Books about books

Hey I was just wondering if anyone could suggest some good books (any or no genre, I don't mind) about, or heavily featuring books, libraries, archives etc. I know I'm a terrible bibliophile and I need help, but I love reading about these things!
I can think of a few to start this off;

Inkheart - Cornelia Funke (YA)
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova (there are passages of proper book-porn in this!)
Anything by Audrey Niffenegar has references, especially The Night Bookmobile
And I also love the library bits in Terry Pratchett :)

Can anyone think of any more?

Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, starting with The Eyre Affair

(darn it, Touchstones are being wonky today)

Thanks Marissa, just went and read the Amazon page for The Eyre Affair, looks very funny I will have to get it :)

You could try The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennet or maybe The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

And I second the recommendation for the Thursday Next series.

I have read The Uncommon Reader but I haven't heard of The Thirteenth Tale or The Shadow of the Wind, thanks I will go and look these up.

I second Shadow of the Wind & Jasper Fforde

The Heroines by, Eileen Favorite

The Archivist: A Novel by, Martha Cooley

I know I have tagged some books as books about books you may want to try a tag search too.

For nonfiction:

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman

And I second The Thirteenth Tale.

Possession also.

ETA: since the touchstone seems wonky this is the one by A.S. Byatt

Thanks Susie I will try the tag search, and thanks everyone else for more suggestions.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer is a bit about a book club. I know some of my favorite books and authors are mentioned in it.

Anything by Alberto Manguel, particularly A History of Reading. Non-fiction that reads like a great novel.

I just read The Broken Teaglass, a novel about a sort of mystery within a lexicography office. You learn a lot about what goes into defining words and writing the dictionary, as well get a good romance/mystery story.

I also recommend Shadow of the Wind, The Book Thief, and Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next, as well as the following:

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Ex Libris by Ross King
The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl

I'll see if I can think of any more. :o)

There are so many it's difficult to know where to start! Since it's a bit of a passion of mine too I'll try to be brief with some favorites and not bore you!

Umberto Eco The Name of the Rose
Italo Calvino If On a Winter's Night a Traveller
Jorge Luis Borges The Library of Babel

And one of my all time favorite reads Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves (which I'm now reminded I need to buy again since I lost possession of it in a custody battle!)

I'd echo Cooley's The Archivist: A Novel - a great book for anyone interested in the ethics of keeping archives. And Alberto Manguel. My particular favorite is The Library at Night which is possibly the most beautiful books I have read on the subject of libraries.

Do let us know what you read!

Fairly sure I remembered thwere being a specific group about this, and a quick search of the groups tags later I was correct

3 groups tagged Books about books.

They'll have loads of suggestions.

Oh boy is this ever my specialist subject, I love books about books. Please excuse my duplicating what others have said, it's simply so much quicker to make out the list without having to check back every time. Here are just a few of the ones I've tagged in my library:
Parnassus On Wheels* (F)
The Merry Heart*
The Fictional 100
Obscene in the Extreme*
Steinbeck's Ghost (a children's story but VERY highly recommended for all ages)** (F)
Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad*
Howards End Is On the Landing*
Beowulf on the Beach
The "Rebecca" Notebook*
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop*
The Book on the Bookshelf
At Large and at Small*
People of the Book* (F)
The Uncommon Reader (F)
The Book That Changed my Life
Curiosities of Literature
Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction
Reading Lolita in Tehran*
Where Books Fall Open**
Invisible Forms
So Many Books
Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel
Where Was Rebecca Shot?**
A Book Addict's Treasury
The Thrirteenth Tale (F)
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader**
Reading the Decades
Danse Macabre**
A Room of One's Own**

This is just a very tiny sample and you're welcome to wander through my library ('Books About Books' have their own collection). I haven't added here all the Jasper Fforde books, the academic ones, the 'list' ones (1001 Books Before you Die etc), the biographies or books that deal exclusively with one particular book or genre and so on but there's enough there to keep any healthy book addict worthy of the name busy for quite a while. I've starred my particular favourites. and marked (F) any that are fiction.

I'm currently reading The Distant Hours by Kate Morton, which involves a woman who is obsessed by a book (and books in general!) - it's a lot more involved and interesting than her first two (although I enjoyed those too), and I can recommend it highly!

#17 Me too! I just read it on holiday and while I very much enjoyed her previous books I think this is the one that really confirms her position as a leading light of the new Gothic.

The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
The Book of Kells bt R. A. MacAvoy
A Book Dragon by Donn Kushner
Dark Cities Underground by Lisa Goldstein
The Library by Zoran Zivkovic

I'll second The Club Dumas.

H.P. Lovecraft has many stories dealing with ancient and forbidden books or people digging through archives discovering hidden knowledge. His writing takes some getting used to though (and that's putting it kindly).

15# Thanks Reading Fox, I didn't realise there was an actual group about this, I will go and check them out.

Well I wasn't expecting such a response! Thank you everyone for all the recommendations, particularly Book Sloth, I have been busy looking them all up on Amazon and will definatly be adding lots of these to my tbr list.
Oh and drneutron, The City of Dreaming Books looks particularly good, beautiful illustrations, thank you.

It was definitely one of my faves!

I too loved and highly recommend The city of dreaming books! I want to visit . . .

*goes to get The City of Dreaming Books off my TBR pile.* Husband gave this to me for Mother's Day, I think it's time I read it.

Just read Book Lover by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack. It is chick lit, through and through heh.

Alrighty then. I'll stay well away from that one.

Remembered another one: How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life by Mameve Medwed.

I like John Dunning's mystery series about Cliff Janeway, a book scout set in the world of rare books. The ones I've read base their solutions on fascinating (well, to us) details of that world.

Thanks Marissa and vicwong I will go look those up now :)

28: vicwong

Yes, I love the Cliff Janeway series as well. There are I believe 2 more more books in the pipeline, but John has been in Ill health in recent years and unable to finish them. The five books that are done are all great though.