There is a bookstore in London that shelves all its books by region. Instead of finding a guide to the American South in the travel section, for example, you will find it next to works of fiction by Harper Lee and Margaret Mitchell. This is my kind of place. When I select a new book, I ask myself, “Where do I feel like going today?” Often the answer to this is geographic: an English village, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, a Sydney suburb.
Other times it is less about physical location than a mood that a place evokes. Years ago I lived in NY but I haven’t been back since before the towers fell. These days, for a hit of nostalgia, I read a lot of books set there. Other times I choose a title because I feel like being somewhere foreign. Everything I know about Iran has come from a handful of books set there. (Persepolis; Not Without My Daughter) I love reading travel memoirs to get a sense of countries I will never get to. I have never forgotten the Africa depicted in The Shadow of the Sun: a place with insects the size of snapping turtles and changing light that dropped like a curtain unexpectedly.
I don’t know if all people read this way, but I find that my selections have a psychological component. The New Year is always a bit depressing so I like to start with something transporting. It helps if it’s light as well. And so I found myself selecting How to Find Love In A Bookshop as my first read of 2020. It is set in a charming English village near Oxford, the type with a high street filled with independent businesses like a cheese shop and a butcher and framed on either end by a bridge and a church. The locals, about twenty of whom appear in the story, are likeable but imperfect. The protagonist, Emilia, inherits a bookstore after her father dies. She faces financial and personal hardships while the villagers stop in for books to distract themselves from their problems. There is the shy teacher who runs a restaurant out of her cottage, a matron with a secret, and the handsome local trying to make things right with his estranged family.
This is one of those books that delivers what it promises: an escape to a cinematic world where any setback is just a pause before a change for the better. I enjoyed it without believing it. Life is, of course, much more complicated than a series of movie moments. There isn’t someone for everyone and all things don’t turn out for the best. Every once in a while, I read books like this to forget that.
Books Smitten 