10 Books About Congo DRC You Need To Read
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo DRC) has a contrasting history. It has a great culture, a long history, and natural resources. If we
We come across pictures and videos of aesthetic bookstores on social media all the time. While watching one such reel, I came across an idea: what about the stories behind these bookstores? Apart from their visual appeal, bookstores also have a history and stories that are just as intriguing as the books they house.
So, here’s a catch. I will not talk about particular bookstores or how many books they sell, etc. Neither of these bookstores will be your particular city-wise favourites. Instead, I will cover books about bookstores.
So, if you’re captivated by bookstores, here’s a list of ten fascinating books about bookstores. These fiction and non-fiction books are about the charm, mystery, and history of bookstores. So, let’s get into it!
Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop is a novel by South Korean writer Hwang Bo-erum. Although Hwang has written 3 non-fiction books, it is the novel which has brought her fame and critical acclaim.
The novel is set in Seoul’s quiet Hyunam-Dong neighbourhood and is about self-discovery and community. Yeong-ju leaves her demanding job at a publishing company to open a bookstore in Seoul’s Hyunam-dong neighbourhood. Despite initial struggles, she builds her small business.
Eventually, her bookshop became a sanctuary where she carefully curated books for customers based on their personal stories. She makes new connections with bookstore visitors and some of the visitors become main characters in this best book about bookstores.
South Korea has a lot to offer and if you want to find more such stories, you should check Korean books and Korean movies.
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop is one of the best books by Japanese author Satoshi Yagisawa. It is his debut novel and he also wrote the sequel, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop. But this remains one of his best works and won the Chiyoda Literature Prize.
Takako is a young woman who flees Tokyo after discovering her boyfriend’s infidelity. She finds refuge at her uncle Satoru’s secondhand bookshop in a quiet Tokyo suburb, working part-time. Although the bookstore is struggling financially, it has become her sanctuary.
During her days at the bookstore, she encounters customers whose lives intertwine with hers through books. Her uncle’s book recommendations and wisdom also help her heal.
Japan has a lot to offer in literature. And there are so many great Japanese books and best Japanese movies that you will love.
Before the Coffee Gets Cold is another Japanese book about bookstores. Interestingly, it was originally a play and the writer Toshikazu Kawaguchi later adapted it into a novel. This time, all the action takes place in a basement cafe in Tokyo.
It’s where customers can time travel briefly to visit their past by sitting on a specific chair. However, there are strict rules: they can only meet people who have visited the cafe before, they cannot leave the chair, and they must return before their coffee gets cold.
And, there are different stories related to visitors. There’s a girl who wants to confront her boyfriend who left her. A wife hoping to see her husband one last time before his memory fades from illness. And, many other interesting stories of reconciliation.
The novel has become an international bestseller. It’s so popular that the writer has published 4 more sequels. The latest sequel Before We Forget Kindness came out in September 2024, with 8500+ Goodreads reviews already.
Matt Haig is a great speculative fiction writer from the United Kingdom. The Midnight Library is one of his such philosophical fiction novels. It is about life choices, regret, and alternate realities.
Nora Seed is a leading character who finds herself in a mystical library between life and death. Here, each book shows a different version of her life as per alternate choices she could have made. Eventually, she discovers how small decisions changed her life trajectories.
However, it’s her experiences of multiple parallel lives like an Olympic swimmer, a rock star, a glaciologist, and a cafe owner, that make this one of the best books about bookstores. It’s because, through these journeys, she learns about self-acceptance, purpose, and what human happiness means.
The novel received widespread acclaim and became a New York Times bestseller. The Midnight Library has also been adapted into a 10-episode radio series on BBC Radio 4.
The House of Paper is a novella about the passion for book collecting and bibliophilia. The novel was originally written in Spanish and has been translated into several languages. This novella also has illustrations accompanying the text, making this one of the best books about bookstores.
Bluma Lennon is a distinguished professor of Latin American literature who dies after being struck by a car while reading. Months after her death, a mysterious package arrives from Argentina. And that mysterious package is a Conrad novel encrusted in cement.
Her former lover decides to investigate and travels to Buenos Aires to track down Brauer. Carlos Brauer is the man who sent the books and has mysteriously disappeared.
The investigation reveals Brauer’s last known location is a remote Uruguayan coastline. It is here that he constructed an entire house using his massive book collection, showing his book obsession.
This is a great novel which is part mystery and part social comedy. If you find this novel from Argentina amusing, you should also check out the best Argentinian movies.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón was/is one of the finest writers from Spain. The Shadow of the Wind is one of his most notable works, selling 15 million copies worldwide. It was also included in one of the best hundred books in the Spanish language of the past twenty-five years.
The novel is set in post–Civil War Barcelona. Daniel is the son of an antiquarian book dealer who’s grieving his mother’s loss. One day, his father takes him to the secretive Cemetery of Forgotten Books. There, he finds The Shadow of the Wind by Julián Carax.
