I like books that are about books, in one way or another, even ones dealing most indirectly with books.
Eg: My Name is Red [About illuminating a book], The Name of the Rose [About a forbidden book], The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay [About comic books], The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana [About an antiquarian book dealer], etc... Well, you get the picture.
This is a request for recommendation for more of the same. Any suggestions?
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino.
I liked this book!
Exit, pursued by a bear.
Master and Margarita by Bulgakov. Everything is rolling around Master`s book.
84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff about the correspondence between a New York woman and a London bookseller. Its a quick read, too.
A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference.
-- Winnie the Pooh
Farenheit 451- book burning
Maybe 2666 by Bolano. It has parts about books, critics and authors. But this is embedded into a book that is about many things.
Got a good poem for you then:
His Books by Robert Southey
MY days among the Dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old:
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
cont here...http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/his-books/
Pale Fire, by Nabokov, is maybe the best book (maybe 2nd best...) by a great writer. It's not about a 'book', though, it's just about a long poem. Since the poem is, itself, part of the novel-reading experience, it sort of fits your bill, maybe.
Also, straying maybe a bit further from the examples you gave, therre is a great non-fiction book called U & I, by Nicholson Baker. It is a very detailed, personal, and often hilarious descripion of the writer's (Baker's) relationship to the writings of his favorite author (John Updike). It's unique, and you might be surprised at what it's like if you just read the first few pages... But it's about being a reader, more than it is about the books themselves, so it isn't exactly like what you were looking for, I just had a hunch it might be worth mentioning.
The Hours
~
"It is not that I am mad; it is only that my head is different from yours.”
~
Les Faux-monnayeurs by Gide.
"And the worms, they will climb
The rugged ladder of your spine"
The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley and Parnassus on Wheels by the same author
"What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare." W.H. Davies
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco (particuarly if you liked The Name of the Rose, and haven't read this one yet)
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss is all about a book and the way in which it has touched the lives of varrious characters within the story.
I have not read this one yet, but I just picked up a book called The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon and well it sounds like it is going to be about books
That is all I can think off off the top of my head for now
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
Second. First book I thought of when I read the title. I actually just read it yesterday and was very impressed. Also, I'd like to add Jorge Luis Borges' short story 'La biblioteca de Babel' (The Library of Babel). Perhaps you should simply read all of his short stories due to the fact that literature and books play a meritorious role in almost all. Borges was a bookworm writing for bookworms and wrote brilliantly.Originally Posted by mona amon
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino.
I liked this book!
I AM THE BOY
THAT CAN ENJOY
INVISIBILITY.
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly, maybe. I love that book.
'...A cast of your skull, sir, until the original is available, would be an ornament to any anthropological museum. It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.' --Dr. Mortimer, The Hound of the Baskervilles
That is a good book about fairytales and a Book. Another one, off the top of my head, Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind, a book about a damned book and an author's revenge on his own work. I liked it, a big book but a whirlwind of a fast read. I didn't like The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte although it has some good reviews.
Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose (mentioned above) must be the prime example of a book about books. Not only is it about books, but it is entirely made up of other texts as well. According to Eco, there is nothing in it that is original. Everything is borrowed from some other text. Eco rearranged this collage to create his own masterpiece.
"The farther he goes the more good it does me. I don’t want philosophies, tracts, dogmas, creeds, ways out, truths, answers, nothing from the bargain basement. He is the most courageous, remorseless writer going and the more he grinds my nose in the sh1t the more I am grateful to him..."
-- Harold Pinter on Samuel Beckett
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