If you are anything like me, you probably enjoy playing with words. Basing your joke on the way words are pronounced or spelled adds an entire new layer to the funny part. And as an avid reader, I can definitely appreciate a good book pun when I see one.
An interesting thing about puns is that even bad jokes somehow make you laugh if they are built on word play. Even if you are more of the intellectual humor type, you can’t help but agree that book jokes can actually be used for more than just passing entertainment.
Puns with book titles are a fun and unconventional way of drawing interest towards reading. Libraries and bookstores have been employing this method, placing book puns on posters, boards, and souvenir cards, and were indeed able to get quite a few chuckles – and happy visitors – in return. A joke about books will not only put a smile on your face but is very likely to get you interested in a book or author you may not have read before.
Here are some of our absolute favorite book and reading puns. I am really curious to know what the best pun about books you have ever come up with was, so make sure to leave a comment and let me know!
Why did Shakespeare always write with a pen? Because pencils made him ask, “2B or not 2B?”
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A book fell on my head. I can only blame my shelf.
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What building has the most stories? The library.
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I started reading a book about mazes—I got lost in it.
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A book never holds a grudge: it is always ready to turn over a new leaf.
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How do you track a book?
You follow their footnotes.
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I haven’t been to the library in a while—how Dewey find the books?
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Why did the kid always sit in his wardrobe when reading a book?
Narnia business!
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I'm reading a book about black holes; it really draws you in!
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What is the spookiest kind of author?
A ghostwriter.
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Why don’t readers have extra time? They’re booked.
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I’ve decided to retire as a librarian to start a new chapter in my life.
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My best friend just told me she doesn’t like Lord of the Rings, but she definitely doesn’t know what she’s Tolkien about.
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I started walking around without any shoes, and it sort of became a Hobbit.
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Did you hear they were going to make an entire book about Harry Potter’s godfather, but then it got axed?
They thought it would be too Sirius.
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Why did the man stick himself between the pages of a book?
He was a book Mark.
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Why do bookworms breakup ?
Because they are not on the same page.
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Never read Fitzgerald? You Gatsby kidding me!
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Do you like the book you're reading? It has prose and cons.
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Why did the librarian fall down?
She was in the non-friction section.
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Why are books so afraid of their sequels?
Because they always come after them!
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What do you do if your dog starts eating a book?
You take the words right out of his mouth!
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Why was the book so good at using Tinder?
He had a good opening line.
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Did you hear John Green got lost in Canada? Yeah, he was Looking for Alaska.
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Did the bartender tell you his favorite book? It’s Tequila Mockingbird.
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You can write poetry if you want, but I think it's best left to the prose.
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What is a bee’s favorite book?
The Great Gats-bee.
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Why is a math book always unhappy?
It has so many problems.
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Want to hear a joke about a book?
Never mind. It’s tear-rible.
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Why did the vampire go to the library?
He wanted to sink his teeth into a really good book.
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Morning Radio: A. M. Effem
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Why are books so annoying to be around?
They don’t have any shelf awareness.
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Why do people get jealous when they date a library book?
Someone else is always checking them out.
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I found the first four Harry Potter books to be quite light hearted.
The fifth one was dead Sirius.
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A dinosaur that knows a lot of synonyms is a thesaurus.
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I wanted to visit the world’s biggest library but it was overbooked.
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I’m reading a book about anti-gravity and it’s impossible to put down.
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Are you sure you want to borrow all those books? You don’t want to overdue it.
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Why did the dog run after the book? He was chasing his tale.
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I started a book about gravity. It's heavy.
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This book on electricity is shocking.
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Why was the encyclopedia removed from the library?
He couldn’t control his volume.
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I had plans to begin reading a book about sinkholes but they fell through.
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The book about the adventurer in the mountains ended with quite a cliff hanger.
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What kind of book dates back to the Jurassic period?
A Thesaurus.
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Why do people get asthma if they haven’t read Charlotte Brontë?
It’s hard to breathe with no Eyre.
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After watching me read “War and Peace”, my son asked me, “Dad, why is your book so thick?”
I said, “Well, it’s a long story.”
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My book on clocks finally arrived.
It’s about time!
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Witches are the best editors because they always run spell-check.
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Dystopian novels are so 1984.
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When I think about books, I touch my shelf.
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I like big books and I cannot lie.