He is thrilled by the work and tries to find more of Carax’s work. To his disappointment, he learns that someone has been destroying all of the author’s books. As he investigates Carax’s life, he uncovers murder, forbidden love, and dark secrets connecting multiple generations.
Since the novel was written in Spanish, it’s never too late to learn Spanish to enjoy the novel. Also, post-war Barcelona is a much more beautiful place now. If you are thinking of the best places to visit in Barcelona, here’s your guide to Barcelona’s best food and drink bars.
Ruth Ozeki is a celebrated Canadian-American author, filmmaker, and Zen Buddhist priest. Her work mostly covers spirituality, identity, and environmentalism. This is her fourth novel, which won the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
The story is about 14-year-old Benny Oh, who begins hearing voices of objects after his father’s death. He struggles to make sense of this new reality and finds solace in a public library. In the library, he befriends a talking book that narrates his life.
As his relationship with the voices intensifies, his mother, Annabelle, also struggles with her grief. Their stories intertwine through loss and the redemptive power of human connection and creativity.
Through their experiences, we see how objects, stories, and even silence can provide healing in times of turmoil.
Sulari Gentill is a Sri Lankan-born Australian writer who writes gripping mystery novels and historical fiction. Although she has written many novels before, this is one of her best books about bookstores. It is a meta-literary thriller that combines a classic with a story about the art of writing itself.
The story opens in the Boston Public Library, where four strangers are sitting near each other when they hear a woman’s scream. The incident leads to their unexpected friendship. As they bond, the scream mystery turns into a murder investigation that tangles them all in suspicion and danger.
However, there’s a meta-narrative as well. The novel we’re reading is a work-in-progress being written by an author Hannah. She corresponds with a fan Leo. As Leo’s emails grow unsettling, we now have two mysteries, one within the library and another outside it.
These two stories raise questions about the relationship between creators, readers, and the characters they imagine. So, if you like the mystery genre, you are going to love this book about bookstores.
The Book Thief is one of the best historical fiction novels by the Australian author Markus Zusak. It’s one of his most acclaimed works, which is set during World War II in Nazi Germany. The novel is narrated by Death itself and talks about the devastating war and the power of books to provide solace in dark times.
Liesel Meminger is a young girl sent to live with foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann. At her foster parents, she develops a deep love for books with her first stolen one, The Grave Digger’s Handbook.
Her foster father teaches her to read, and she begins to steal more books. Through her love of reading, she makes connections with those around her, including Max, a Jewish man hiding in the Hubermanns’ basement.
As Liesel is living under the Nazi regime, books become her refuge, a way to process grief and provide hope. Over the years, The Book Thief has earned the status of a classic, making it one of the best books about bookstores.
Since this is historical fiction, you should also check my compilation of the best historical fiction books.
This is the only non-fiction book in our list of books about bookstores. And, it’s worth discussing here. Azar Nafisi is an Iranian-American writer who writes about literature’s transformative power and its role in resisting oppression.
Read Dangerously is a personal and philosophical exploration of how reading can help understand and resist political and social turmoil. She has written the book as a series of letters to her late father. So, it’s a blend of memoir, literary criticism, and cultural commentary.
Nafisi writes about writers such as James Baldwin, James Joyce, and Albert Camus, among many others, and their influence. She examines how their works speak against censorship, injustice, and resistance.
She argues that literature brings empathy and critical thinking, which can help readers to challenge authoritarianism and dogma. Through her letters, she also shares intimate reflections on her life and her experiences in Iran and the United States.
Since we are talking about an Iranian-born writer, I think it’s worth mentioning some of the best literary works from Iran. You should check out the best Iranian movies.
Roberto Bolaño was a Chilean novelist and poet whose work is known for innovation and dark humour. He is one of the finest writers of Latin America and his work is compared with Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel García Márquez. His most famous work is 2666, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
The Savage Detectives is one of his most famous books about bookstores. The book is a semi-autobiographical epic that blends a love of poetry with friendship, exile, and the search for meaning.
The novel happens in 1970s Mexico City and follows two young poets, Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima. The two poets are leaders of a literary movement called the “Visceral Realists.” They leave Mexico City in 1975 on a borrowed white Impala. Their goal is to track down Cesárea Tinajero, a poet who has disappeared.
What begins as a literary quest turns into a dangerous escape after a violent confrontation in the Sonora Desert. The narrative uncovers through characters who cross paths with Belano and Lima over two decades. These narrators include lovers, critics, and vagabonds. Their quest intertwines with exile, friendship, and the pursuit of meaning.
The Savage Detectives received widespread critical acclaim and won several major awards, including the Rómulo Gallegos Prize in 1999.
There are so many other great books about bookstores that one can mention. And, this is probably the best list that I could compile. Now, the question is: whenever you visit a library, do you ever wonder what if there’s a book written about my library?
Well, who knows, I might write about the books about libraries as well. After all, this book list is pretty fascinating and covers much-neglected stories set in libraries.
If you have any favourite books about bookstores, don’t forget to drop a comment!
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