Book Review:

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‘Collected Works of A. J. Fikry’ by Gabrielle Zevin, 2014

This small work of fiction captures the reader’s imagination with the closeness of a small community living on an island. Pivotal is the bookshop. Here we meet a widower, grieving for his wife who was killed in a road accident, until a miracle happens.

Grief, friendship and love are the main ingredients. The love of books permeates the whole story, bringing together the main characters. ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ by Mary Ann Shaffer is of a similar ilk. Together they are delightful in their simplicity.

Sometimes I feel the need for an untroubling read before going to sleep. This fits the bill perfectly.

11 thoughts on “Book Review:”

  2. ChristineR

    Barbara, I read ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ a few weeks back now. It was a wonderful story, many thanks for the recommendation. 🙂

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  4. simon682

    I’ve read the Guernsey Literary…Society and enjoyed it. I’ll give this a go. Am a bid fan of Paul Gallico both as a sportswriter and as a novelist.

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  5. bkpyett Post author

    Christine, thank you for your suggestions, I will certainly put them on my library list.
    I love the sound of the wool shop. ‘The Collected Works’ is only new, so the library may not have it yet. The other one, from memory, I enjoyed greatly. Another comes to mind too,
    ‘Flowers for Mrs. Harris.’ Shall check on line and see who wrote it.

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    1. bkpyett Post author

      Christine, Paul Gallico wrote ‘Mrs. ‘Arris goes to Paris’ in 1958. It was later published in the UK as ‘Flowers for Mrs. Harris’. It is the first of four books about a London char lady. Heartwarming stuff!! 🙂

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      1. ChristineR

        My library has that, but it is a ‘stack item’ and others of his making are not for loan. I don’t actually know what a stack item is, but it sounds like it is in a forgotten stack somewhere!

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      2. bkpyett Post author

        Sorry Christine, I haven’t heard of a stack item, maybe it’s in a stack until they get around to processing it? 😀

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  6. ChristineR

    I read every night before sleeping, sometimes until the early hours of the morning if I can’t put it down.

    Maybe they are much the same ilk as Debbie Macomber’s ‘Shop on Blossom Street’, which I have just discovered has at least two more novels in the series than the two I read. Anyway, a lady opens up a wool shop, and changes her own life and the lives of the people who attend her knitting classes. It lingers in my mind, that book, and few do, out of the hundreds I read each year.

    Barbara, I checked my library catalogue, they haven’t the first book you mention (they do have three others by Gabrielle). Lots of copies of the Mary Ann Shaffer one, so I have put in my order. The title makes it sound very appealing. 🙂

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