{"id":57370,"date":"2025-09-08T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=57370"},"modified":"2025-07-02T14:49:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T19:49:14","slug":"nonfiction-books-about-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/nonfiction-books-about-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Nonfiction Books about Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you have a favorite nonfiction book about books? The one that has stuck with me the most is\u00a0The Library Book<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>by Susan Orlean, the story of the 1986 Los Angeles Public Library fire, considered the most catastrophic library fire in American history. This case has never been solved. The fire destroyed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more, while burning for more than seven hours. Besides covering the fire, the author discusses the crucial role that libraries play in our lives. Wanting to read something along similar lines, I checked the catalog for new nonfiction books about books. Below you will find a list of newer titles that cover multiple aspects of books and the people who care for them.<\/p>\n

As of this writing, all of these titles are owned by the Davenport Public Library. Descriptions are provided by the publishers.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>by Elyse Graham<\/p>\n

The untold story of the academics who became OSS spies, invented modern spycraft, and helped turn the tide of the war<\/em><\/p>\n

At the start of WWII, the U.S. found itself in desperate need of an intelligence agency. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to today\u2019s CIA, was quickly formed\u2014and, in an effort to fill its ranks with experts, the OSS turned to academia for recruits. Suddenly, literature professors, librarians, and historians were training to perform undercover operations and investigative work\u2014and these surprising spies would go on to profoundly shape both the course of the war and our cultural institutions with their efforts.<\/em><\/p>\n

In Book and Dagger, Elyse Graham draws on personal histories, letters, and declassified OSS files to tell the story of a small but connected group of humanities scholars turned spies. Among them are Joseph Curtiss, a literature professor who hunted down German spies and turned them into double agents; Sherman Kent, a smart-mouthed history professor who rose to become the head of analysis for all of Europe and Africa; and Adele Kibre, an archivist who was sent to Stockholm to secretly acquire documents for the OSS. These unforgettable characters would ultimately help lay the foundations of modern intelligence and transform American higher education when they returned after the war.<\/em><\/p>\n

Thrillingly paced and rigorously researched, Book and Dagger is an inspiring and gripping true story about a group of academics who helped beat the Nazis\u2014a tale that reveals the indelible power of the humanities to change the world.<\/em> – Ecco<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books That Saved Me<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Glory Edim<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.\u201d\u2014Toni Morrison, Beloved<\/em><\/p>\n

For Glory Edim, that \u201cfriend of my mind\u201d is books. Edim, who grew up in Virginia to Nigerian immigrant parents, started the popular Well-Read Black Girl book club at age thirty, eventually reaching a community of half a million readers. But her own love of books stretches far back.<\/em><\/p>\n

Edim\u2019s father moved back to Nigeria while she was still a child, marking the beginning of a series of traumatic changes and losses for her family. What became an escape, a safe space, and a second home for her and her brother was their local library. Books were where Edim found community, and as she grew older she discovered authors and ideas that she wasn\u2019t being taught about in class. Reading wherever and whenever she could, be it in her dorm room or when traveling by subway or plane, she found the Black writers whose words would forever change her life: Nikki Giovanni, through children\u2019s poetry cassettes; Maya Angelou, through a critical high school English teacher; Toni Morrison, while attending Morrison\u2019s alma mater, Howard University; Audre Lorde, on a flight to Nigeria. In prose full of both joy and heartbreak, Edim recounts how these writers and so many others taught her how to value herself by helping her to find her own voice when her mother lost hers, to trust her feelings when her father remarried, and to create bonds with other Black women and uplift their stories.<\/em><\/p>\n

Gather Me is a glowing testament to how the power of representation in literature can gather the disparate parts that make us who we are and assemble them into a portrait of discovery.<\/em>– Ballantine Books<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>Jane Austen’s Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector’s Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Rebecca Romney<\/p>\n

Long before she was a rare book dealer, Rebecca Romney was a devoted reader of Jane Austen. She loved that Austen\u2019s books took the lives of women seriously, explored relationships with wit and confidence, and always, allowed for the possibility of a happy ending. She read and reread them, often wishing Austen wrote just one more.<\/em><\/p>\n

