Treat your-shelf to the best book puns and writing jokes you'll ever read
50 Book Puns That Will Have You Tickled Ink
Updated on Jun. 05, 2025
If you’ve ever folded a page to save a pun that spoke volumes to you, you’re in the right place. Book puns are just the right mix of wit and whimsy, making them ideal for anyone who’s ever spent a little too long in the library or cracked up over a well-timed comma joke. Whether you’re an avid reader, a writer, a librarian or just someone who appreciates the English language, these book puns are bound to make you smile just as wide as your go-to humor read.
So get cozy in your favorite reading nook, be a little bit shelf-ish and let the literary laughs stack up. Read on for our roundup of the best reading puns, writing quips, library laughs and clever wordplay that’ll have you bookmarking your favorites.
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Reading puns
- I like big books, and I cannot lie.
- Take a page out of my book and leaf!
- Reading is a novel idea.
- I’ve spent all day reading—it was bound to happen.
- Sorry, I can’t hang out. My weekend is fully booked.
- That book about Mt. Everest had quite the cliff-hanger.
- I read a book about Teflon, but it contained no frictional characters.
- I started reading a book about anti-gravity. It’s impossible to put down.
- It was a big deal when the music teacher asked the students to read band books.
- I started reading a book about mazes—I got lost in it.
- You’ve never read Fitzgerald? You Gatsby kidding me!
- Charlotte Brontë is such a breath of fresh Eyre.
Library jokes
- I can tell you like me—you keep checking me out.
- Libraries are good for circulation.
- Dewey go together? I think so!
- Stay true to your-shelf.
- I wanted to visit the local library, but it was overbooked.
- Treat yo’ shelf.
- I have absolutely no shelf control when it comes to books!
- Librarians know everything—they’re so resourceful.
- I haven’t been to the library in a while—how Dewey find the books?
- Why was the encyclopedia removed from the library? He couldn’t control his volume.
- Are you sure you want to borrow all those books? You don’t want to overdue it.
- I’ve decided to retire as a librarian to start a new chapter in my life.
- Why did the detective go to the library? He wanted to check out a mystery.
- What is a car’s favorite genre? Auto-biography.
- Why was the library so tall? Because it had a lot of stories!
Writing puns
- Keep going—you’re on the write track!
- Only spreading good scribes around here.
- You’ve got the write stuff.
- Past, present and future walked into a bar. It was tense.
- Do you comma here often?
- Metaphors be with you.
- Writers are always cold because they’re surrounded by so many drafts.
- One time, my teacher said, “Name two pronouns.” I answered, “Who, me?”
- Can we all agree to leave writing poetry to the prose?
- Writing about time travel takes so much creativity—you have to think outside the clocks.
- I opened my journal but didn’t know which page to use: write or left.
Clever book puns
- I got my friend to read Jane Austen. She just needed a little Persuasion.
- Did you hear John Green got lost in Canada? Yeah, he was Looking for Alaska.
- I’m feeling forever Jung.
- Hey, you wanna take a shelfie?
- Have you read the book on teleportation? It’ll definitely take you somewhere.
- Why did the dog run after the book? He was chasing his tale.
- Witches make the best editors because they always run spell check.
- Did the bartender tell you his favorite book? It’s Tequila Mockingbird.
- What’s a comedian’s favorite book? The Pun Also Rises.
- 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.
- Sorry, I can be a little bit shelf-ish when it comes to my book collection!
- Did you hear about the accountant? He got in trouble for cooking the books.
Hopefully, these book puns left you feeling well-read and grinning from cover to cover. That’s the power of a good pun—no late fees, just laughs.
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Reader’s Digest has been telling jokes for more than 100 years, curated and reviewed over the last 20 years by Senior Features Editor Andy Simmons, a humor editor formerly of National Lampoon and the author of Now That’s Funny. We’ve earned prestigious ASME awards for our humor—including comical quips, pranks, puns, cartoons, one-liners, knock-knock jokes, riddles, memes, tweets and stories in laugh-out-loud magazine columns such as “Life in These United States,” “All in a Day’s Work,” “Laughter, the Best Medicine” and “Humor in Uniform,” as well as online collections such as short jokes, dad jokes and bad jokes so bad, they’re great. You can find a century of humor in our 2022 compendium, Reader’s Digest: Laughter, the Best Medicine. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
