Oooh, I love books where the story is told through letters, as it feels so nosy to be seeing other people’s correspondence and reading their private innermost thoughts that they hadn’t intended anyone else to see when they first wrote the letters, it feels really quite naughty, tee hee! And there is also a bookshop involved, so that’s another major tick for me!
Oooh, I love books where the story is told through letters, as it feels so nosy to be seeing other people’s correspondence and reading their private innermost thoughts that they hadn’t intended anyone else to see when they first wrote the letters, it feels really quite naughty, tee hee! And there is also a bookshop involved, so that’s another major tick for me!
The book is a series of real-life letters between Helene Hanff from New York who is a devout reader and a writer but who struggles to obtain the books she wants in her home country, and Frank Doel who works at Messrs Marks and Co bookshop (‘antiquarian book-sellers’) at 84 Charing Cross Road in London and who in a typically dedicated and dogged English manner tracks down the book requests from Helene and posts them to her. Frank at first just views Helene as a regular, if demanding, customer, but over time and much correspondence they are exchanging not only book information but also details of their lives, and gradually most of the bookshop staff, as well as Frank’s family, become involved in these letters to Helene. Omg, those bare details only scratch the surface of all the charm there is in this book! I adored Helene straightaway with her being a writer and an avid reader. I was also fascinated by the fact that writing letters to someone you are never likely to meet sometimes encourages you to reveal more of yourself than you would in a face-to-face conversation. The contrast between Frank’s typical English reserved style of writing and Helene’s American exuberant style of writing is a lovely humorous contrast, and his astonishment at her frankness and her coaxing of him to let down his guard is touching and charming and totally addictive to read. I also love how this correspondence clearly became such an important part of their lives (and important for the other bookshop staff too), and demonstrates the importance of writing letters and how meaningful this gesture can be, indeed I feel this book reinforces the value and personal nature of writing and receiving letters as well as the thoroughly enjoyable nostalgic element of it and the importance of savouring the time taken on such a task, and how the texts and emails, etc, of today just aren’t quite the same. After reading this book, I am determined to write more letters to people, and I am excited to find (after googling) that there are actually organisations set up to encourage people to write letters to care home residents so I’m very tempted to do that myself and hopefully make a difference to someone’s life in that way!
There are many many things that stand out for me in this book that either made me chuckle or warmed my heart, but I will list just some of my top favourites. I loved that all the bookshop staff ended up writing to Helene but at first concealed this from Frank, and I enjoyed their sense of illicitness from this. I loved that the contrast between English and American personalities was displayed so touchingly by the tone of their letters, and I enjoyed observing Helene’s very chatty and funny and gently teasing letters and also observing Frank’s quite reserved and professional and serious letters. I loved that the passion for books is so wonderfully intense with both Helene and Frank, and I enjoyed Helene’s delight at owning books (I share this addiction!), and I particularly adored her discovery and admiration of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (one of my own favourites!). I loved how food also highlighted the differences between the two countries and yet how both were keen to share their foods, particularly Cecil sending Helene a recipe for Yorkshire Puddings (which I imagine must have blown Helene’s mind somewhat, tee hee!) and Helene sending food parcels when food in England was rationed during the war (how much that must have meant to them all!). I loved that Frank’s and Helene’s correspondence gradually changes over time from professional to friendship, and I particularly enjoyed Frank explaining that copies of letters are kept on file at the bookshop so he had felt it best to maintain a formal tone but then recklessly (for him!) begins a letter with ‘Dear Helene, you see, I don’t care about the files any more’, tee hee, so wonderful! I loved Frank’s admirable characteristics of loyalty and steadfastness demonstrated by the 40 years that he worked at the bookshop and his pride in his work (and I have such envy of his job in the bookshop being surrounded by books and buying ones from libraries in stately homes). And I loved Helene saying that she has England there with her in America due to her bookshelf with her collection of books (how wonderfully true that is, that books allow you to enter other countries and worlds and times and to go wherever and whenever you wish all by opening the first page!).
This book is just adorable, adorable, adorable! I am envious of anyone who hasn’t yet read this book as their life will be enhanced by doing so, this is a very special book! I could just repeat the word ‘adorable’ over and over again to describe how I feel about this book, it charmed me throughout and made me laugh out loud (though not good when you’re on a train at the time, tee hee!) and also at times made me feel slightly tearful with its poignancy, but just basically made me happy happy happy to read it! What more could you wish for in a book? It is definitely now one of my all-time favourite feel-good reads, and I will pick it up again and again when I want to put myself in a good mood, and to laugh, and to make me feel nostalgic, and to warm my heart. And, as I said, I am consumed with envy about people working in such a wonderful place as that heavenly bookshop on Charing Cross Road (this has now become my happy place which I bring to mind when I can’t sleep!) and I am determined to go there and buy a book (or several!), but…dare I google to see if it is still there…could I handle the disappointment if it’s not there…?! And oh no, I see that it is long gone, sigh, sigh, sigh (it’s now a McDonalds!), but there is a plaque on the site marking its existence which seems very respectful. I am going to hope that someone buys/rents the site in the future (if McDonalds decides to vacate it) and opens a bookshop, as surely it would be an instant success!
I see Helen Hanff has written another book, Letter From New York, so I’m very tempted to read that, and I am especially keen to read her book Q’s Legacy which details how she found the bookshop at 84 Charing Cross Road and her writing of the book of that name. A couple of books about bookshops have been recommended to me recently too which I’m intending to read, these being The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald, and The Bookshop Book by Jen Campbell. And thinking about the joy of writing letters also encouraged me to search on Amazon for other books involving letters, and I found I’m No Expert But… edited by Kate Moore which are unpublished letters to the Daily Telegraph, and The Letter by Kathryn Hughes which sounds gripping with an old sealed letter being found by a charity shop worker in the pocket of a suit, and 100 Letters That Changed The World by Colin Salter which sounds fascinating! And of course, away from letters and bookshops (!), I will have to re-read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice with Helene’s discovery of this wonderful book!
