70+ Hilarious Book Puns To Make You Laugh and Groan

My father-in-law and I have one big thing in common: our unabashed love of really terrible puns. The worse they are and the bigger groans they cause? The more we eat ’em up. So it’s only natural for a reading lover like me to be devoted to good book puns.

Book puns are not only good for a laugh or an eye roll. They’re great for libraries, for teachers, and for other book lovers who want to find clever, catchy ways to draw attention to books and reading. There’s a reason that book puns show up on fun t-shirts, tote bags, and mugs: readers can’t get enough.

Plus: puns are part of what makes language fun. I’m a wholehearted word nerd, and being able to play with language only makes me love the ability to use those words even more.

Find below over 70 fabulous—and sometimes downright terrible—book puns. Some of these take on classic books, some take on the reading life, and others are a bit of library humor. I’d love to hear some of your best and brightest in the comments. Hit me with your best puns.

Book Puns You Won’t Be Able To Look Away From

Classic Author & Book Puns

1. Tequila Mockingbird.
2. Never read Fitzgerald? You Gatsby kidding me!
3. “Never mind” —a passive aggressive Raven.
4. Dystopian novels are so 1984.
5. But first, Kafka.
6. Why is John Milton a terrible guest at game nights? Because when he’s around, there’s a pair of dice lost.
7. What do you call 2000 mockingbirds? Two kilo mockingbird.
8. Brontë? What a breath of fresh Eyre.
9. Forever Jung.
10. You’re nothing but a Wilde thing.
11. Waldo goes to India and finds himself.

Library Puns

1. I will Dewey decimate you.
2. She blinded me with library science.
3. Book it to the library.
4. What building has the most stories? The library.
5. Mind if I check you out?
6. You have fine written all over you.
7. Libraries are good for circulation.
8. I wanted to visit the world’s biggest library but it was overbooked.
9. These books blue us away (for a display of blue book covers).
10. Libraries make shhh happen.
11. Are you paying attention? You seem a bit checked out.
12. What does one library book say to the other? “Can I take you out?”
13. ISBN thinking about you.

Grammar and Writing Puns

1. What’s the difference between cats and a comma? Cats have claws at the end of their paws and commas are a pause at the end of a clause.
2. Bad spelling makes me [sic].
3. What dinosaur knows a lot of synonyms? A thesaurus.
4. Past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.
5. Why did the run-on sentence think it was pregnant? Its period was late.
6. What did the period say to the sentence? We better stop now!
7. Why do words and punctuation end up in court? To be sentenced.
8. Do you comma here often?
9. I’m so adjective, I verb noun.
10. Broken pencils are pointless.
11. Synonym rolls: just like grammar used to make.
12. Metaphors be with you.
13. Writers have great climaxes.
14. Seven days without a pun makes one weak.
15. The comma sutra makes grammar sexy.
16. Practice safe text: use commas.

Reading Puns

1. When I think about books, I touch my shelf.
2. Readers do it between the covers (or alternately, readers do it between the sheets).
3. My weekend is fully booked.
4. Check your shelf before you wreck your shelf.
5. Better read than dead.
6. The high school music teacher was controversial for having his students read band books.
7. I like big books and I cannot lie.
8. This weekend is going to be LITerary.
9. Where my prose at?
10. A book fell on my head. I can only blame my shelf.
11. Talk wordy to me.
12. What’s the longest word in the dictionary? Smiles because there’s a mile between each s.
13. I’m reading a book about anti-gravity and it’s impossible to put down.
14. Feeling my shelf.
15. Have you read the book about hands? It’s a real page turner.
16. Every book has some flaws and mistakes, no matter how good the editor. It’s bound to happen.
17. Stay true to your shelf.
18. Writers are cold because they’re surrounded by drafts.
19. I read dead people.
20. Prose before hoes.
21. Why don’t readers have extra time? They’re booked.
22. Leave poetry to the prose.
23. Treat yo shelves.
24. Reading is a novel idea.
25. Readers do it by the book.
26. Bookworms take shelfies.
27. Take a page from the book and leaf.
28. Books are my kind of texts.
29. This book of spells was useless. The author forgot to run spell check.
30. I have no shelf control.
31. The book about Mount Everest had quite a cliff hanger.
32. These book puns have tickled your spine.

Want more book puns? Check out these fun products featuring puns and these purrfect literary cat puns.