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Book Lovers Day
Aug 6, 2022 —August 9 is Book Lovers Day. Celebrate with these books and movies about books and book lovers!
Fiction
The Reading List. Sara Nisha Adams
“Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library for the summer when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a list of novels that she’s never heard of before. Intrigued, and a little bored with her slow job at the checkout desk, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list, one after the other. As each story gives up its magic, the books transport Aleisha from the painful realities she’s facing at home.”
The Littlest Library. Poppy Alexander
“When her beloved grandmother passes away and she loses her job at the local library, Jess’ life is turned upside down. Determined to pick up the pieces, Jess decides it’s time for a new beginning. Unable to part with her grandmother’s cherished books, she packs them all up and moves to a tiny cottage in the English countryside. To her surprise, Jess discovers that she’s now the owner of an old red phone box that was left on the property. Missing her job at the local library, Jess decides to give back to her new community–using her grandmother’s collection to turn the ordinary phone box into the littlest library in England.”
Book Boyfriend. Kris Ripper
“A secret crush leads to not-so-secret romance in this delightful romantic comedy from Kris Ripper. When Art moves in with PK following a bad breakup, PK hopes this will be the moment when Art finally sees him as more than a friend. But Art seems to laugh off the very idea of them in a relationship, so PK returns to his writing roots—in fiction, he can say all the things he can’t say out loud.”
Nonfiction
The Curious Reader: a Literary Miscellany of Novels & Novelists.
“Readers rejoice! Learn amazing facts about authors and their books, from Jane Austen to JRR Tolkien. From Mental Floss, an online destination for more than a billion curious minds since its founding in 2001, comes the ultimate book for lovers of literature. From Americanah to War and Peace, from Chinua Achebe and Jane Austen to Jesmyn Ward and George R.R. Martin, learn surprising facts about the world’s most famous novels and novelists.”
The Library: a Fragile History. Andrew Pettegree & Arthur der Weduwen
“Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes or filled with bean bags and children’s drawings – the history of the library is rich, varied and stuffed full of incident. In this, the first major history of its kind, Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen explore the contested and dramatic history of the library, from the famous collections of the ancient world to the embattled public resources we cherish today.”
Read Dangerously: the Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times. Azar Nafisi
“What is the role of literature in an era when the president wages war on writers and the press? What is the connection between political strife in our daily lives, and the way we meet our enemies on the page in fiction? How can literature, through its free exchange, affect politics? In this galvanizing guide to resistance literature, Nafisi seeks to answer these questions. Drawing on her experiences as a woman and voracious reader living in the Islamic Republic of Iran, her life as an immigrant in the United States, and her role as literature professor in both countries, she crafts an argument for why, in a genuine democracy, we must engage with the enemy, and how literature can be a vehicle for doing so.”
Movies
The Booksellers.
“Director D. W. Young’s wistful documentary features interviews with Fran Lebowitz, Susan Orlean, Gay Talese, and Parker Posey. It explores the relatively insular, cozy and bibliophilic world of New York City’s antiquarian booksellers. As the vintage book trade struggles to keep pace with the advent of the internet, e-commerce and diminished attention spans, the book acquires a mysterious halo in the eyes of a select few.”
The Bookshop.
“In England in 1959, free spirited widow Florence Green follows her lifelong dream by opening a bookshop in a conservative coastal town.”
The Pack Horse Librarians of Appalachia.
“This documentary tells the story of pack horse librarians — women hired by Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression to travel on horseback to deliver library books and magazines to people in Eastern Kentucky braving creeks, mountains and inclement weather along the way.”