The Bookshop
by FITZGERALD, Penelope
- Used
- Fine
- Paperback
- Condition
- Fine
- ISBN 10
- 0395869463
- ISBN 13
- 9780395869468
- Seller
-
Gloucester City, New Jersey, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Synopsis
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.
Reviews
A recent review of a new book about Penelope Fitzgerald in "The New Yorker" prompted me to search the shelves of my own used bookshop for a copy of one of her novels. Fortuitously, "The Bookshop" was the one Fitzgerald novel in stock.
The author herself sums up her works by saying that they are "...too sad really to be comedies, but not important enough to be tragedies." And this novel is no exception. Florence Green, widowed and childless, decides that her little Suffolk town needs a bookshop. Florence is one of the most endearing characters I have encountered in my recent reading, sweet and trusting, yet forceful when she needs to be. She encounters a formidable enemy in Mrs. Violet Gamart but also a powerful supporter in the reclusive but influential Mr. Brundish. The author's description of the landscape of the Suffolk coast in which her town of Hardcastle is located had me scrambling to my computer to Google up some images. While the scenes were lovely, Fitzgerald's description of the disappearing coastline and the creeping damp, combined with the portraits of the pettiness of the townspeople, does not have me scrambling for a ticket to Suffolk. Although both the characters and the landscape seem to be colluding to defeat her, Florence's unflagging sweet nature and her pluck and determination win the admiration of this reader. And the novel's terse, perceptive prose has won a new fan for Penelope Fitzgerald.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Between the Covers- Rare Books, Inc. ABAA (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 257940
- Title
- The Bookshop
- Author
- FITZGERALD, Penelope
- Format/Binding
- Softcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Fine
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Binding
- Paperback
- ISBN 10
- 0395869463
- ISBN 13
- 9780395869468
- Publisher
- Houghton Mifflin
- Place of Publication
- Boston
- Date Published
- 1997
Terms of Sale
Between the Covers- Rare Books, Inc. ABAA
All books are first editions unless otherwise noted. All books are returnable within ten days if returned in the same condition as sent. We accept VISA, MASTERCARD, AMERICAN EXPRESS, DISCOVER, PAYPAL, checks and money orders. New Jersey residents please add 6.625% sales tax. All items guaranteed, all items subject to prior sale. Members ABAA, ILAB. Shipping is $4.50 for Media Mail, $10.00 for Priority Mail or UPS Ground. Tracking is provided for every order. Alternate shipping available by request. Shipping costs are based on books weighing 2.2 LB, or 1 KG. If your book order is heavy or oversized, we may contact you to let you know extra shipping is required.
About the Seller
Between the Covers- Rare Books, Inc. ABAA
About Between the Covers- Rare Books, Inc. ABAA
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
- Rubbing
- Abrasion or wear to the surface. Usually used in reference to a book's boards or dust-jacket.
- Wrappers
- The paper covering on the outside of a paperback. Also see the entry for pictorial wraps, color illustrated coverings for...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....