Play Book Tag discussion

How is it our final tag of the year? I'm excited to announce that the following tag was overwhelmingly chosen:

books about books

Please share your reading plans and recommendations below.

Remember, for the regular monthly reads, the book can be shelved as "books about books" on Goodreads, or be a book that is not yet shelved that way but you feel should be.

One way to find books to read for this tag is to please visit:

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...

We encourage people to link to additional lists below if they find them.

Happy Reading!!!

There is something poetic about our year ending with books about books....

Cloud Cuckoo Land

An absolute fit for the tag and a 5 star read.

I want to read:

⭐The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki - I am most excited about this one. I loved the beginning.
⭐The Sentence - by Louise Erdrick

Tenderness - about D.H. Lawrence - I read a great review last summer.
Cloud Cuckoo Land - This is on my 2022 52 week plan, but I might read it sooner. Correction - Library hold lines are too long for December.
The Eyre Affair - mystery

I'm looking for a books-about-books tag book with New York tags, to bring me home to New York state. So far, I found The Matzah Ball, which also fits December flurries. Any suggestions?

My December bookclub is reading Giver of the Stars, but we can read any other similar books if we already read this one. I already read Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. Can anyone recommend another book about similar library programs, WPA projects or other library solutions for rural areas.

Other possibilities
The Starless Sea - New York
The Book of Speculation - New York

An Unfinished Story
Writers & Lovers Lily King - I loved Euphoria
The Night of Many Endings
The Christmas Bookshop - Flurries
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

Oh! I totally thought diversity would win it!

I would have been ok with either one. And now I need to see what's on my tbr...

ETA: I have more options than this, but this is my first choice, I think, so likely what I'll go with:
The Library Book / Susan Orlean

Theresa wrote: "There is something poetic about our year ending with books about books...."

I agree!
Even though I already set my reading list for December and books about books won't fit, this is appropriate :)

For Joanne and other mystery lovers:
Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village

You guys know for me, it’s Writers and Lovers, and that gets me back to Boston for Fly the Skies!!!! Very happy it won!

NancyJ wrote: "I want to read:

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki - I am most excited about this one. I loved the beginning.
Tenderness - about D.H. Lawrence - I read ..."

The Starless Sea and The Book of Speculation both have New York tags. I enjoyed the first one but haven't read the second.

LibraryCin wrote: "Oh! I totally thought diversity would win it!

I would have been ok with either one. And now I need to see what's on my tbr...

ETA: I have more options than this, but this is my first choice, I t..."

Thanks, Cindy! That's perfect. I own it and it allows me to fly home to Los Angeles.

Excited this one won. I have lots of options. Considering:

The Shadow of the Wind (again)
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
The Library of the Dead
The Reading List
Hell of a Book

I can't think of one that would work for Washington, DC so I will probably just stick to my original plan.

Jen K wrote: "NancyJ wrote: "I want to read:

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki - I am most excited about this one. I loved the beginning.
Tenderness - about D.H. Law..."

Thanks Jen!

I'm going to have a hard time using this for Fly (but that was true of all the possible tags I think).
I'm going home to Copenhagen, and even though I can find a few books about books set in Copenhagen, only one has the sufficient tags for both: The Library of Shadows. Why was the title changed to that? In Danish the title is Libri Di Luca, a title in Italian to lend to the mystery (meaning Luca's books).
Anyway I've already read that, even though it's been a while (I read it when it was new and it originally published in 2007). So I could do a reread (I liked it then, and it's an easy mystery type read) or just not combine with Fly. Decisions ...

Johanne wrote: "I'm going to have a hard time using this for Fly (but that was true of all the possible tags I think).
I'm going home to Copenhagen, and even though I can find a few books about books set in Copenh..."

Did you check the Denmark list?

NancyJ wrote: "Johanne wrote: "I'm going to have a hard time using this for Fly (but that was true of all the possible tags I think).
I'm going home to Copenhagen, and even though I can find a few books about boo..."

Not yet, but I'm going to have to do that anyway, since the Copenhagen list only had 6 books tagged Copenhagen 5 times or more :)

Well, I don't think I'm in luck. I looked at the list and also did a combined search in the library catalogue, and a few came up, but they didn't have the tags. Anyway, I am not surprised. I'm starting to think December is a good month for a reread ;)

NancyJ wrote: "For Joanne and other mystery lovers:
Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village"

Not me Nancy-I am an HF/Fantasy gal

I love this tag I must say and have three books out of the library right now that fit:

The Midnight Library
The Plot
Cloud Cuckoo Land

All of which I really want to read, but have no time to read because you know, moving. ARGH!!

Jgrace wrote: "Thanks, Cindy! That's perfect. I own it and it allows me to fly home to Los Angeles...."

Nice! And you're welcome. :-)

Ah! I have no idea what I am going to read but I do love books about books!

Good to know about Cloud Cuckoo Land though, it has definitely been on my TBR. Gonna see what else I’ll have on my TBR too though…

Yay!!! I most definitely want to get to Cloud Cuckoo Land - classes will be finishing for the semester here in two weeks, so hopefully then I'll have time to dig into a longer book.

I'm gonna have to see what the library has for this one. There were about 50 holds on The Midnight Library, so that one is out. I've come up with these other possibilities:

The Book of Speculation
Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops
Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill
The Bookshop on the Corner

Hopefully one of those will be available.

Anita wrote: "I love this tag I must say and have three books out of the library right now that fit:

The Midnight Library
The Plot
Cloud Cuckoo Land

All of which..."

