Nicholas Royle: The Bibliophile's Trilogy

Over three irresistible volumes, Nicholas Royle – described by the Telegraph as 'the bibliophile's bibliophile' – maps a life shaped by the pursuit of books. What begins as one collector's quest becomes a wider meditation on why we gather the books we do, what they reveal about us, and the strangers whose lives are folded invisibly between their pages.

The trilogy is bound together by Royle's fascination with what he calls 'inclusions' – the letters, postcards, cuttings, inscriptions and bookplates left behind by previous owners, their presence betrayed by a faint shadow line at the head of the pages. In White Spines, the obsession is the distinctive white-spined Picador paperbacks of the 1970s, '80s and '90s, hunted down across charity shops and second-hand bookshops the length of the country. Shadow Lines widens the field, following the clues inside the books – a scribbled telephone number, an old address – and the human connections they lead to. Finders, Keepers turns fully to the secret afterlives of second-hand books and the treasures hidden within them.

Funny, digressive and quietly profound, these are books about books that turn out to be about all of us who read. Collect all three.