I just finished The Little Paris Bookshop.
It's about a bookseller (Perdu) that sells books to customers who are in need of something in their life, like medicine for an aliment. Like on page 16 his neighbor lady who just moved into his apartment who is going through a divorce, he told her he could get a book for her.
"The consoling kind."
"I need to cry some more. I'll drown if I don't. Can you understand that?"
"Of course. Sometimes you're swimming in unswept tears and you'll go under if you store them up
inside." And I'm at the bottom of a sea of tears. "I'll bring you a book for crying then."
Page 27, Perdu reflects, that it is the common misconception that booksellers looked after books. They looked after people.
Page 30, "Books are more than doctors, of course. Some novels are loving, lifelong companions; some give you a clip around the ears; others are friends who wrap you in warm towels when you've got those autumn blues. And some...well, are pink candy floss that tingles your brain for three seconds and leaves a blissful void. Like a short, torrid love affair."
He finds himself stuck in his life that has become the bookstore (Literary Apothercary) on a barge in the Seine River. One day he finally had enough and set sail to the south of France with his neighbor Max Jordon. In a rash decision they left with no money and the clothes on their backs. The men are in search of love and a new lease on life. While on their journey they stop in many little towns selling books for produce, meat, etc to make things meet. In every town they they meet new friends, about the towns. While in Cepoy, a little town that the people had been fighting for their homeland for centuries.
Page 119 "Here they work for the future, always for those who will come
after them. And then their descendants do the same. This land will be destroyed only if one generation stops thinking of the next and tries to change everything now."This quote hit me like a ton of books. As I think about where our generation has gone because we've stopped thinking of our future. Ok off my soap box and back to the book.
"All the love, all the dead, all the people we've known. They are the rivers that feed our sea of souls. If we refuse to remember them, the sea will dry up." Perdu
I really wanted to love this book. It started out strong but after several chapters I became bored with it. It was a little slow, the diary inserts that came out of no where, and to me seemed a little all over
the place killed the book for me. About half way I really wanted it to hurry up mad be finished and wishing that it would end but then the ending grabbed me. Made me tear up a bit. For the most part it
was alright. It has some of the best quotes I've read yet in a book.
My favorite quote from this book, "Books aren't eggs, you know. Simply because a book has aged a bit doesn't mean it's gone bad. What's wrong with old? Age isn't a disease. We all grow old, even books. But are you, is anyone, worth less, or less important, because they've been around longer?"
I'd give this book 3/5 stars mostly because of the quotes. If you like romance or finding yourself type books then please give this one a read.
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I was given this book from Blogging for Books for an honest review.
