The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

Posted November 27, 2015 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Contemporary / 0 Comments

Title: The Little Paris Bookshop (Goodreads)
Author: Nina George
Translator: Simon Pare
Published: Abacus, 2015
Pages: 320
Genres: Contemporary
My Copy: Paperback

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Jean Perdu is a bookseller, owning a bookstore on a barge floating along the Seine. Often referred to as a ‘literary apothecary’, for Jean Perdu had a unique ability to sense to perfect book to soothe his customers’ troubled souls. The only person he could never cure was himself and for the past twenty-one years he has been nursing a broken heart.

If it was not for the fact that The Little Paris Bookshop was picked for my in real life book club, I may have never picked it up. To be fair, this novel was picked based on the idea of bibliotherapy, without anyone reading it first. I was interested to see if this book was going to be as generic as it sounded as it is a book in translation; translated from German by Simon Pare. I did have hopes that this might end up as enjoyable as The Collected Works of A.J. Fikry, but sadly I was disappointed.

I normally love books about books but from the very start I was bored with The Little Paris Bookshop. It did pick up briefly when there was talked about The Elegance of the Hedgehog and Franz Kafka but this only lasted a few pages. My thoughts on this novel ranged from boring, cliché, overly sweet before cycling back to boring. I struggled to find anything to hold me through this book, the characters were dull, and nothing about the writing impressed me.

I tend to stay away from light reads; I like to be challenged a little, and I like to experience something exciting and explore interesting themes. There is nothing wrong with a light read, and at times it is needed. However The Little Paris Bookshop was not worth completing and if it was not for book club, I would have abandoned it (I should have). This is meant to be a romance/chick-lit type book but I have read so many better novels in these genres, and these are not genres I normally read. I hate to be so negative towards a book, but the only thing positive I can find with this novel is that it mentions other books, like The Elegance of the Hedgehog and the works of Franz Kafka.

The Collected Works of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

Posted May 14, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Contemporary / 6 Comments

Title: The Collected Works of A.J. Fikry (Goodreads)
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Published: Little Brown and Company, 2014
Pages: 243
Genres: Contemporary
My Copy: Paperback

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Who doesn’t love a story about a bookshop or books? The Collected Works of A.J. Fikry (or in the US, it’s weirdly named The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry) tells the story of Island Books and its quirky owner, A.J. Fikry. Following the death of his wife, the angry, middle aged loner is finding out just how much he relied on his wife, the people person. The novel starts off with Amelia, a newly employed book rep for Knightley Press, she is passionate about the books she is offering but one of her new clients is Island Books.

This independent book shop on Alice Island just off the coast of Massachusetts sports the motto “No Man Is an Island; Every Book Is a World.” While the bookshop sounds like a quaint little indie store, Her first impression of A.J shook Amelia. He’s an old fashioned man set in his ways;

“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 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.”

I have to love A.J. Finky; he is a cranky literary snob and he reminds me of Richard Anger from Books or maybe he reminds me of myself. That is until he finds a two year old abandoned in his bookshop and his life changes completely. The story is a cute and quirky, but fairly predictable story but in all honesty, who really cares? The Collected Works of A.J. Fikry is a fun and bittersweet novel, it is hard to criticise a book that you enjoy reading from start to finish.

Everything you expect to happen happens and in the end all loose ends are wrapped up in a nice neat bow. While I think it is a little too neat, the tone of the entire novel is light and I can’t measure The Collected Works of A.J. Fikry any other way, no matter how much I might want to. A straightforward novel about love, family, loss, joy and more importantly books. I love all the little inscriptions that Fikry leaves for Maya in all those books. While I’m a little annoyed that the book that bring Fikry and Amelia closer together is the only fictional book in this novel.

Gabrielle Zevin did a great job here; all the characters are great, in particular Fikry and Maya. I have to admit, if I were to have a child I would want them to be like Maya. She is so smart, unrealistically smart, but I don’t care, I had fun with the novel. Zevin has written a fun novel and a winning formula for her, I must admit I’ve never heard of her and this is her seventh novel. She seems to be more known as a YA author, which explains why I’ve never heard of her.

The Collected Works of A.J. Fikry is an optimistic love letter to the independent bookstore, as a book lover I hope they remain strong for a very long time. I’ve always been a fan of the indie bookstore and books about books so this was a real thrill for me to read. I admit that Books was a better novel but two great books about books so far this year is a good effort. Especially when both books have a great independent bookstore at the centre of their plots. All book lovers should pick up both novels.

So this happened

Posted May 11, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literature / 2 Comments

Do you remember the scene in The Collected Works of A. J. Fikry (known as The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry in the US) by Gabrielle Zevin where A. J. talks to a sales rep about the suspension of disbelief? In this scene they talk about how some novels require a suspension of disbelief. On one end of the scale you have literary fiction were everything is about real life situations, then three quarters of the way down the scale you have The Magicians with its references to magic and Fillory. At the end of the scale there is A. J. and his decision to adopt little Maya.

Do you remember this scene? I spent a sleepless night analysing this scene. Trying to understand the concept of ‘suspension of disbelief’ and what the author wanted to say on this topic. I’ve been enjoying The Collected Works of A. J. Fikry but this one scene really stuck with me. The only problem is, this scene doesn’t exist and I was analysing a scene that played out in my mind instead.

It got me wondering about this weird situation. Why would I be kept up all night wondering about a non-existent scene? That whole experience was odd and I’m not sure what to make of it. Do others have similar stories like this? It’s an entertaining story, worth sharing but I feel little a senile because of it.

My review of The Collected Works of A. J. Fikry will be out this week.

Tag: The Collected Works of A. J. Fikry