The second half of the book follows her time there in the form of diary entries. But finally, after twenty years and with a book to promote, she makes it. Helene keeps having to put off a trip to the literary London of her dreams, usually due to lack of money. Booksellers soon learn to love Helene and her generous nature, especially the gifts she sends at Christmas and Easter. It takes a while for her to break through the very proper and formal shell of Frank’s Britishness (it’s two years before he starts to address her by her first name!) but soon a friendship evolves, with a firm love of literature at its core. What follows is twenty year’s worth of letters, mostly between the reserved (and very British) bookseller Frank and the more chatty Helene. The first half is a copy of the letters, starting with Helene inquiring after certain out-of-print books that she couldn’t get hold of. This is a lovely little book about a struggling American writer in New York and her correspondence with an antiquarian bookshop in London. I couldn’t have chosen a better book to make me smile! The moment to read it finally arrived after I finished the harrowing Between Shades of Gray and was in desperate need of something cheerful to warm my heart. I heard about 84 Charing Cross Road through Slightly Foxeda few years ago, and it’s been patiently waiting on my shelf ever since.
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