The Bookshop
The Bookshop
by Penelope Fitzgerald:
“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 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.”
The blurb above was provided by shelfari.com. The quote below is from the book itself:
“A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life, and as such it must surely be a necessary commodity.” – P. Fitzgerald’s The Bookshop
Fitzgerald’s work is cozy, depressing, beautiful, and romantic – if you’re a booklover. I became so infatuated with the growth and decline of this little shop, I had to read every book mentioned by its characters. Of course, Lolita by Nabakov is the work up for the most debate in this little village, and until my encounter with Florence Green, Lolita had never been high on my list of must read books. I thank Fitzgerald for introducing me, it has been quite an experience.
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