The love of books explores the bond between people and books in the UK, investigating the attachment to both the practice of reading for pleasure and books as objects. This attachment is understood as a meaningful connection and a key dimension of the reader's sense of self. Drawing on interviews and archival material, The love of books focuses on the experiences of leisure readers from diverse backgrounds and with varied reading preferences. In an era of digitisation and an unprecedented abundance of media offering information, storytelling, and entertainment, expressions of book love might appear as little more than quests for social status or a nostalgic trend. However, this study develops a novel cultural sociology of reading that takes seriously the aesthetic, ethical, and existential meanings of reading and books. While the social value of reading for social mobility or democracy is widely acknowledged, the non-instrumental role of pleasure in the interaction with books is often critiqued or ignored. This study demonstrates how reading and books can make life liveable and meaningful. As cultural objects full of potential and possibility, books are far from just inert signs of highly valued goods.

The stories readers share show how their situated encounters with books bring these goods to life. The love of books explores how attachment emerges from the practical fusion of three elements that have so far been examined separately: the act of reading, the material, surface properties of books, and the symbolic power they hold.