October’s Result – 84, Charring Cross Road by Helen Hanff

I did not realize this is such a slim book. Just 95 pages of letters which often don’t fill a page. But each letter is a treat.

Hanff has a vivid personality that shines through in her letters. One early letter she penned starts “FPD! Crisis!” She’s sent the shop a Christmas package that contains ham but – “I just noticed on your last invoice it says: ‘B. Marks. M. Cohen.’ Props. ARE THEY KOSHER? I could rush a tongue over. ADVISE PLEASE!” (pg. 8). She has no qualms about teasing and voicing her opinion, positive or not, of the books she’s sent. “I write them the most outrageous letters from a safe 3,000 miles away,” she says in a letter her to sister (pg. 42), when discussing a possible visit to the shop.

The relationships Hanff develops with the book store staff (in particular bookseller Frank Doel, with whom she begins her correspondence) take front stage in this book. She often sends them parcels of food they scarcely eat, living in post-war Britain. Of course, Hanff’s love of books makes a central theme as well. The ending of Hanff’s correspondence with the bookshop is a bittersweet thing. Highly recommend to anyone who enjoys reading letters or reading books.

The Newman arrived almost a week ago and I’ mjust beginning to recover. I keep it on the table with me all day, every now and then I stop typing and reach over and touch it. Not because it’s a first edition; I just never saw a book so beautiful. I feel vaguely guilty about owning it. All that gleaming leather and gold stamping and beautiful type belongs in the pine-panelled library of an English country home; it wants to be read by the fire in a gentleman’s leather easy chair – not on a secondhand studio couch in a one-room hovel in a broken-down brownstone front.

84, Charring Cross road, pg. 17

November’s Selection

To close out the year, November’s theme is 2020 releases. I chose four titles that I gravitated towards (wow surprise they’re all middle grade 😛) and then checked whether they were available through my library.

• When Life Gives You Mangos by Kereen Getten – contemporary, small Caribbean island setting, something happened to protagonist Clara’s memory that made her forget everything that happened last summer after a hurricane hit
• A Place at the Table by Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan – contemporary, Pakistani-American Sara and white Jewish Elizabeth meet in a South Asian cooking class taught by Sara’s mom
• Cattywampus by Ash Van Otterloo – fabulism, small town where magic is off limits but two girls (one intersex) accidentally unleash a hex
• Three Keys by Kelly Yang – contemporary, sequel to Front Desk

Which book should I read in December? Vote on the poll below or by leaving a comment on this post. (I can’t tell who voted on Twitter, so if you’re really keen you can vote in the comments AND on Twitter ;P) Voting closes on 28 November.