Ruined by Reading are three of my reading touchstones.

 

 

By the Book and My Ideal Bookshelf ask contemporary authors and other famous folks about their reading habits, favorite books, etc. My Ideal Bookshelf even provides paintings for each person's "ideal bookshelf" of the books that represent them.

 

Joe Queenan is a cantankerous reader with definite ideas. His One for the Books should probably be taken with a grain of salt. Another man who loves his books is Morris of The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.

 

And then there are the stories about books getting you through life. Nina Sankovitch reads a book a day for a year while she's mourning the death of her sister. Tolstoy and the Purple Chair is her story. Alice Ozma tells about her single father reading to her every night from childhood through high school in The Reading Promise. And Molly Guptill Manning discusses how books got our servicemen through World War II in When Books Went to War.

I'm always looking for more. What are your favorite books about books?