Sunday, October 26, 2014

Fictional Books Within Books We Wish Were Real

BOOK OPENING UP

One of the subtle pleasures of reading fiction involves uncovering the intricate world contained within the covers of the book in your hands -- the streets of a town that may or may not exist in real life, the minor characters, and, of course, the literary references. The vast literary tradition being a symbiotic system, books often reference each other or classics from long ago, either obliquely or directly, and picking up on what books were on the author's mind can be revealing and intriguing.

While many books reference only real books -- much like the TV show "Gilmore Girls," the bookish soap that name-dropped 339 books on its way to inspiring a reading challenge -- some authors choose to get a bit more creative. The list of invented books mentioned in fiction is extensive, and it's always somewhat fascinating to see a hint of an alternative universe where a creative work exists that we don't have access to in our world. Most tantalizingly, some authors offer scraps of text or information about these fictional texts, or even weave them closely into the plot of their own story. In these cases, it's almost unbearable to realize that we can never read these books.

Here are 8 fictional books within books we really wish existed in real life:

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