You lucked out. I have no idea what I'm going to read.
It is one of those times that the books on my tbr are not singing "Read Me!"

Anthony Horowitz has two mystery series which fit this tag.

Susan Ryeland Series 2 Books Collection

and the Hawthorn and Horowitz series that stars with
The Word Is Murder

Okay, I just realized that I just bought one that fits the tag and was already planning on reading it this month! Hell of a Book! Yay! Problem solved.

This is of course after I went through my Amazon Wish list and moved 10 books about books to the top of the list and now, I want some of those. Resist!

So here are a list of those books for anyone interested:

The Bookshop on the Corner
The Reading List
The Christmas Bookshop
The Last Chance Library
Undersong
The Joyce Girl
Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller
Tenderness
The Magician
Shriver

I might try for the plot in December if time. Anyone who doesn’t get to cloud cuckooland in December but is still trying for January, I am offering up a buddy read, as I will be reading it in January for my real life book club!

I have read and can recommend in fiction - mix of historical fiction or literary fiction if not marked otherwise:

The Book Thief
Cloud Cuckoo Land
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Wonder Boys
The Thirteenth Tale
The Translator
Ink and Bone (fantasy)
The Library of Light and Shadow (romance)
People of the Book
Fools and Mortals
The Barrowfields
The Archivist
The Midnight Library (fantasy/magical realism)

If you're interested in non-fiction:
The Lost Book of Moses: The Quest for the World's Oldest Bible--and the Man Who Wrote It
The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

I will likely read:
Hell of a Book
The Sentence
The End of Your Life Book Club

I recommend:

The Cottingley Secret
The Little Paris Bookshop
The Club Dumas
The Bookshop of Yesterdays

Lots of good choices. One of my groups is already reading The Midnight Library in December, I believe.

Some others are

The Plot
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
Writers & Lovers
There are cozy mysteries set in bookshops, of course

I'm planning on reading both of these:
The Diary of a Bookseller
The Bookman’s Tale

I felt like "books about books" is something that is not my favorite, and then I looked through my list and it's a bunch of 2 star reviews and did not finish. LOL. Oh well.

I definitely recommend The Blind Assassin and Hamnet - No idea what I will read.

Some more to recommend:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...
An Unnecessary Woman
The Weight of Ink
The History of Love
People of the Book
The Sixteen Pleasures

Christmas theme
Mr. Timothy
Mr. Dickens and His Carol

Jgrace wrote: "Cloud Cuckoo Land

An absolute fit for the tag and a 5 star read."

I'll be reading that one too!

This last tag has had me reading some books I really enjoyed and now this! I'm going to love this tag too!

I recommend:
Finding Dorothy
The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry: A Guide for Book Clubs
And my all time favorite: 84, Charing Cross Road

I'll be reading as much of these as possible
Cloud Cuckoo Land
The Giver of Stars
The Bookman’s Tale
Dear Jane
and anything else that someone lists that I hadn't considered!

The Plot also seems like a popular possibility. I would like to get to it this month as well. Might that end up being a Buddy Read for some?

Also non-fiction:

The Library Book

I will recommend The Personal Librarian, read it a few months ago and really enjoyed.

Definitely reading that for 2022. I think Marie Benedict is going to be my author of the year! I’m halfway through her works. All the rest are on my TBR. I have the inkling to finish!

Here are some I'd recommend (No cozy mysteries here...)

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning
The Old Man Who Read Love Stories by Luis Sepulveda
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, a History by Lewis Buzbee
Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson
The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep
Ban This Book by Alan Gratz

And this one is for Amy ...
Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall
A book written in free verse that you can read in just over an hour.

Oh ... and don't forget the marvelously inventive Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde
Book # 1 is: The Eyre Affair

One book which I didn't add with my recommends and should have is Love, Death & Rare Books by Robert Hellenga.

He was a favorite author of mine and passed away last year. This was his last book and very much fits the category.

I just got the audio of The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep

Booknblues wrote: "One book which I didn't add with my recommends and should have is Love, Death & Rare Books by Robert Hellenga.

He was a favorite author of mine and passed away last y..."

I just bought this book (the ebook is on sale on Amazon for 2.99 if anyone is interested)!

Joy D wrote: "Booknblues wrote: "One book which I didn't add with my recommends and should have is Love, Death & Rare Books by Robert Hellenga.

He was a favorite author of mine and..."

I hope you like it. It was all the more meaningful to me because he died shortly after the release.

I'm looking at:

The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan
Seems absolutely perfect for the month.

Also on my radar:
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill
The Library

I also just downloaded the Christmas Bookshop!

Johanne wrote: "I'm going to have a hard time using this for Fly (but that was true of all the possible tags I think).
I'm going home to Copenhagen, and even though I can find a few books about books set in Copenh..."
In the realm of PBT coincidences the book I'm reading now, Meet Me at the Museum, is tagged Denmark 29 times and it's tagged books about books 7 times so you could definitely use it for fly. Both tags definitely fit. It's also a fairly short book.

For the monthly tag I'll definitely be reading Lending a Paw since it will get me home to Michigan.

Just a reminder, we already have five or six people interested in reading the Motzah Ball for December Flurries!!!! This is going to be a very fun read!

Booknblues wrote: ".you lucked out.."

And now I just got The Other Black Girl

Seriously hope I have some more reading time this year . . .

Oh thank you so much Rachel! I did look at that, but must have overlooked one of the tags. And what a coincidence :)