The Lost for Words Bookshop

The Lost for Words turned out to be a pleasure.  While I'm usually tempted and often enjoy books about bookshops, Lost for Words was more than I expected.

The Lost for Words Bookshop, a used bookshop, comforts and shelters Loveday Cardew. Sometimes she may be at a loss for words, but words are not lost on Loveday, and her love of books has sustained her for over half her life. 

When Loveday's family is destroyed, she ends up in foster care and the loss of her family results in a happy and friendly child becoming an isolated and reclusive teen.  

At fifteen, however, a visit to the Lost for Words bookshop provides a sanctuary when Archie, the owner, offers her a job.  Ten years later, Loveday continues her mostly self-imposed and unsociable existence with Archie as her only real friend.

On her way to work one day, she picks up a book that has been lost or discarded and posts a "found" sign in the bookshop window--an inciting incident that will change the course of her life.

The story is told in past and present, and the traumatic events that destroyed her family are revealed in small doses.  In the present, boxes of used books begin arriving that connect to Loveday's past, a new relationship offers the opportunity for Loveday to expand her life beyond her small flat and the bookshop, and a past relationship becomes threatening.

I was expecting bit of romantic chic lit, but found a more thoughtful coming of age tale.

NetGalley/St. Martin's Press

Bibliophile/Contemporary.  First published, 2017; June 19, 2018.  Print length:  304 pages.

Would You Like Your Own Daemon?

I found this on Stephanie's Confessions of a Book-a-holic. What fun! You, too, can create your daemon! Thanks, Stephanie!

Finished All Creatures Great and Small yesterday--and it was as good as the first time.
Last night, I put aside the quilt I'm binding and started Inkheart and think I've fallen in love! Thanks to all of you for your high recommendations on this one.

The Haunted Bookshop

Morley, Christopher. The Haunted Bookshop. I understand why most bloggers prefer Parnassus on Wheels. Morley gets a bit didactic at times, and the mystery part seems forced. While I wish Mr. Morley had spent more time with Roger and Helen (whose "courtship" was detailed in Parnassus on Wheels) and with the delicious aspects of the shop and books therein, I did enjoy this sequel.

WWI weighs heavily on Mr. Morley's mind (The Haunted Bookshop was published in 1919), and he injects the subject at every opportunity and even has Roger dedicate an entire section to anti-war literature. He mentions Siegfried Sassoon as one of the war poets Titania must read, and I certainly agree with him there; Sassoon's war poetry is excellent. He puts forth Thomas Hardy's The Dynasts as "The book that should have prevented the war."

But I wasn't reading the book for anti-war sentiments or for the mystery, but for the relationship of Roger and Helen and books. Roger's genuine enthusiasm about the importance of books is a pleasure, and Titania's eager apprenticeship made me smile.

Fun tidbits:

Roger has added some finishing touches to Titania's room by selecting the books for the bookshelf, and says, "And maybe a copy of Ezra Pound's poems. I do hope she's not what Helen calls a bolshevixen" (65).

Roger was also proud of a clipping from Life:

ON THE RETURN OF A BOOK LENT TO A FRIEND:

I GIVE humble and hearty thanks for the safe return of this book which having endured the perils of my friend's bookcase, and the bookcases of my friend's friends, now returns to me in reasonably good condition.

I GIVE humble and hearty thanks that my friend did not see fit to give this book to his infant as a plaything, nor use it as an ash-tray for his burning cigar, nor as a teething-ring for his mastiff.

WHEN I lent this book I deemed it as lost: I was resigned to the bitterness of the long parting: I never thought to look upon its pages again.

BUT NOW that my book is come back to me,I rejoice and am exceeding glad! Bring hither the fatted morocco and let us rebind the voulme and set it on the shelf of honor: for this my book was lent, and is returned again.

PRESENTLY, therefore, I may return some of the books that I myself have borrowed.

Fiction. 253 pp. copyright 1919.

This and That

This site covers some interesting information on Edgar Allan Poe.

Danteworlds offers images, text, commentary, and explanatory notes for Dante's Divine Comedy.

Currently reading: The Physics of the Buffyverse (with a lurid cover) by Jennifer Oullete, The Haunted Bookshop by Christoper Morley, and Written in Bones: How Human Remains Unlock the Secrets of the Dead edited by Paul Bahn.

Which one will take precedence? The Haunted Bookshop, of course. It discusses many of the same things that Buzbee covers in his non-fiction The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, but in a fictional and fun way.

Oh, and one section that I really liked in Buzzbee's book was the part of the Ur-book. The book that really incites your love of reading. "An important book, it seems, does not have to be one universally judged great or memorable," Buzzbee says. Ur-books are books of influence, formative books, and may not be literary. An Ur-book might be Nancy Drew, books about horses, a book by Kurt Vonnegut, or Gone with the Wind. For many of us, it was a children's or young adult book. For kids today, it may well be Harry Potter.

The Physics of the Buffyverse is a review copy. From the little I've read, I think I'm going to enjoy it--although physics is not generally an interest of mine. The previous two review books received were books I thought I'd enjoy by their titles, but turned out to be books that I couldn't force myself to finish and so did not review them.