Bibiophile Fiction-
Explore the best bibliophile fiction books with our curated list. Discover captivating reads for book lovers, from literary classics to modern favorites. Perfect for avid readers!
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The Shadow of the Wind
by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The New York Times bestseller “The Shadow of the Wind is ultimately a love letter to literature, intended for readers as passionate about storytelling as its young hero.” —Entertainment Weekly (Editor's Choice) “One gorgeous read.” —Stephen King Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.
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The Angel's Game
by Carlos Ruiz ZafĂłn
From the author of the international phenomenon "The Shadow of the Wind" comes "The Angel's Game" comes a new page-turner about the perilous nature of obsession, in literature and in love. Through a dizzingly constructed labyrinth of secrets, the magic of books, passion, and friendship blend into a masterful story.
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The Club Dumas
by Arturo P?rez-Reverte
Lucas Corso, a rare book hunter, is called in to authenticate a fragment of the original manuscript of Alexandre Dumas's "The Three Musketeers," found in the possession of a murdered bibliophile, and soon finds himself involved in an adventure in which life imitates literature.
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The Rule of Four
by Ian Caldwell
It's Easter at Princeton. Seniors are scrambling to finish their theses. And two students, Tom Sullivan and Paul Harris, are a hair's breadth from solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili--a renowned text attributed to an Italian nobleman, a work that has baffled scholars since its publication in 1499. For Tom, their research has been a link to his family's past--and an obstacle to the woman he loves. For Paul, it has become an obsession, the very reason for living. But as their deadline looms, research has stalled--until a long-lost diary surfaces with a vital clue. And when a fellow researcher is murdered just hours later, Tom and Paul realize that they are not the first to glimpse the Hypnerotomachia 's secrets. Suddenly the stakes are raised, and as the two friends sift through the codes and riddles at the heart of the text, they are beginning to see the manuscript in a new light--not simply as a story of faith, eroticism and pedantry, but as a bizarre, coded mathematical maze. And as they come closer and closer to deciphering the final puzzle of a book that has shattered careers, friendships and families, they know that their own lives are in mortal danger. Because at least one person has been killed for knowing too much. And they know even more.
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Ex-Libris
by Ross King
A cryptic summons to a remote country house launches Isaac Inchbold, a London bookseller and antiquarian, on an odyssey through seventeenth-century Europe. Charged with the task of restoring a magnificent library destroyed by the war, Inchbold moves between Prague and the Tower Bridge in London, his fortunes—and his life—hanging on his ability to recover a missing manuscript. Yet the lost volume is not what it seems, and his search is part of a treacherous game of underworld spies and smugglers, ciphers, and forgeries. Inchbold's adventure is compelling from beginning to end as Ross King vividly recreates the turmoil of Europe in the seventeenth century—the sacks of great cities; Raleigh's final voyage; the quest for occult knowledge; and a watery escape from three mysterious horsemen. A Book Sense 76 pick
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The Dante Club
by Matthew Pearl
Nineteenth-century Boston is plagued by a series of grisly murders inspired by visions of Dante's Inferno. Four renowned scholars join together to stop the killer.
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The Eyre Affair
by Jasper Fforde
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The first novel in the renowned Thursday Next series, which “combines elements of Monty Python, Harry Potter, Stephen Hawking, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (The Wall Street Journal). “A literary wonderland [that] recalls Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker series [and] the works of Lewis Carroll.”—USA Today Meet Thursday Next, “part Bridget Jones, part Nancy Drew, and part Dirty Harry” (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times), a literary detective without equal, fear, or boyfriend—and welcome to a surreal version of Great Britain, circa 1985, where time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wadsworth poem, militant Baconians heckle performances of Hamlet, and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday, renowned Special Operative in literary detection, until someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature. When Jane Eyre is plucked from the pages of Brontë’s novel, Thursday must track down the villain and enter a novel herself to avert a heinous act of literary homicide. Don’t miss any of Jasper Fforde’s delightfully entertaining Thursday Next novels: THE EYRE AFFAIR • LOST IN A GOOD BOOK • THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS • SOMETHING ROTTEN • FIRST AMONG SEQUELS • ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING • THE WOMAN WHO DIED A LOT
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Booked to Die
by John Dunning
Booked to Die, the first book in John Dunning’s bestselling, award-winning Cliff Janeway series, is “a joy to read for its wealth of inside knowledge about the antiquarian book business and its eccentric traders” (The New York Times Book Review). Denver homicide detective Cliff Janeway may not always play by the book, but he’s an avid collector of rare and first editions. Bobby Westfall is a local bookscout, a gentle and quiet man who has sold enough valuable books to keep himself and his cats fed and housed. When Bobby is murdered, Janeway would like nothing better than to rearrange the suspect’s spine. But the suspect, local lowlife Jackie Newton, is a master at eluding the law, and Janeway’s wrathful brand of off-duty justice costs him his badge. Turning to his lifelong passion, Janeway opens a small bookshop—all the while searching for evidence to put Newton away. When prized volumes in a highly sought-after collection begin to appear, so do dead bodies. Now Janeway’s life is about to change in profound and shocking ways as he attempts to find out who’s dealing death along with vintage Chandlers and Twains. “One of the most enjoyable books I’ve read” (The Denver Post), Booked to Die is the first in the Cliff Janeway series. It is “a standout piece of crime fiction…Compelling page-turning stuff” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
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Death on Demand
by Carolyn G. Hart
Annie Laurance, the lovely, young owner of the "Death on Demand" bookstore, and her wealthy lover, Max Darling, search for a killer after author Elliot Morgan is murdered during a meeting of famous mystery writers.
