-- Esta es una historia de genuino amor libresco, destinada a todos aquellos que abren los libros para oler sus páginas y acarician el lomo cuando los dejan en la estanterÃa. A.J. FIfry no es un dechado de cortesÃa, pero hay algo que tiene muy claro: somos lo que leemos. Más aún, nuestra vida está hecha de mil historias que nos acompañan a lo largo del camino y la buena literatura es una brújula… (más)
bell7: Though one is set in contemporary times on a fictional island of the coast of Massachusetts and the other in post World War II England, both books show the importance of story and have an optimistic tone while dealing with some of life's challenges.
BookshelfMonstrosity: A love of literature helps protagonists form unlikely but rewarding new relationships in these tender stories of personal redemption. The vibrant characterization, gently humorous tone, and whimsical, heartwarming narratives shine in compelling novels that illustrate the power of reading.… (más)
AJ is a widowed bookseller on Alice Island, drinking himself to death, until a toddler is left in his bookstore. With no-one else to take her, and her mother later turning up drowned, he adopts and raises her. Now that he's sobered up for Maya, he starts turning the bookstore around, and putting in orders with the beautiful saleswoman from Knightly books. A few other good characters and a lot of literary references - some books I've read and others I haven't. Tearjerker ending, but a happy ending for Island books. ( )
Great book. I loved all the references to classic literature. I think you're more likely to enjoy this book if you are a book lover, literature teacher, librarian, etc. lots of twists and great setting. I loved it, but not everyone will. ( )
Book Bub purchase-Very enjoyable read. Each chapter began with a review of a book. KIRKUS REVIEWZevin (Margarettown, 2006, etc.) chronicles the life of A. J. Fikry, a man who holds no brief for random acts, who yearns for a distinct narrative, who flounders about until his life is reordered by happenstance.Fikry owns Island Books on Alice Island, a summer destination off Massachusetts¥think Nantucket. He?s not yet 40 but already widowed, his wife, Nic, dead in an auto accident. Fikry drinks. Island Books drifts toward bankruptcy. Then, within a span of days, his rare copy of Poe?s Tamerlane (worth $400,000) is stolen, and 2-year-old Maya is deposited at his bookstore. Fikry cannot bear to leave the precocious child to the system once it becomes apparent her single mother has drowned herself in the sea. He adopts Maya, spurred by her immediate attachment to him. That decision detours "his plan to drink himself to death" and reinvigorates his life and his bookstore. Add Amelia Loman, quirky traveling sales representative for Knightley Press, and a romance that takes four years to begin, and there?s a Nicholas Sparks quality to this novel about people who love books but can't find someone to love. With a wry appreciation for the travails of bookstore ownersÂ¥A. J. doesn?t like e-readersÂ¥Zevin writes characters of a type, certainly, but ones who nonetheless inspire empathy. Among others, there are the bright and sweet-natured Maya, who morphs into an insecure but still precocious teenager; Lambiase, local police chief who finds in Firky the friend who expands his life; A. J?s brother-in-law, Daniel Parish, a once?best-selling author riding out a descending career arc; and Daniel?s wife, Ismay, who sees A. J. as everything Daniel should be. All fit the milieu perfectly in a plot that spins out as expected, bookended by tragedy. Zevin writes characters who grow and prosper, mainly A. J. and Lambiase, in a narrative that is sometimes sentimental, sometimes funny, sometimes true to life and always entertaining. A likable literary love story about selling books and finding love.
They had only ever discussed books but what, in this life, is more personal than books? (p. 18)
You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book? (p. 87)
Amelia knows she should hang up, but she doesn't. Some part of her wants the story. What is the point of bad dates if not to have amusing anecdotes for your friends?
Her mother likes to say that novels have ruined Amelia for real men.
In Amelia's experience, most people's problems would be solved if they would only give more things a chance.
She studies him. He is older than Amelia but not by much, not by more than ten years. He is too young to like so little.
Amelia imagines smashing the ancient computer over his head.
By the time he gets back upstairs, the vindaloo is cold again. If he reheats it in that plastic dish, he'll probably end up with cancer. He takes the plastic tray to the table. The first bite is burning. The second bite is frozen. Papa Bear's vindaloo and Baby Bear's vindaloo.
The difficulty of living alone is that any mess he makes he is forced to clean up himself.
At last, he is dreaming. The point of all the drinking is to arrive in this place.
A.J. jogs down Captain Wiggins Street with his dingy plaid bathrobe flapping out behind him. He looks like a depressed, malnourished superhero. He turns onto Main and runs straight into the sleepy Alice Island Police Station. "I've been robbed!" A.J. announces. It was only a short run, but A.J. is breathing hard. "Please, someone help me!" He tries not to feel like an old lady with a stolen handbag.
"You never come to the store, I guess." Lambiase looks at his shoes, the familiar shame of a thousand high school English classes where he'd failed to do the minimum required reading rushing back to him. "Not much of a reader."
"How are you holding up, old man?" Daniel calls A.J. "old man" despite the fact that Daniel is five years older than A.J. "I've lost my fortune, and the doctor says I'm going to die, but other than than, I'm fantastic." The sedative has given him perspective. "Great. Let's get drinks."
Despite the fact that he loves books and owns a bookstore, A.J. does not particularly care for writers. He finds them to be unkempt, narcissistic, silly, and generally unpleasant people. He tries to avoid meeting the ones who've written books he loves for fear that they will ruin their books for him.
"It's a wake-up call is what it is," A.J. says. "I'm definitely gonna cut down on my drinking." "Right after this beer," Daniel quips. They clink mugs.
The investigation lasts a month, which in Alice Island PD time is like a year.
There are many challenges to long-distance running, but one of the greatest is the question of where to put one's house keys.
Remember, Maya: the things we respond to at twenty are not necessarily the same things we will respond to at forty and vice versa. This is true in books and also in life.
He picks up the baby. Her diaper is soiled. A.J. has never changed a diaper in his life, though he is a modestly skilled gift wrapper.
Fucking love, he thinks. What a bother. It's completely gotten in the way of his plan to drink himself to death, to drive his business to ruin. The most annoying thing about it is that once a person gives a shit about one thing, he finds he has to start giving a shit about everything.
When did I get so negative? Ismay wonders. Their happiness is not her unhappiness. Unless it is. What if there is only an equal ratio of happiness to unhappiness in the world at any given time?
"You took that turn a little fast, darling," Daniel says. She thinks about driving them both off the road and into the ocean, and the thought makes her happy, happier than she would have been if she'd only killed herself.
"A place is not really a place without a bookstore."
"Pretty is not a good reason to court someone, you know. I have to tell that to my students all the time." "This from the woman who doesn't read the books with the ugly covers."
A.J. has often reflected that, bit by bit, all the best things in the world are being carved away like fat from meat.
The real gift of the holiday season, A.J. thinks, is that it ends.
We have to believe. We agree to be disappointed sometimes so that we can be exhilarated every now and again.
"We aren't the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on."
-- Esta es una historia de genuino amor libresco, destinada a todos aquellos que abren los libros para oler sus páginas y acarician el lomo cuando los dejan en la estanterÃa. A.J. FIfry no es un dechado de cortesÃa, pero hay algo que tiene muy claro: somos lo que leemos. Más aún, nuestra vida está hecha de mil historias que nos acompañan a lo largo del camino y la buena literatura es una brújula
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