NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING EMILY MORTIMER, BILL NIGHY, AND PATRICIA CLARKSON Short-listed for the Booker Prize “A beautiful book, a perfect little gem.” —BBC Kaleidoscope “A marvelously piercing fiction.” —Times Literary Supplement In 1959 Florence Green, a kindhearted widow with a small inheritance, risks everything to open a bookshop—the only bookshop—in the seaside town of … bookshop—the only bookshop—in the seaside town of Hardborough. By making a success of a business so impractical, she invites the hostility of the town’s less prosperous shopkeepers. By daring to enlarge her neighbors’ lives, she crosses Mrs. Gamart, the local arts doyenne. Florence’s warehouse leaks, her cellar seeps, and the shop is apparently haunted. Only too late does she begin to suspect the truth: a town that lacks a bookshop isn’t always a town that wants one.
This new edition features an introduction by David Nicholls, author of One Day.
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I got this book out of the library because I’d seen the trailer for the movie and thought, “That looks like my cup of tea!” I’m not sure if the trailer is misleading or if they Hollywood-ized the story, but this is not what you might expect from the trailer. It’s definitely not a romance, for example. More a stinging social satire with a wonderful …
Usually if I don’t like a book, I simply don’t review it. But if I can keep someone else from wasting time on this book, I’m willing to spend the time to review it though it pains me to do so. I liked the premise of the book when I decided to download it, but this dense read starts nowhere and ends up in the same place. No joy here. I will …
Hard to connect with the characters
I found this book to be slightly depressing. It wasn’t awful but I don’t recommend.
Before you read this book, make sure that you are in an unusually good mood. Then anticipate your mood covered over by a black cloth. There is only one (other than the protagonist) good person in the book, and he is peripheral to the plot and vanquished in the end. The book left me with an impression that the people of the small town are lazy, …
The book is essentially dull, disjointed, and just depressed me. Its theme is: bad things will always happen to good people, no matter what.
After Florence Green’s husband dies she decides to open a bookshop on Hardborough. She buys an old run down house that the locals didn’t want…until now. Mrs. Gamart is a local arts enthusiast who now decides that she wants the house for an arts exhibit. Unfortunately Mrs. Gamart will do anything to get the house from Florence.
I enjoyed the idea …
A quirky short story set in Suffolk during the late 1950’s.
It was a sad story and I felt frustrated for the main character
Excellent writing
I do not particularly like stories that just abruptly end but I enjoyed the story
the author packs so much into simple straightforward writing. The characters are part of a quiet story that tells so much
Lovely little book recently made into a wonderful film.
Beautiful use of the English language. A true adult story.
A book that makes you think.
“Expectations are constantly denied, explanations withheld.”
This tiny book, championed by many, tells the story of widowed Mrs Green, who takes her life savings and opens a small bookstore in a town where a bookstore might not be the best investment. When she was young, she had been a good clerk in a thriving bookstore, and perhaps now that she …
Didn’t think much of it!! Rather depressing.
A quirky but thoughtful novella. Will read more by P. Fitzgerald!
I enjoyed it and it’s supposed to be a movie!
Good descriptions but, to me, a pointless and boring story.