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Splintered Icon
by Bill Napier
Hired to appraise a four-hundred-year-old journal, supposedly by the cabin boy aboard Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition, antiquarian bookseller Harry Blake soon finds that the enigmatic volume is much more, when his client is murdered.
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The Book of Air and Shadows
by Michael Gruber
A fire destroys a New York City rare bookstore—and reveals clues to a treasure worth killing for. . . . A disgraced scholar is found tortured to death. . . . And those pursuing the most valuable literary find in history are about to cross from the harmless mundane into inescapable nightmare. From the acclaimed, bestselling author of Tropic of Night comes a breathtaking thriller that twists, shocks, and surprises at every turn as it crisscrosses centuries, from the glaring violence of today into the dark shadows of truth and lies surrounding the greatest writer the world has ever known.
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The Grand Complication
by Allen Kurzweil
Critically acclaimed for his international bestseller, "A Case of Curiosities," Kurzweil presents "The Grand Complication"--a modern-day tale of literary intrigue, deviant passions, and delicious secrets.
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Codex
by Lev Grossman
An investment banker is sent by his firm to organize a collection of rare books for a mysterious, important client and realizes that there may be a medieval codex hidden among the volumes that surprisingly parallels a computer game's addictive virtual reality world. Reprint.
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The Historian
by Elizabeth Kostova
To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history....Late one night, exploring her father's library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor," and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of-a labyrinth where the secrets of her father's past and her mother's mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil hidden in the depths of history.The letters provide links to one of the darkest powers that humanity has ever known-and to a centuries-long quest to find the source of that darkness and wipe it out. It is a quest for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the legend of Dracula. Generations of historians have risked their reputations, their sanity, and even their lives to learn the truth about Vlad the Impaler and Dracula. Now one young woman must decide whether to take up this quest herself-to follow her father in a hunt that nearly brought him to ruin years ago, when he was a vibrant young scholar and her mother was still alive. What does the legend of Vlad the Impaler have to do with the modern world? Is it possible that the Dracula of myth truly existed-and that he has lived on, century after century, pursuing his own unknowable ends? The answers to these questions cross time and borders, as first the father and then the daughter search for clues, from dusty Ivy League libraries to Istanbul, Budapest, and the depths of Eastern Europe. In city after city, in monasteries and archives, in letters and in secret conversations, the horrible truth emerges about Vlad the Impaler's dark reign-and about a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive down through the ages.Parsing obscure signs and hidden texts, reading codes worked into the fabric of medieval monastic traditions-and evading the unknown adversaries who will go to any lengths to conceal and protect Vlad's ancient powers-one woman comes ever closer to the secret of her own past and a confrontation with the very definition of evil. Elizabeth Kostova's debut novel is an adventure of monumental proportions, a relentless tale that blends fact and fantasy, history and the present, with an assurance that is almost unbearably suspenseful-and utterly unforgettable.
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The Virtual Librarian
by Ted Rockwell
"Information technologist Keith Robertson keeps reminding himself that Lib is not a real person; she's a virtual librarian--software, nothing more. But her software is evolutionary, designed to keep improving itself as it learns. So she is outgrowing her creators and developing a mind of her own. Keith's whole future, including his job and his marriage, depends on Lib. And Lib is out of control"--Publisher/distributor website.
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Arson and Old Lace
by Patricia Harwin
"You're a librarian, not a detective," Catherine Penny's daughter reminds her. But Catherine, suddenly single in her sixties, finds it easy to slip into sleuthing mode when she leaves behind New York City and a failed marriage for a lovely 17th century cottage in the idyllic English village of Far Wychwood. But behind the town's quaint stone walls and lace-curtained windows lurk dark secrets and whispers of witchcraft. And when her crusty neighbor George Crocker dies in a tragic fire, Catherine alone suspects arson. Lacking hard evidence, the police pay little attention, and the villagers swear she must be mistaken. Catherine, however, is one feisty expatriate American who leaves no stone unturned when circumstances point to murder. She may not be Miss Marple--yet--but her ingenious knack for uncovering the truth is about to take Far Wychwood by storm!
