bookalike

English

Alternative forms

• book-alike

Etymology

Blend of book +‎ lookalike.

Noun

bookalike (plural bookalikes)

1. (informal) Something which closely resembles a book in some way.
   • 2013 May 1, Tom Carter, “Shanghai Girls Gone Copy-Catty”, in HuffPost‎^[1], archived from the original on 2023-09-25:

     We can therefore extend the benefit of the doubt to all the Shanghai girls, babies, dolls, etc. out there for their bookalikes, and even for their catty copycatting, though one hopes that, for the sake of the genre, China's banal book title formula of [CITY NAME] + [GENDER-SPECIFIC SOBRIQUET] will soon fall out of fashion.

   • 2014 May 11, Francesca Angelini, “Judgement Day for the bookalikes”, in The Times‎^[2], London: News UK, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 31 October 2021:

     Judgement Day for the bookalikes

   • 2019, Maria Walther, The Ramped-Up Read Aloud: What to Notice as You Turn the Page, Thousand Oaks, C.A.: Corwin, →ISBN, page 3:

     I carefully selected the related titles to ensure that you could have a similar conversation surrounding the bookalikes as you did with the featured book.

   • 2020 November 25, Annalisa Merelli, “Book covers”, in Quartz‎^[3], archived from the original on 2023-06-17:

     But if words and images within the pages give books their value, covers transform them into something more. That something is the reason we like to display books in our homes, why furniture stores make sure their shelves have books (or bookalikes), or why selling books by the foot is a sustainable—in fact, lucrative—proposition.

   • 2023 March 2, Andy Robinson, “Boy, 3, stuns schoolmates by dressing as Prince Harry for World Book Day”, in The US Sun‎^[4], London: News Group Newspapers Limited, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-03-10:

     Harry's bookalike

Usage notes

• The term is very rare and is not always used with a consistent definition.

References

• Paul McFedries (1996–2024) “bookalike”, in Word Spy, Logophilia Limited.