A Fun nonfiction book for anyone who loves books and wants to read short stories about how impactful and important books can be

A bibliophile's heaven, this is a 5-star book on books for book-lovers!
I loved every single page of this splendid reference guide, took a lot of notes, highlighted a great many lines and added several dozen books to my to-read list. Best of all, I learnt so much!
This great collection gives hypnotizing information about the history of books, libraries, the act of reading and writing (an introduction to civilizations that contributed to this process), interesting facts about famous books and authors, publishing houses, literature awards. The chapters were beautifully created under several provocative titles such as banned books, writer's feuds, prison sentences and pseudonyms. It is quite obvious that the author has gone great lengths to collect this cluster of information and create this well-thought work.
Definitely recommended for everyone, who loves reading!

A light-hearted, entertaining and informative exploration of the world of books and the people who write them. It’s an excellent overview, with lots of lists (and what booklover doesn’t like a list?) and suggestions for what to read. Some readers will find it rather basic, but I think most will find something of interest here, even if it’s just the anecdotes about writers’ feuds. There’s nothing new here, perhaps, but as an introduction to the history of books and the various genres, it’s both fun and useful. And it ends with the comforting (alarming?) thought that the UK alone offers just under 200,000 new and revised titles each year (that’s roughly 20 new books every hour) so no one need fear running out of something to read.

To be put on the "preaching to the converted" shelf, this book of trivia about books, for book fans, is actually really pretty good. It certainly passed the test of teaching me things I didn't know, even to the extent I was corrected as to the gender of someone in these pages (I'll leave it to you to guess who…). Ranging from authors' pseudonyms, to literary awards, and those who won once-in-a-lifetime literary awards twice due to pseudonyms, it also splits into genre, which shows it to be a little light on fantasy, but still it's perfect for study in the smallest room. I did see a few instances of it clearly cribbing from Wikipedia, as phrasing and choice of author highlights were too similar, but it's still enjoyable for all that.

I enjoy learning facts about authors and books and if you do to this book may be something that you would be interested in. This book is chalk full of facts about authors, books, characters, and history that you may never have heard of.
I was surprised how much of these things I knew from my English degree so it was fun to return to those facts and I learned a lot of new things as well.
The only thing I didn't like about this book is because it was so fact based it would be better to pick it up randomly to read a page or two I think rather than just reading it straight through.

Such an interesting read this is the perfect gift for any book lover I loved all the facts and attention to detail put in this book you could tell the amount of research and time that went into it it was interesting and never got boring or too long winded I believe even people who aren’t non fiction fans would enjoy this one

A fun and breezy read. A lot of facts and trivia, but sometimes gets tedious. I was surprised at how little certain authors and books got discussed.

Delivers exactly what it says “A lighthearted book about books and the people who write them”. I think it is one to dip in and out of rather than sit down and read for any length of time, nevertheless is full of random anecdotes, some more known than others, this book would make an excellent gift for all bookworms out there.

This was a really fun book to read. Being a avid reader and obsessed with books this is something I just swallowed up and would recommend to anyone that really loves to read.

For this bibliophile, one of the most entertaining non-fiction books that I've read! I enjoyed the variety of trivia categories, the style of writing, learning new things about familiar names, and adding new names to my personal want- to- read list. One slight shortcoming: mostly geared towards the British reader, sometimes affecting the content of the trivia. An example is in the section "By Royal Appointment," which discusses Poets Laureate; Italian examples predate the given British examples by centuries. But overall, a fun book to read.

As an avid reader and librarian, I enjoy hearing more about the authors and novels I have read, and ones I haven't. Packed with interesting tidbits, I think any reader will love all the interesting information in this book.

A book about books for anyone who loves books; this covers everything from book awards, writer feuds, who went by which pseudonym as well as so much more. It would make a perfect gift for any bookworm or someone interested in publishing or literary history. Personally, I found out a bit more about some of my favourite authors and came away with lots of recommendations from the lists at the end of each chapter, 4 stars.

For the Love of Books is great for book geeks who love literary trivia. This is a interesting collection of facts on books and authors.

I, personally, enjoyed this book, but I will not adopt it for future classes. While the information was very interesting to me as an English instructor, I don't think most of it would be of use to most students. In particular, I was very disappointed to see that the section on banned books didn't have more contemporary examples since book banning is still so prevalent. That was really the information that made me request the book, so I'm sad that it wasn't what I was looking for.

I think that this book is well researched. Along with the tales of the author, it also give us book recommendations.

I am not usually reading nonfiction book, but this is one of the book that I enjoy. Especially the It's A Fact segment. Gives us the trivia of literary world!

Thank you netgalley for providing the arc.

People who love books and reading and authors will love this book. It’s like a compilation of People magazine stories, but focusing solely on authors. There is information galore on famous feuds, who drank what and when, how and where certain authors liked to write, muses and obsessions, and just plain gossip. However, buried under the 21st century short attention span sections is some real, solid information about authors, writing, and reading. This would be an interesting companion text in a World Literature course - teach the serious stuff but temper it with the messy, human side of the authors. Recommended for people who enjoy trivia and unusual takes on traditional literature and authors.

I loved For the Love of Books.

It is a wonderful little compendium of facts and stories about some of our best loved authors. The layout is fun and you can dip in and out of it at your leisure…if you can be strong willed enough to pause in between reading. Personally, I found that I couldn’t. I wanted to know more information and read more about the books and the authors.

For the Love of Books is the perfect present for the book lover in your life!

For the Love of Books – Stories of Literary Lives, Banned Books, Author Feuds, Extraordinary characters, and more by Graham Tarrant is available now.

For more information regarding Skyhorse Publishing (@skyhorsepub) please visit www.skyhorsepublishing.com.

I am a big booklover, but this book just didn't work for me. It just not the book to read in one go, but if you take time between reading... you just forget what you read before, as is what happened with me when I picked up this book after some time of trying part of it. :( It definitely has to do with the writing style, it just doesn't grab me. Too dry and stiff for me.

An entertaining volume full of trivia about books, authors, and reading. Something to pick up and read in short bursts. Not earth shattering, but fun for readers.

I thought this was full of fun, informative details and was a really good read. I can’t say I sat and read it in one go but I read it over a week or so alongside other books.
As a book fan I found it really quirky and I think it’s so diverse it will appeal to many bookworms out there.

I’ve even discovered more books I want to read!

Thanks Netgalley for the ARC!