Since she began standing up for reading rights at a local public meeting in 2022, small-town Louisiana librarian Jones has been getting death threats and has become an online target of right-wing activists (much like literary icon Judy Blume did before her, during the book ban wave of the 1980s). In this book, equal parts manifesto and memoir, she shares the at times harrowing details of what happened to her, and how she found the fortitude to be a spokesperson for libraries and to support books with diverse perspectives in spite of intimidation.

This collection of stories exploring the book and its evolution over the last six centuries is selective rather than comprehensive, highlighting 18 influential historical figures in vignettes. You’ll find John Baskerville in the typography chapter and heiress Nancy Cunard (who ran a press in 1930s Paris) in small presses, with other chapters by literature prof and printing collective member Smyth offering glimpses of designers, printing pioneers, illuminated text, even zines.

With a cover slyly styled to resemble the Library of America’s distinctive eminent design, this 700-page book selects from the more than 2,000 Amazon reviews posted by the late avant-garde American critic, poet and playwright who died of cancer in 2019, at the age of 66. Individually each is an astute gem, but taken together the bravura reviews – alternately witty, canny, deprecating and withering – form a compelling conceptual art project commenting on our culture as a whole.

From the Little Free Library at the South Pole to a mobile library on horseback in Ethiopia, this Lonely Planet guide by travel writer Helmuth pays tribute to the unusual locales where books are stored and shared around the world. The chronicle of far-flung and at times improbable repositories (like a private library in Germany with no public address) is less about shaping viable itineraries or planning one’s next shelfie sightseeing journey and all about armchair daydreaming and inspiration.

On the centenary of American financier and investment tycoon J.P. Morgan’s personal library becoming a public institution, the Morgan Library has a major exhibition honouring its founding director, Belle da Costa Greene. Her time heading the institution spanned two world wars and the Great Depression. As research has revealed, the Black librarian and cultural heritage executive who was instrumental in building the collection passed as white in order to move easily through elite echelons of a racist and segregated America. Like the exhibit, this thematic book examines her complex legacy.

Replete with anecdotes and details to suit even the most casual of readers, this 600-year chronicle declares itself the first and only full history of the medium told from a writer’s point of view. Journalist Castleman’s focus is on the evolution of the publishing industry, with asides on piracy and printing, plus he dives into what disruptive technologies (like inexpensive mass-market and trade paperbacks) have meant for the consumption of books.

Award-winning American short story writer Lydia Davis has translated this trove of letters from 1909 to 1916 by the celebrated author of In Search of Lost Time. The volley of correspondence is mainly to the wife of his upstairs neighbour, Dr. Charles Williams, an American dentist. The bedridden and noise-averse French scribe is ostensibly entreating them for more quiet, but the letters include a series of digressions and musings on whatever flits into his consciousness – entertaining in spite of our being privy to just one side of the conversation.

The prolific American novelist didn’t need to spearhead a compendium of these first-person testimonials from those in the book world. But being a book lover, he did. With Eversmann (the army officer who wrote Black Hawk Down) doing anecdote-gathering, and Patterson the editing, we get a hot mix of recollections from the book world, including the fight against book bans by combative librarians and beleaguered indie booksellers (including Judy Blume). We even get heartwarming nuggets from prison librarians nestled among the sometimes anodyne offerings. Publishers Weekly deemed it “comfort food for bookworms.”