What makes a book nerd? Reading a lot of books — and liking to talk about said books — is a major requirement, of course, but there’s often something a little more nebulous involved: book nerds are the kinds of people who get a little thrill when walking into a bookstore, who press volumes into their friends’ hands with serious promises of life changing moments, who are fascinated by following the many tangled threads through authors and literature, happily wandering wherever they might lead.
The List:
- Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan
- The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, Allison Hoover Bartlett
- The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
- Books: A Memoir, Larry McMurtry
- If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, Italo Calvino
- The Polysyllabic Spree: A Hilarious and True Account of One Man’s Struggle With the Monthly Tide of the Books He’s Bought and the Books He’s Been Meaning to Read, Nick Hornby
- Phantoms On the Bookshelves, Jacques Bonnet
- Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
- Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman
- Bibliotopia: Or, Mr. Gilbar’s Book Of Books & Catch-All Of Literary Facts & Curiosities, Steven Gilbar
I’ve only read If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler and The Polysyllabic Spree.