British Author Challenge December 2022: Books About Books

You know you're a book lover when even reading about books is fun. Any sort of book about books can qualify: novels about novels, histories of printing, instruction manuals on bookbinding, academic texts on the importance of coffee houses in 18th century literature can all count.

Suggestions

Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde
Possession by A. S. Byatt
Miss Buncle’s Book by D. E. Stevenson
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Journal of Dora Damage by Belinda Starling
The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd
The Liar's Dictionary by Eley Williams
The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift
Howards End is on the Landing by Susan Hill
The Book of Lost Books: An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You'll Never Read by Stuart Kelly
What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton
Aspects of the Novel by E. M. Forster
Built of Books: How Reading Defined the Life of Oscar Wilde by Thomas Wright
Ten Years in the Tub by Nick Hornby
99 Novels by Anthony Burgess
God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible by Adam Nicolson
In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture by Alister McGrath
Books That Changed The World: The 50 Most Influential Books in Human History by Andrew Taylor
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
The World Between Two Covers: Reading the Globe by Ann Morgan
Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure From Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age by Dennis Duncan

And be sure to check out the "books about books" tag page. https://www.librarything.com/tag/books+about+books

Thanks! Going to see what I can find on my shelves.

I can highly recommend God's Secretaries!

ETA: and Miss Buncle's Book, delightful.

It will be John Sutherland for me and How to be Well Read

>3 PaulCranswick: Sutherland for me, too, Paul. I've got a couple of his "puzzle" books, Can Jane Eyre Be Happy? and Is Heathcliff a Murderer? I read them some years ago and since then have read more of the books mentioned.

I'm also considering Imagining Characters: Six Conversations About Women Writers, a conversation between A. S. Byatt and Ignes Sodre.

I'll be revisiting The Eyre Affair.

Ordered Aspects of the Novel - the only one of Forster's books that had great appeal.

I'll be reading Howard's End is on the Landing.

I just read The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary for the Non-Fiction challenge November Books about Books category, so I have a head start here. Interesting and enjoyable, and as much about murder and insanity as about the OED.

>7 AnneDC: Paul once long ago mentioned that he would try - on his return to live back in Britain -

to pose for a photo in front of Professor James Murray's famous OED Mailbox.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

I've read this at least half a dozen times and it never gets old. I may even enjoy it more now than the first time I read it since I've read more classic British lit and understand even more of the references.

>10 amanda4242: that's on the "get to this soon" stack in my bedroom...

>11 fuzzi: I hope you enjoy it when you get to it. It really is a delight for the well-read.

The 2023 BAC is up!

General thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/346901
Wildcard: https://www.librarything.com/topic/346903
January: https://www.librarything.com/topic/346902

>12 amanda4242: thank you!

I'm currently stuck reading the Lost Fleet series that @majkia suckered me into. Twelve books? Ai yi yi yi yi...

>14 fuzzi: Twelve? That's gonna take awhile!

I read The World of Thrush Green by Miss Read (1990). In this nonfiction book, Miss Read gives the background to the Thrush Green series, including the basis for the place, people and her motivation for writing the series. Included are excerpts from the books as well as beautiful full color illustrations by Miss Read's long-time illustrator, John S. Goodall.

I also read portions of John Sutherland's Is Heathcliff a Murderer? Great Puzzles in Nineteenth-Century Fiction. This little book has 34 essays on puzzles, conundrums and other interesting tidbits from 34 great pieces of British literature. Previously I had read 21 of these essays of books I had read. This time I re-read the Middlemarch essay ("Is Will Ladislaw Legitimate?" Answer: probably, but we don't know for sure), and two more essays of books I've read since first reading Sutherland's book.

I still have 10 essays on books I have yet to read, so another challenge for me.

>16 kac522: Adding Is Heathcliff a Murderer? to my tbr list.

>17 amanda4242: I've also read Sutherland's
Can Jane Eyre Be Happy? More puzzles in Classic Fiction,
Who Betrays Elizabeth Bennet? Further Puzzles in Classic Fiction and
So You Think You Know Jane Austen?.

And I see there's Where Was Rebecca Shot? Puzzles, Curiosities and Conundrums in Modern Fiction, but I can't seem to get hold of a copy.