10 of the Best Historical Fiction Books About Books

A bookbinder working in Oxford during WWI longs to do more with her life but worries that if she follows her dreams, she’ll be leaving her twin sister behind. Maude is content with the routine and repetition of bookbinding, but Peggy has always harbored a not-so-secret desire to attend one of Oxford’s prestigious colleges. When Belgian refugees and wounded soldiers begin arriving by train, Peggy is exposed to horrors and desires she never could’ve imagined before — and she finally realizes that the only one holding her back from her dreams is herself.

As a volunteer librarian, Emmaline finds herself on the frontlines of WWI in France. But it’s when she joins a book club sharing banned books that she finds her courage truly tested. Years later, a young woman joining the first coed class at the United States Naval Academy struggles against the belief that women shouldn’t be allowed in the military. That would be challenging enough without losing her beloved grandmother. But when Kathleen faces charges of treason and a court-martial, she’ll have to reach out to someone from her grandmother’s past to help her clear her name.

J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, has become one of the most influential people in the book and art scene of New York. She’s also hiding a potentially life-altering secret: Belle is the daughter of the first Black man to graduate from Harvard. It’s a fact worthy of pride, but if anyone found out, her position and the power it grants her could all be lost in an instant. In order to protect herself, her family, and her legacy, Belle will have to go to great lengths to preserve her identity as a white woman in a racist society.

It’s 1937, and Japanese bombs are falling on the city of Nanking. Forced to flee, Hu Lian and her fellow classmates at the Minghua University set out on a dangerous 1,000-mile walk to China’s western provinces. But it’s not just their lives that are in danger. Lian and her fellow students have also been entrusted with the safekeeping of a priceless 500-year-old tome known as The Library of Legends. Shepherding it to safety is a task that will change Lian’s life for good.

In this dual timeline story, a man writing definitions for the first edition of Swansby’s Encyclopaedic Dictionary begins adding his own entries just to make life a little more interesting. Many years later, an intern digitizing the encyclopedia realizes there are fake entries while simultaneously contending with repeated threatening phone calls directed at Swansby’s. It’s a story of life’s little — and big — absurdities.

A teenager trying to escape the political turmoil of 1953 Tehran finds a surprising sanctuary in the neighborhood stationery shop full of books and pens. The shop owner, Mr. Fakhri, has an eye for matchmaking and introduces her to his other favorite customer, a boy with a passion for justice and love of the poet Rumi. But when violence erupts on the eve of what would have been their wedding, the two are torn apart, not to meet again for decades. When fate finally brings them back together, what answers will these two find about the love — and choices — of their youth?

Delphine Auber’s obsession with Hemingway goes deeper than that of a typical aspiring writer. It’s not just her writing she wants his approval of; it’s everything. That’s because she believes him to be her father. In an attempt to escape postwar France and finally meet the man she thinks holds the key to both her past and future, Delphine sets out on a quest that takes her from Paris to New York, Key West, and Cuba. The journey may teach her more than finding him ever could.