Customer Reviews

Shelf Life: Romance, Mystery, Drama. and Other Page-Turning Adventures from a Year in a Bookstore

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Suzanne Strempek Shea has discovered what we librarians have known for a while: that dispensing books to the general public can be a rewarding experience. It can also put you into contact with a wide variety of people with a wide variety of interests and/or problems. Any one of us could write a book about it, and Suzanne has. She details her duties in her part-time job at an independent bookstore, where she began to work after surviving radiation treatments for cancer. Here she learns the tricks of the retail trade. She prepares displays for every holiday on the calendar. She watches consumer reactions to 9/11. And she figures out what to tell people who say that they're looking for "something that isn't going to make me think." In a way, her employment is as recuperative and as rehabilitating for her as it is to the customers buying from the store's self-help section.

But the story isn't just about a bookstore in Springfield, Massachusetts. Suzanne also traces her own lifetime encounters with books, including those happy childhood days when the community bookmobile would visit her neighborhood. She tells us about the other bookstores she visits on book signing tours (she's published five other volumes) right down to the Polish pierogies that are served as refreshments. Here's a woman who's in love with every aspect of the written word and who conveys that emotion to us on every page.

Anyone who frequents a library or a bookstore will be able to relate to Susanne's observations. You might even recognize yourself here! A light and entertaining read, right down to the nifty drawings that number the chapters. And it WILL make you occasionally think.

After beating breast cancer, Shea finds herself at a crossroads, not knowing quite how to step back into everyday life. So she gets a job at her favorite used bookstore, and in this book she tells of her adventures in reading and retail.

The book is gently paced, which is what you would expect of a book about a bookstore. The book is filled with description and gently amusing stories from the trade, which makes it a good bathtime, teatime, or bedtime book.

I think in places it was a little too gentle for me, which is why I read it in tandem with a faster paced book, but the sweetness and genuine love for books that is evident in Shea's writing made this a very enjoyable read.

Shea's setting is universal for American booklovers. It could be any bookstore in any small mall anywhere in the United States, but is, in reality, located in a small downtown Springfield, MA mall. It is a setting Shea knows very well because she grew up not far from this county seat, still lives in that same town, and is familar with the bookstore and friends with the owner. "Shelf Life" chronicles not only the ebb and flow of life in a small urban bookstore, but Shea's rise up from depression following breast cancer (see "Songs from a Lead-lined Room.") Working two short days per week Shea does what she does best - observes people and their approaches to things and life - while she arranges displays, unpacks orders and rings up purchases. Readers get an inside glimpse of how small independent bookstores work and some of the many "characters" who frequent them. Readers also are somewhat privy to Shea's attempt to get back to her writer's world and treated to flashbacks of early bookstore readings and signings (including her mother and friends' serving pierogi at the first) and Shea's love of Ireland as a place to visit, as oppposed to Poland. All this flashing back and forth made the book read a little uneven for me. At times I got the feeling that Shea was writing the book because this was a task she'd set for herself...she was laboring. But I'm glad that she did write it as I value her fortitude as well as characterizations of bookstore visitors and comments on the rise and fall of Springfield's downtown. Shea can be thought of as a "regional writer," or a "Polish regional writer," but what she writes is applicable to almost any region or culture in the U.S. She should be better known and more widely read than just in New England or just in Polish communities.

I would venture to say that any lover of books has toyed with the idea of working at the mecca for bibliophiles, a bookstore. Strempek Shea -- not just any book lover but also a bestselling author -- shows us what it's like on the other side of the cash register.

Shea has a way with words, and her turns of phrase are always skillful and often unexpected. I enjoyed the way she wove details about the publishing business with the details about the inner workings of the store and its many colorful characters.

She did seem testy at times, particularly when describing her reaction to some customers' requests. And I found her denigration of Bill O'Reilly to be unwarranted (what happened to nonjudgment??). And it was interesting that she -- who is so sensitive about her own name being spelled correctly -- misspelled the title of Mitch Albom's "Tuesdays with Morrie."

Those are just minor peeves, though, and overall I give this book a high rating. If you love the written word, you'll love this book .

If you love to spend time browsing around in bookstores and wonder about their inner workings, I suggest you read this. It is written from the unusual perspective of a published author who also works in a bookstore.

The tone of the book is meandering, similar in spirit to the turns taken by the mind of someone browsing around in a bookstore. At times she reminisces about her life, a certain title may send her train of thought on a philosophical tangent, but somehow she ends up weaving her thread back into the complex tapestry of her narrative.

Overall the book is enlightening and deeply humane. It warms the heart of a bibliophile to know that there are many who share one's fascination with books, devoting their energies to writing, publishing, caring for and selling books and also for passing on this enthusiasm to children. However, Shea's tendency to go on and on about the diversity of topics one finds in a bookstore easily becomes tiresome. A small dose of such a listing would have easily conveyed the message.

Suzanne's book captures the essence of life - good and bad times are at the fabric of everyone's life. Learning to work through the bad and capturing the good, found in abundance at Edwards Books. The characters are real and inspiring - reminding all of us that "I can do whatever I want". Read this book for inspiration or motivation or just enjoy meeting Janet, Flora and the other cast of characters found at the local book store.

I was quite excited to find this book, as I have been to the bookstore described, not far from where I live, and because I have also worked in a bookstore and recovered from cancer. I was disappointed to discover that it is really more of a lightweight long article than a book, with lots of lists in lieu of real content and a slightly arch tone that I began to find irritating quickly. I didn't finish it. Borrow it from the library if you are looking for a very quick and mildly entertaining read, and are able to overlook the tone; otherwise don't waste your money.

As a former bookstore employee, current librarian and forever bookaholic, I found so much to relate to in this memoir of a life amongst books. I love the conversational, taken-into-confidence tone. I wish I lived in New England just to be able to visit Edwards books -- I know I'd love it there. If you are a book lover, a haunter of bookstores, and an observer of people, this is a must read! I have picked up a copy of Becoming Finola and look forward to reading the rest of Suzanne's books. She has made a fan for life!

Who here wouldn't want to work around books all day?! As for me, I'm headed to a library, about as close as you can get to a bookstore without opening your purse. Shelf Life is a perfect book for all of us book-crazed people...helping people find books...meeting authors..."hafta" reads for kids in school....Recommended.

I will confess that part of the reason Ms. Shea's writing style bothers me so much is that it reminds me of my own...at least before I get down to the serious business of revising and editing, which she seems to have skipped. Her intelligence and energy do shine through, but she goes off on long, book-reportish tangents about nearly every title she comes across (and she works in a bookstore, remember), without even going into more depth than the back cover blurbs. There is no logical organization or progression of ideas, personalities or events; it's a lot like listening to random breakroom chatter. News flash; it's not so very uncommon for authors to work (or to have worked) in bookstores. This type of environment draws literary types. She acts like she's the sole human being ever to have attempted such a groundbreaking step. Get over yourself.