"Bookstores attract the right kind of folk. Good people like A.J. and Amelia. And I like talking about books with people who like talking about books. I like paper. I like how it feels, and I like the feel of a book in my back pocket. I like how a new book smells, too."
-Police Chief Lambiase, from the novel
This is a beautiful story of love and its transformative power. It included humor, romance and mystery. Somewhere I had read that it was a love story for book lovers and I have to agree. There were dozens of references to books, many of which I had never heard of but some that I have read. The story centers around a bookstore and there is even mention of Chief's Choice Book Club, reminding me of our Page Turners' Book Club.
Main character and owner of Island Books, A.J. Fikry is a very unhappy man at the beginning of the novel. Still mourning the accidental death of his wife almost two years earlier, he is drinking too much and has become quite a curmudgeon. When a valuable book goes missing from his collection, he is even more distraught. But suddenly he receives a gift with no idea how it will change his life.
I was intrigued by A.J.'s reviews of short stories interspersed throughout the novel. Near the beginning of the book when he is telling Amelia what he doesn't like to read, the list is humorously long. She asks him what he does like and he answers, "Everything else."
I loved the part where Mrs. Cumberbatch "complained" about The Book Thief, a novel our club really liked when we read it several months ago. We had also read The Paris Wife very recently. (We didn't like it so much.) Some of the children's books mentioned were very familiar to me: The Monster at the End of This Book, Caps for Sale, The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil T. Frankweiler, and the Narnia tales. I must find out if The Late Bloomer by Leon Friedman exists. If so it will go on my list since it had a significant role in the plot.
The characters were well-developed for such a short novel, each with some good qualities and some with past secrets. One of those secrets led to a surprise ending. At least it caught me unaware.
I look forward to seeing what the Page Turners have to say tomorrow at our meeting. I am rating it a 5. I think it is one I will remember for a long time and probably want to reread.
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Only 6 ladies attended our meeting. Many regular members were out of town and otherwise engaged. That's pretty typical of summer meetings. We happily welcomed two new members and had a stimulating discussion of The Storied Life....
The average rating was 4.6 with votes of only 5's and 4's. One member found Maya's precocity hard to believe and another reader was a bit upset with the cavalier way that Marian was treated and that Ismay got off scot-free with her indiscretion. I can't say too much more---don't want to be a spoiler! We agreed that Alice Island was a perfect setting with its isolation accentuating small town life. The sign above the porch of Island Books reads "No Man Is an Island; Every Book Is a World," very significant to the setting, theme and plot of the novel.
We spent some time discussing the increasing popularity of e-readers and the disappearance of independent bookstores, a subject introduced in the story. We all see advantages of e-books but miss browsing through favorite bookstores of the past. Ironically, I first spotted The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry in a small bookstore in Mendocino, California, where one of the employees had written a glowing recommendation.
Oh, best I can figure there is no such book as The Late Bloomer by Leon Friedman. If someone out there knows different please clue me in!
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