8 Must-Read Books About Books

You can't have a list of books about books and not include the classic dystopian novel in which books are the most illegal of commodities. Firefighter Guy Montag's job isn't to put out fires, but rather to start them and burn any evidence of the written word. After the disappearance of an eccentric neighbor who opens his eyes to a past where people reveled in literature, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when he's caught, he's on the run for his life.

If you've never read about circus mermaids, you'll want to now. When an old book arrives on young librarian Simon Watson's doorstep, he discovers reports of strange and magical things, including the drowning death of a circus mermaid. Since then, generations of "mermaids" in Simon's family have drowned—including his mother—always on July 24, which is only weeks away. As his sister has ran off to a traveling carnival, Simon becomes worried. Is there a curse on his family? What does it have to do with the book, and can he get to the heart of the mystery in time to save his sister?

English literature fans will love The Eyre Affair, in which novels come to life—literally. Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection, lives in a literature-obsessed England that is every bibliophile's dream. But when someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature and plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Brontë's novel, Thursday is faced with the challenge of her career.

Ever wanted to own a bookshop? Homicide detective Cliff Janeway gets his chance after he loses his badge due to his brand of off-duty justice and turns to his lifelong passion of rare and first edition books. But when prized volumes in a highly sought-after collection begin to appear, so do dead bodies. Now, Janeway's life is about to start a precarious new chapter as he attempts to find out who's dealing death along with vintage Chandlers and Twains.

Can you love books too much? John Gilkey is an obsessed, unrepentant book thief who has stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of rare books from book fairs, stores, and libraries around the country—all for the love of books. In an attempt to understand him better, journalist Allison Hoover Bartlett plunges herself into the world of book lust and discovers just how dangerous it can be.

In this Nazi Germany-set young adult novel, a foster girl living outside of Munich scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.

If you're in the mood for a deeply unsettling psychological thriller, The Perfect Stranger will have you on the edge of your seat as documentary filmmaker Catherine Ravenscroft plunges into a living nightmare after finding a mysterious novel at her bedside. With Catherine’s world is falling apart, her only hope is to confront what really happened on that awful day . . . even if the shocking truth might destroy her.