A.J. Fikry owns a failing bookshop. His wife has just died, in tragic circumstances. His rare and valuable first edition has been stolen. His life is a wreck.

Amelia is a book rep, with a big heart, and a lonely life.

Maya is the baby left on A.J.'s bookshop floor with a note.

What happens in the bookshop that changes the lives of these seemingly normal but extraordinary characters? This is the story of how unexpected love can rescue you and bring you back to real life, in a world that you won't want to leave, with characters that you will come to love.

To be honest i have mixed feelings about this - parts of it are wonderful, well written and others... well .. even if i could suspend disbelief, i still struggled with the mills and boon tone of it - not all of the book is like that, but some is just aarrggghh...sorry..

the first two chapters are the gems of the book, i think, and show great promise ... then it started to nosedive into some young adult come romance; the mysteries of the stolen book and maya are resolved way too neatly with a lovely bow - life just ain't so neat

there are some references to books i know and have read - some classic and some more contemporary - references that make me nod my head in agreement - some humour especially in comment about james patterson "or whoever writes for james patterson"

the author event with the memoir writer is a bit of enjoyable silliness

the bits that make it worthwhile are in these quotes:

We read to know we're not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone.

You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, ‘What is your favorite book?’

I do not like postmodernism, postapocalyptic settings, postmortem narrators, or magic realism. I rarely respond to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn't be—basically, gimmicks of any kind. I find literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy to be distasteful—nonfiction only, please. I do not like genre mash-ups à la the literary detective novel or the literary fantasy. Literary should be literary, and genre should be genre, and crossbreeding rarely results in anything satisfying. I do not like children's books, especially ones with orphans, and I prefer not to clutter my shelves with young adult. I do not like anything over four hundred pages or under one hundred fifty pages. I am repulsed by ghostwritten novels by reality television stars, celebrity picture books, sports memoirs, movie tie-in editions, novelty items, and—I imagine this goes without saying—vampires.

Novels certainly have their charms, but the most elegant creation in the prose universe is a short story.

after showing such great promise early on, it did not keep it up sadly, but not an altogether lost read...

going off on a little journey to the other side of australia
to ellastix (wa)
via the capable reading hands of catsalive (nsw) and amberc (nt)
in a pseudo-book-ray

happy reading everyone
;)

happy reading
;)

Thanks LadyIndigo. I look forward to reading it.

A lovely, little book. Very easy & quick to read. What a lucky man to own & run a bookshop in a small town - my daydreams can consist of such a thing. A.J. is a cranky, crusty, cynical, middle-aged man, with very particular ideas of the type of books he wants in his shop:

'... How about I tell you what I don't like? I don't like postmodernism, post-apocalyptic settings, post-mortem narrators or magic realism. I rarely respons to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn't be - basically gimmicks of any kind. I find literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy to be distasteful - non-fiction only, please. I do not like genre mash-ups a la the literary detective novel or the literary fantasy. Literary should be literary, and genre should be genre, and crossbreeding rarely results in anything satisfying. I do not like children's books, especially ones with orphans, and I prefer not to clutter my shelves with young adult. I do not like anything over four hundred pages or under one hundred fifty pages. I am repulsed by ghostwritten novels by reality television stars, celebrity picture books, sports memoirs, movie tie-in editions, novelty items and - I imagine this goes without saying - vampires. I rarely stock debuts, chick lit, poetry or translations. I would prefer not to stock series, but the demands of my pocketbook require me to. For your part, you needn't tell me about the "next big series" until it is ensconced on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Above all, Ms Loman, I find slim literary memoirs about little old men whose little old wives have died from cancer to be absolutely intolerable. No matter how well written the sales rep claims they are...'

His wife was the people-person, & A.J. finds it difficult to relate to people at all until he is forced to by the circumstances of a major change in his life - the arrival of a two-year-old girl left in his shop. The book becomes a romance - love for his new daughter & love for his new wife, as well as love for books & a well-told tale. I actually enjoyed A.J. more when he was a crank.

It's such a very nice story that I'm sorry that it was interrupted by the melodrama of glioblastoma multiforme. This bit of soap opera brought my rating down, although it was still a very pleasant way to while away the afternoon.

I agree with A.J. on 'the necessity of encountering stories at precisely the right time in our lives', as there are books I can now read that I couldn't when younger & others I can no longer read.

I don't know why Zevin went with the name Lambiase - I kept calling him lambaste in my head & picturing in my mind someone basting lamb, not, as you might think, someone being scolded severely. It must have been the use of Lamb to the Slaughter on the first page that put it there.

Heading off to the next reader... alone!

Arrived yesterday. Next to be read.

An enchanting, literary love story. I didn't want to put it down.

On to the next lucky reader.

This book just arrived in the post this morning, accompanied by a travel companion in the form of a Danielle Steel novel. Thanks to LadyIndigo for sending it along (I can't remember the reason behind it, possibly RABCK??) and organising for catsalive and amberC to get to read it on its way. Thanks to amberC for including the bonus book.

After reading your reviews I'm keen to get stuck into this one too.

Well, I pretty much agree with LadyIndigo on this one. There was a fair bit of potential, but I found that story was altogether too clunky in parts. It was easy to read (polished off in a morning) and I quite liked most of the characters, but the flow was a bit all over the shop and I found the dialogue a bit irritating in parts. I really liked the references to other books and authors but wasn't overly keen on the ending. The bit of melodrama in the final chapters seemed unnecessary and the missing book could quite happily have stayed lost for all that finding it helped. I also think that Maya, at 14, with all of her precociousness and the exposure to literature that she'd had, could have written a better short story than the one featured within the story (her short story was also filled with clunky dialogue).
A bit disappointing really, but I shouldn't complain - my life has been very busy lately and I haven't had much time for reading, but with my parents visiting for Christmas, my business taking a few weeks break and my boy being entertained by his Grandies, this morning I managed to crack through an entire book in one sitting! So yay to me, and to grandparents, and also to AJ Fikry for being such an easy (albeit irritating) read :-)

Left at the step leading up to the grassy area directly across from the Dome. Enjoy!