But Austen wasn\u2019t a lone genius. She wrote at a time of great experimentation for women writers\u2014and clues about those women, and the exceptional books they wrote, are sprinkled like breadcrumbs throughout Austen\u2019s work. Every character in Northanger Abbey who isn\u2019t a boor sings the praises of Ann Radcliffe. The play that causes such a stir in Mansfield Park is a real one by the playwright Elizabeth Inchbald. In fact, the phrase \u201cpride and prejudice\u201d came from Frances Burney\u2019s second novel Cecilia. The women that populated Jane Austen\u2019s bookshelf profoundly influenced her work; Austen looked up to them, passionately discussed their books with her friends, and used an appreciation of their books as a litmus test for whether someone had good taste. So where had these women gone? Why hadn\u2019t Romney\u2014despite her training\u2014ever read them? Or, in some cases, even heard of them? And why were they no longer embraced as part of the wider literary canon?<\/em><\/p>\n

Jane Austen\u2019s Bookshelf investigates the disappearance of Austen\u2019s heroes\u2014women writers who were erased from the Western canon\u2014to reveal who they were, what they meant to Austen, and how they were forgotten. Each chapter profiles a different writer including Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth\u2014and recounts Romney\u2019s experience reading them, finding rare copies of their works, and drawing on connections between their words and Austen\u2019s. Romney collects the once-famed works of these forgotten writers, physically recreating Austen\u2019s bookshelf and making a convincing case for why these books should be placed back on the to-be-read pile of all book lovers today. Jane Austen\u2019s Bookshelf will encourage you to look beyond assigned reading lists, question who decides what belongs there, and build your very own collection of favorite novels.<\/em> – S&S\/Marysue Rucci Books<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>Prose to the People: A Celebration of Black bookstores<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>by Katie Mitchell<\/p>\n

A stunning visual homage to Black bookstores, featuring a selection of shops around the country alongside essays that celebrate the history, community, activism, and culture these spaces embody, with an original foreword by Nikki Giovanni.<\/em><\/p>\n

Black literature is perhaps the most powerful, polarizing force in the modern American zeitgeist. Today\u2014as Black novels draw authoritarian ire, as Black memoirs shape public debates, as Black polemics inspire protest petitions\u2014it\u2019s more important than ever to highlight the places that center these stories: Black bookstores.<\/em><\/p>\n

Traversing teeming metropolises and tiny towns, Prose to the People explores a these spaces, chronicling these Black bookstore\u2019s past and present lives. Combining narrative prose, eye-catching photography, one-on-one interviews, original essays, and specially curated poetry, Prose to the People is a reader\u2019s road trip companion to the world of Black books.<\/em><\/p>\n

Thoughtfully curated by writer and Black bookstore owner Katie Mitchell, Prose to the People is a must-have addition to the shelves of anyone who loves book culture and Black history. Though not a definitive guide, this dynamic book centers profiles of over fifty Black bookstores from the Northeast to the mid-Atlantic, the South, and the West Coast, complete with stunning original and archival photography.<\/em><\/p>\n

Interspersed throughout are essays, poems, and interviews by New York Times bestsellers Kiese Laymon, Rio Cortez, Pearl Cleage, and many more journalists, activists, authors, academics, and poets that offer deeper perspectives on these bookstores\u2019 role throughout the diaspora. Complete with a foreword by world-renowned poet and activist Nikki Giovanni, Prose to the People is a beautiful tribute to these vital pillars of the Black community.<\/em> – Clarkson Potter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you have a favorite nonfiction book about books? The one that has stuck with me the most is\u00a0The Library Book\u00a0by Susan Orlean, the story of the 1986 Los Angeles Public Library fire, considered the most catastrophic library fire in American history. This case has never been solved. The fire[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,5,1,8],"tags":[10373,3834,10374,10523,10524,10375,10378,676,10377,10376],"class_list":["post-57370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-read-a-likes","category-reference","category-staff-picks","tag-book-and-dagger","tag-books-about-books","tag-elyse-graham","tag-gather-me","tag-glory-edim","tag-jane-austens-bookshelf","tag-katie-mitchell","tag-nonfiction","tag-prose-to-the-people","tag-rebecca-romney"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-eVk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57370"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58464,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57370\/revisions\/58464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}