Little Paris Bookshop

No cover — Nina George, Simon Pare: Little Paris Bookshop (2015, Little, Brown Book Group Limited)

368 pages

English language

Published March 9, 2015 by Little, Brown Book Group Limited.

ISBN:: 978-0-349-14037-7

(1 review)

“There are books that are suitable for a million people, others for only a hundred. There are even remedies—I mean books—that were written for one person only…A book is both medic and medicine at once. It makes a diagnosis as well as offering therapy. Putting the right novels to the appropriate ailments: that’s how I sell books.”

Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can't seem to heal through literature is himself; he's still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened.

After Perdu is finally tempted to read the letter, he hauls anchor and departs on a mission …

“There are books that are suitable for a million people, others for only a hundred. There are even remedies—I mean books—that were written for one person only…A book is both medic and medicine at once. It makes a diagnosis as well as offering therapy. Putting the right novels to the appropriate ailments: that’s how I sell books.”

Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can't seem to heal through literature is himself; he's still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened.

After Perdu is finally tempted to read the letter, he hauls anchor and departs on a mission to the south of France, hoping to make peace with his loss and discover the end of the story. Joined by a bestselling but blocked author and a lovelorn Italian chef, Perdu travels along the country’s rivers, dispensing his wisdom and his books, showing that the literary world can take the human soul on a journey to heal itself.

Internationally bestselling and filled with warmth and adventure, The Little Paris Bookshop is a love letter to books, meant for anyone who believes in the power of stories to shape people's lives.

8 editions

Stephanie Jane reviewed The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

Disappointing

2 stars

I'd been looking forward to reading The Little Paris Bookshop, even going so far as to put off reading it so the novel wouldn't be gone too quickly. I had imagined from the title and the cover art that it would be similar in atmosphere to an Antoine Laurain story and, to be honest, what could I not like about a novel set in a Parisian bookshop? As it turns out, there's a lot I didn't like!

The Little Paris Bookshop is actually mostly set on a barge, called Lulu, which sails from Paris fairly early on in the story so I lost the romance of the city. Lulu has been turned into a bookshop whose emotionally-damaged owner, Jean, sails south in order to come to terms with his heartbreak over a woman who left him twenty-one years ago. 21! Jean only realises he needed to do something about his …

I'd been looking forward to reading The Little Paris Bookshop, even going so far as to put off reading it so the novel wouldn't be gone too quickly. I had imagined from the title and the cover art that it would be similar in atmosphere to an Antoine Laurain story and, to be honest, what could I not like about a novel set in a Parisian bookshop? As it turns out, there's a lot I didn't like!

The Little Paris Bookshop is actually mostly set on a barge, called Lulu, which sails from Paris fairly early on in the story so I lost the romance of the city. Lulu has been turned into a bookshop whose emotionally-damaged owner, Jean, sails south in order to come to terms with his heartbreak over a woman who left him twenty-one years ago. 21! Jean only realises he needed to do something about his obsessive grief when he falls in instalove with his new neighbour, Catherine. Catherine is distraught at having been kicked out by her husband so 'obviously' needs sappy Jean for a rebound relationship to Discover Herself. Jean shows his love by almost immediately sailing hundreds of miles away from her and sending back a series of postcards discussing himself, himself and himself. What woman could resist?

There are a couple of pleasant elements to The Little Paris Bookshop. I liked the descriptions of the rural France through which Jean and his friends sail and the copious amounts of delicious food they eat. I also liked Nina George's early comments on various books, many of which I have read. Unfortunately books soon take a back seat (so to speak) which is a shame. Instead a cast of shallow characters stagger through an increasingly schmaltzy and silly adventure. I couldn't believe in anyone and the piling up of forcedly Emotional Moments left me feeling increasingly cold. The Little Paris Bookshop is one I really should not have judged by its cover!

Subjects

Fiction, psychological
Booksellers and bookselling, fiction
Paris (france), fiction
Fiction, romance, contemporary