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The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco
ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • A spectacular best seller and now a classic, The Name of the Rose catapulted Umberto Eco, an Italian professor of semiotics turned novelist, to international prominence. An erudite murder mystery set in a fourteenth-century monastery, it is not only a gripping story but also a brilliant exploration of medieval philosophy, history, theology, and logic. In 1327, Brother William of Baskerville is sent to investigate a wealthy Italian abbey whose monks are suspected of heresy. When his mission is overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths patterned on the book of Revelation, Brother William turns detective, following the trail of a conspiracy that brings him face-to-face with the abbey’s labyrinthine secrets, the subversive effects of laughter, and the medieval Inquisition. Caught in a power struggle between the emperor he serves and the pope who rules the Church, Brother William comes to see that what is at stake is larger than any mere political dispute–that his investigation is being blocked by those who fear imagination, curiosity, and the power of ideas. The Name of the Rose offers the reader not only an ingeniously constructed mystery—complete with secret symbols and coded manuscripts—but also an unparalleled portrait of the medieval world on the brink of profound transformation.
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Foucault's Pendulum
by Umberto Eco
Three editors, inspired by an extraordinary fable about a mystic source of power greater than atomic energy, begin feeding esoteric bits of knowledge into a sophisticated computer, creating an incredible game that begins taking over. Reprint.
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The Unburied
by Charles Palliser
In Victorian England, Dr. Courtine is invited to spend the days before Christmas with a friend from his youth. Courtine finds himself drawn into a haunting world of avarice, skullduggery, and exceptional evil stemming from a 200-year-old murder.
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Inkheart
by Cornelia Caroline Funke
Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father, who repairs and binds books for a living, can "read" fictional characters to life when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service. An ALA Notable Book. Reissue.
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Salamander
by Thomas Wharton
Nicholas Flood, an unassuming eighteenth-century London printer, specializes in novelty books -- books that nestle into one another, books comprised of one spare sentence, books that emit the sounds of crashing waves. When his work captures the attention of an eccentric Slovakian count, Flood is summoned to a faraway castle -- a moving labyrinth that embodies the count's obsession with puzzles -- where he is commissioned to create the infinite book, the ultimate never-ending story. Probing the nature of books, the human thirst for knowledge, and the pursuit of immortality, Salamander careens through myth and metaphor as Flood travels the globe in search of materials for the elusive book without end.
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The Ink Drinker
by Eric Sanvoisin
One bite from a blood-allergic but ink-drinking vampire unleashes a boy's appetite for something he never thought he'd like--books! Full color.
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Possession
by A. S. Byatt
BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A tale of two young scholars researching the secret love affair of two Victorian poets that's an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, an intellectual mystery, and a triumphant love story. “Gorgeously written … A tour de force.” —The New York Times Book Review Winner of England’s Booker Prize and a literary sensation, Possession traces the lives of a pair of young academics as they uncover a clandestine relationship between two long-dead Victorian poets. As they unearth their letters, journals, and poems, and track their movements from London to Yorkshire—from spiritualist séances to the fairy-haunted far west of Brittany—what emerges is an extraordinary counterpoint of passions and ideas.
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Nemesis
by Bill Napier
THE CODE BURIED IN A CENTURIES-OLD MANUSCRIPT... From a remote Scottish mountain, Dr. Oliver Webb--one of the world's great physicists--is whisked away by a military helicopter and routed to the Mexican border. Along with the leading men of physics and one sexy atom smasher, Webb is given an impossible task: identify the asteroid--codename Nemesis--that is on course to collide with and destroy America. They have five days to stop it. If they can't, the President will retaliate first by ordering the U.S. military to pull the nuclear trigger... IS THE ONLY SALVATION... But when one of Webb's colleagues is found dead, he has every reason to suspect that there is more to Nemesis than he knows. Then, he makes a staggering discovery: That the secret to saving the world is hidden in a 17th Latin century manuscript that has gone mysteriously missing. FOR THE SURVIVAL OF THE U.S. An electrifying race against time, NEMESIS spans centuries and the globe in a white hot journey through physics, history, and geopolitics--and mankind's ultimate duel with the unknown. "Incredible...extraordinary...a really terrific novel!" --Jeff Long, New York Times bestselling author of The Descent on Splintered Icon
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Michelangelo's Notebook
by Paul Christopher
Finn Ryan, after finding sketches of dissected corpses by Michelangelo, is thrown into a world of murder, World War II secrets, and papal conspiracy and embarks on an adventure with an antiquarian book dealer, which puts both of their lives in danger.