For bookworms, the book may be the main attraction but the dedication could easily be the cherry on the top of the cake. Some book dedications are so arresting, so compelling you feel you simply must read the rest of the book. Here are some touching and hilarious book dedications to warm the booklover’s heart and maybe even inspire your next read. Enjoy.
To partners and lovers
Dedication: To my first boyfriend, Nick. Thanks for letting me borrow some of our history. You were a deadbeat, but goddamn your dick was huge.
From: 7th Circle (Hades #1) by Tate James
Dedication: For Katie, who stood by my side as a one-year project became three…
From: The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook and the Revolution that swept virtual reality by Blake J. Harris
Dedication: For my husband, Wendel, my safe harbour. And for all those who suffered the Great Storm with no safe harbour.
From: Dark water rising by Marian Hale
Dedication: For my wife, who somehow managed to be nothing but supportive of a book about all the women I slept with before I met her.
From: Available – a memoir of heartbreak, hookups, love and brunch by Matteson Perry.
Dedication: For Colin Firth, you’re a really great guy, but I’m married, so I think we should just be friends.
From: Austenland by Shannon Hale
To family
Dedication: Mom, thank you for everything, including the holy water you’ll bathe me in after you read this book.
From: Throttled by Lauren Asher
Dedication: To my mother, Belzie. I would have made a terrible doctor, Mom. People would have died.
From: The field guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe.
Dedication: If none of these tickles your fancy or if any of these triggers you, turn back now. Seriously, you’ve been warned. P.S. Mom, if you have found this book, please rethink all your choices, and please, for the love of everything… don’t turn the page.
From: Book unknown
Dedication: For my father, Larry Branum, who would have hated this book.
From: My Life as a Goddess: A Memoir through (Un)popular culture by Guy Branum
Dedication: For Mom, (Just skip over the sex scenes, please)
From: No way back by Matthew Klein
Dedication: I wish to thank everyone who took the time to read my poetry and appreciate it; Sylvia Plath for hypnotizing me by her imagery and metaphors. Agatha Christie for making me relish the obscure, and especially my Mom, because her smile is the best thing that has happened to this world.
From: Sleepwalking by Neelashi Shukla (Poetry collection)
Dedication: For my parents: This is all your fault
From: Please Don’t kill the Freshman by Zoe Trope
Dedication: And for Mom and Dad. Your support – and the mental health issues you gave me – made all of this possible.
From: Judd Apatow book
Dedication: To my wife Marganit and my children Ella Rose and Daniel Adam without whom this book would have been completed two years earlier.
From: Graduate texts in mathematics – an introduction to algebraic topology by Joseph J. Rotman
Dedication: This book is dedicated to my father, Joseph Hill Evans, with love. Actually, Dad doesn’t read fiction, so if someone doesn’t tell him about this, he’ll never know.
From: City Of Golden Shadow (Otherland, Volume 1) By Tad William
Dedication from book 4: My father still hasn’t actually cracked any of the books – so, no, he still hasn’t noticed. I think I’m just going to have to tell him. Maybe I should break it to him gently. ‘Everyone here who hasn’t had a book dedicated to them, take three steps forward. Whoops, Dad, hang on there for a second…’
To one specific group
Dedication: For everyone with a red line under their name in Microsoft Word.
From: Book unknown
Dedication: To the lives they said didn’t matter.
From: Stamped from the beginning: The definitive history of racist ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Dedication: For all the girls who think smart is sexy. (And who know the quiet ones are the freakiest)
From: King of Pride by Ana Huang
Dedication: This book is dedicated to all the hotel and motel housekeepers who clean up our disgusting messes after we leave. Give them an extra five or ten then the next time you check out.
From: The Palmer Hotel by Rick Paulas.
Dedication: To my mother, an immigrant from Mexico who came to America to provide a better life for me and my siblings, and to all the mothers and fathers who had the same intention and lost their lives in the attempt.
From: Sand and Blood: America’s stealth war on the Mexico Border by John Carlos Frey
Dedication: To all those people out there who desperately need my advice… but won’t get it because:
- I’m just one woman.
- I’m out there trying to make a living, taping my dick to my ass and stuffing my balls in a dress so I can “entertain” people who can’t entertain themselves.
- I don’t give a fuck
From: Blame it on Bianca Del Rio: The expert on nothing with an opinion on everything by Bianca Del Rio.
To pets
Dedication: For Carley, who was a better person than I am even though she was a dog.
From: Book unknown
To holding grudges
Dedication: I want to thank everyone who helped me create this book, except, for that guy who yelled at me in Kmart when I was eight because he thought I was being “too rowdy.” You’re an asshole, sir.
From: Let’s pretend this never happened: a mostly true memoir by Jenny Lawson
Dedication: For my eighth-grade creative writing teacher who told me that my stories would never amount to anything. Suck it.
From: Book unknown
Dedication: This book is dedicated to all the family members who were angry that I dedicated the last book to someone who won the dedication in a Twitter contest.
From: Book unknown
Dedication: For all the teenage women fighting the good fight. And for my twelfth-grade Current Topics teacher for calling me a feminazi in front of the entire class. You insulted me, but you also sparked my interest in feminism, so really the joke is on you. Revenge is best served cold, you jerk.
From: Book unknown
Dedication: This book is dedicated with great reluctance, to my editor, Nick Lake, because he is forcing me to…
From: Skulduggery Pleasant – Mortal Coil By Derek Landy
Another one by the same author – Skulduggery Pleasant – Death Bringer By Derek Landy
Check out
