You walk to your gate at the airport, pick a chair, stash your suitcase, and see, sitting next to you, a person reading the same book you are. You could talk to that person instantly, right? Because the book gives you common ground. It’s the reason you’re reading this article — will you and I agree on my choices? Maybe you’ll connect with one of the books on the list. Or find a new favorite.
And think about it — we return to books for guidance and instruction every day of our lives. When I was a Girl Scout, way long ago, the Girl Scout handbook was my guide for life. If I wanted to build a campfire or put up a tent or identify a bug, that one book would magically tell me how. Cookbooks, of course, contain all the instructions for everything delicious, and, pre-Internet, what would we have done without instruction manuals? I read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica when I was a kid, did you? Because those books contain the secrets to the universe.
So it makes sense that book-loving writers would choose books as the object of their fiction. When caught in times of loneliness or curiosity, or even search for certain skills, a book is the most powerful tool that exists. And, often, the most formidable ammunition. A book is the repository of all the answers.
Think about the beautiful precision and particular focus that happens when an author highlights one particular book. There are instructions to follow, or spells to weave, or puzzles to solve. A character’s world — and the reader’s world — will evolve and change as the book journey continues.
My next book, All This Could Be Yours, stars a debut author who writes a surprise bestseller — the title of which is All This Could Be Yours. When she goes on her glamorous nationwide book tour, it soon becomes a deadly cross-country cat and mouse chase, and she must run for her life. What may be in her book that causes such fear and terror and danger? Could writing a best-selling novel ruin your life? More I cannot say.
I’ve discovered other books, too, that focus on one particular book. And it’s fascinating, isn’t it, that they’re all so different? Or maybe that’s exactly the point. Books, individual and singular books, can shape and transform our lives in so many different ways.
The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan Henry
The Story She Left Behind and The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry. Each of these gorgeous and thought-provoking novels highlights a book that carries the history of an entire family — and the discoveries that are made about both words and deeds. In Flora Lea, a novel appears that only one person could possibly have written — but she is thought to be dead! And in Left Behind, inspired by a true literary mystery, is about a book written in an invented language. Both are glorious and immersive. And are grounded in the truth that books can shape our worlds.
Knight’s Castle by Edward Eager
I loved this book from the moment I read it, and I bet that was when I was about 12. Four smart kids, thrown together by circumstance, pass a summer day by playing with newly discovered toy soldiers. What they soon realize: those soldiers are magic, and whoosh, take them back to medieval times. Because one of the kids is smart, and has read Sir Walter Scott, she realizes they’ve been plunked down in the middle of Ivanhoe. They are in the book! All of the Edward Eager books are marvelous, and incredibly witty, but I love this one especially because it proves that reading a book can help you fight the bad guys and put real magic in your life.
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
If you are allergic to puns, please stay away from this, it is as punny and clever and absolutely witty as any book can be! Here’s the plot. Jane Eyre has been kidnapped out of her book. And the intrepid detective Thursday Next must figure out how to replace her so the beloved story does not die. If that sounds ridiculous to you, skip this book. If it sounds fabulous, as it does to me, it will be your new favorite.
The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick
Incredibly relatable! The talented Marie Bostwick has created a book-club-worthy story about the members of a book club in the 1960s who decide to read The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. The book changes all of their lives in different ways, and this is such a perfect way to illustrate how an important book is a different experience for each and every reader.
The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Well, wow. Full of wonderful snark and sharp observations about the world of books and publishing, The Plot centers around the pitfalls of stealing someone else’s book idea. I read this a few years ago, and I still think about it often, because, yes, the book is at the center of the suspenseful and sinister plot, but this is also a study of possession and intellectual property — who does an idea really belong to? Or does it “belong” to anyone?
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Multi layered and life changing, this saga tracks the journey of the Sarajevo Haggadah, and the protagonist, a rare bookexpert excavates the history of its owners based on tiny artifacts they have left in the manuscript’s binding. I always wonder, reading elegant and ambitious books like these, about the origin story of the idea, and how the author had the confidence to make the novel fully realized. This one is based on a true story, but the fiction is magical.
Kill All Your Darlings by David Bell
Such an object lesson! A writer blocked English professor, longing for a successful novel, finds one in the first drafts from one of his students. And then the student … dies. No one else has read this manuscript, and it is a sure-fire bestseller. Now, what does the professor do? In the confident hands of the devious David Bell, this is a real page turner.
The Great Mann by Kyra Davis Lurie
It’s the 100th anniversary of the publication of The Great Gatsby, and this sensitive and thought-provoking homage transforms Gatsby’s world — and story — into 1945 Black society in a part of Los Angeles called Sugar Hill. Whether you know Great Gatsby or not, this is the perfect companion. Touching and revelatory and not to be missed.
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
I can’t talk about books about books without mentioning the genius that is Anthony Horowitz, his books that begin with Magpie Murders rely on a book in a book to drive the plot. How Horowitz writes a fictional book with a fictional-fictional book inside is a feat of literary juggling at which the rest of us can only marvel.
The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer
And The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer is brand new — and I am so eager to read this. It’s impossible for me to resist a book that’s says it’s for grown-ups who still knock on the back of wardrobes. Yes, yes, I do.
