Bibliophobia

A Memoir

By: Sarah Chihaya

Narrated by: Traci Kato-Kiriyama

“A wise, tremendously moving exploration of what it means to seek companionship and understanding, in books and in life.”—Hua Hsu, author of Stay True

“[A] stirring and sparkling new memoir.”—The Washington Post

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE MONTH: Time, Los Angeles Times, Cosmopolitan

Books can seduce you. They can, Sarah Chihaya believes, annihilate, reveal, and provoke you. And anyone incurably obsessed with books understands this kind of unsettling literary encounter. Sarah calls books that have this effect “Life Ruiners”.

Her Life Ruiner, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, became a talisman for her in high school when its electrifying treatment of race exposed Sarah’s deepest feelings about being Japanese American in a predominantly white suburb of Cleveland. But Sarah had always lived through her books, seeking escape, self-definition, and rules for living. She built her life around reading, wrote criticism, and taught literature at an Ivy League University. Then she was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, and the world became an unreadable blank page. In the aftermath, she was faced with a question. Could we ever truly rewrite the stories that govern our lives?

Bibliophobia is an alternately searing and darkly humorous story of breakdown and survival told through books. Delving into texts such as Anne of Green Gables, Possession, A Tale for the Time Being, The Last Samurai, Chihaya interrogates her cultural identity, her relationship with depression, and the intoxicating, sometimes painful, ways books push back on those who love them.

©2025 Sarah Chihaya (P)2025 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“A seriously sharp and nuanced look at the impact books can have on us as readers, and our identities . . . If you read one non-fiction book this month, make it this.”—Cosmopolitan

“[Bibliophobia] is a reminder that instead of searching for a story that explains everything, we might do well to embrace the uncertainty of the unwritten pages still before us.”—The Atlantic

“[Bibliophobia] crackles with the electrical charge of a broken taboo. . . A reading experience as haunting as the ones it describes.”—The New Republic