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Book Recommendations from the Book Lovers Themselves: An Exclusive Guest Post from Emily Henry, Author of Book Lovers
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Steadfast and cutthroat literary agent Nora Stephens begrudgingly goes on a month-long sister trip where she finds Charlie, a book editor who she’s had a lot of unfortunate dealings with — and is just as stubborn as she is. This small town is not big enough for the two of them. Books, reading, book lovers and tsundoku are all words that send our hearts a flutter. Consider this your most swoon-worthy read of the summer! Keep reading this guest post to find out what books the characters from Book Lovers recommend!
I just can’t stop writing about book lovers. Maybe it’s because the inner life of a book lover is so familiar to me, or maybe it’s because there are so many different ways to be one. There are diehard historical romance readers, and there are genre agnostics. There are indoor readers and outdoor readers, and book club goers and library patrons, people who dogear pages and people who want to slap people who dogear pages.
There are so many varieties of book lovers, and while we are many and multifaceted, we can all relate to that one abiding principle: a deep love of the written word. With my newest romantic comedy, I wanted to capture that love, the magical feeling of finding just the right book at just the right time. So, I filled my cast up with book lovers.
Charlie, the critically thinking, highly pragmatic editor, who still sometimes loves book so much he can’t bring himself to finish them, preferring instead for the book to stretch out in perpetuity, always there, never finished.
Nora, the cutthroat, ambitious literary agent who loves finding the potential in a new manuscript, carving out a path to its best version, with its best publisher—and supporting the writer every step of the way.
Libby, the ravenous reader, with strong opinions that may occasionally lead to a book being hurled across the room.
From the outside, these three characters might not seem to have much in common—and their literary tastes might seem to confirm these differences—but so much of the joy of reading comes from expanding your mind, empathizing with people who are seemingly nothing like you, and experiencing lives you yourself haven’t lived. And when you love a book, it’s so special to share that with someone who matters to you, just as it’s a gift to read something beloved by someone special to you. It’s a kind of peek directly into their mind, and heart. So, if you’d like a peek into Charlie, Nora, and Libby, consider reading one of their favorite books. Maybe you’ll love it, maybe you’ll hate it, but either way, your mind will be stretched just a little further, and that’s the true gift of reading.
Charlie recommends:
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A near-future sci-fi about the nature of humanity and the role of mythmaking in our view of the world and the way we move through life. It’s heartbreaking but also strangely life-affirming, and while I understand the irony of using a clunky metaphor here to try communicate the beauty and clarity of the prose in this book, the closest I can come to describing it is the literary equivalent of an arrow singing through the air.
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Another literary near-future masterpiece, published in 1996 but hauntingly prescient. The world is descending into chaos, with global warming and violence on the rise, the middle class rapidly dwindling as the super-rich get richer and labor protections are loosened in the interest of corporate greed. It’s a brutal book, but with Butler’s razor-sharp insight and her writing’s usual level of deep emotional resonance.
Nora recommends:
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A woman on the verge of turning forty is suddenly cast back into the body (and era) of her teenage self. Naturally, she’s forced to reckon with the choices she’s made and where they’ve led her—a fun, clever premise, but Straub dodges all of the easiest choices and digs in deep, forcing the reader not only to look past the nostalgia that coats our own coming-of-age memories to see what we might have missed the first time around, but to reevaluate our now: to ask, at the end of a life, what about now will really matter? What am I simply glossing over, when I could be truly present, truly appreciative?
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Another book with an irresistibly magic premise from a talented writer skilled in anchoring her stories to a deeper theme and powerful human element. Practical Magic is about witches, yes, but it’s also about sisters. About how a shared childhood, a shared history, can lead two people who love each other very much in totally opposite directions—and about the power of love to bring those people back, to close a rift, to right a wrong, and to break a spell.
Libby Recommends:
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A completely charming story about finding yourself as an adult—long after you thought you’d figured things out. This book has a quirky, lovable family you wish you could be a part of, a funny and charming love interest, and a whole lot of food you’ll be drooling over. One of those rare books that truly earns the descriptor “delicious.”
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There are so many Tessa Dare novels that could have made this list, but the second book in her Spindle Cove series is one of Libby’s (and my) all-time favorites. Minerva is an aspiring archaeologist in need of a ride to Scotland to present her finding of a dinosaur’s footprint. Colin is the rake she coerces into taking her. The characters are entirely singular which is what makes their odd-couple dynamic so electric.