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The book about Mount Everest had quite a cliff hanger.
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I read a book about Teflon, but it contained no frictional characters.
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Don't Shakespeare into anyone's window.
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Life is like a box of Walt Whitman's chocolates.
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Why are ghosts always reading? They go through books too quickly.
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What makes “Civil Disobedience” such a great essay? Thoreau editing.
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Book on the bright side.
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I was looking for a book to teach me how to fix my car's gearbox, but the library only has manuals.
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I cannot wait to start reading my new book this weekend. It is going to be LITerary.
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You cannot enter a reading club on a whim. You need a proper booking for entry.
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Did you hear about the guy who bought so many books he was eventually crushed underneath them?
He can only blame his shelf.
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Why don’t they let accountants into the library?
They’re bookkeepers.
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Why are books so brave?
They have the spine for it.
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Did you hear about the librarian who was sent to jail?
The judge threw the book at him.
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I’ve written a book about falling down a staircase.
It’s a step by step guide.
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I’m writing a book about WD-40.
It’s non-friction.
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The librarian didn’t know what to do with the book about Tesla’s love of electricity, so he filed it under “Current Affairs”
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What do you get when you cross Neil Gaiman with A.A. Milne?
Tigger Warning.
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I'm thinking about starting a publication for bookworms who enjoy jokes about food coloring
I'll call it Readers Dye Jest.
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What do you call a bookworm who can't get enough of strong female characters?
A heroine addict!
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Why is John Milton a terrible guest at game nights? Because when he’s around, there’s a pair of dice lost.
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This book of spells was useless. The author forgot to run spell check.
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I got my friend to read Jane Austen. She just needed a little Persuasion.
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Have you read the book on teleportation? It’ll definitely take you somewhere.
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A good book really hits the plot.
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I don't loan out my books. Some say I'm shelf-ish.
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Writing a time travel story is all about thinking outside the clocks.
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What’s the best book to read whilst eating breakfast?
Much Ado About Muffin.
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What do planets like to read?
Comet books.
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Why did the Romanian stop reading for the night?
To give his Bucharest.
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I've just read a book about a bean growing up in Southern USA. It's called The Adventures of Tom Soya.
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Singing without an orchestra: A. K. Pella
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I borrowed a book written by a ghostwriter, but to be honest, it really was not that scary.
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Where does the water come from on Animal Farm?
A pond Orwell.
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Why is Walden such a good book?
Thoreau editing.
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I’m reading a horror book in Braille.
Something bad is going to happen.
I can feel it.
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All the comic books I bought from the store are missing the last page.
I have to draw my own conclusions.
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Two mice are chewing on a film roll.
The first one says, “I liked the book better.”
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Why don't bookworms make good authors?
Because their plots are always full of holes.
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Brontë? What a breath of fresh Eyre.
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Have you read the book about hands? It’s a real page turner.
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Readers do it by the book.
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Reading is a novel idea.
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Books provide food for plot.
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All booked up and nowhere to go.
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Why do you enjoy romance novels? I like to book on the bright side.
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What did the bookworm say to the massage therapist? I'm feeling a little past tense.
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Anton Chekov items on your to-do list.
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There's a lot of Thomas Gray area.
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What book did the librarian take out for her cat?
The Prince and the Paw-purr.
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What’s the best book for Halloween?
A Midsummer’s Night Scream!
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Follow the Coelho brick road.
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What did Mr. Darcy say to Elizabeth? “I had a will of iron until you Bennet it.”
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When I get home, I like to say to my books "Where my prose at?"
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Wilde thing, I think I love you.
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What do you never know whether the food Charles Dickens cooks for you will be good?
He has the best of thymes and the worst of thymes.
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Two books meet in a library. The first book says, “You don’t look too well”.
The other book replies “Just had my appendix removed.”
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Becoming an author is a write of passage.
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If a bear were to encounter both a reader and a writer, who would it eat? The reader. Haven't you heard of writer's cramp and Reader's Digest?
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Books are my kind of texts.
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Judy Blume where you're planted.
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Ernest Hemingway or the highway.
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We didn't Bram Stoker the fire.
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You'll get a good Tolkien to if you keep that up.
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What is a vampire’s favorite book?
Wuthering Bites.
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What is Emily Dickinson’s favorite reindeer? Dasher.
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