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Nina George

The Little Paris Bookshop: A Novel Paperback – March 22, 2016

by Nina George (Author)

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Monsieur Perdu can prescribe the perfect book for a broken heart. But can he fix his own?

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.

Print length

416 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Ballantine Books
Publication date

March 22, 2016
Dimensions

5.17 x 0.87 x 7.96 inches
ISBN-10

0553418793
ISBN-13

978-0553418798
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Popular Highlights in this book

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“All the love, all the dead, all the people we’ve known. They are the rivers that feed our sea of souls. If we refuse to remember them, that sea will dry up too.”
Highlighted by 2,858 Kindle readers
“To carry them within us—that is our task. We carry them all inside us, all our dead and shattered loves. Only they make us whole. If we begin to forget or cast aside those we’ve lost, then…then we are no longer present either.”
Highlighted by 2,774 Kindle readers
Habit is a vain and treacherous goddess. She lets nothing disrupt her rule. She smothers one desire after another: the desire to travel, the desire for a better job or a new love. She stops us from living as we would like, because habit prevents us from asking ourselves whether we continue to enjoy doing what we do.
Highlighted by 2,753 Kindle readers

Editorial Reviews

Review

New York Times Bestseller
A Barnes and Noble Best of 2015 Selection
A LibraryReads Favorite of the Favorites Selection

"If you're looking to be charmed right out of your own life for a few hours, sit down with this wise and winsome novel...Everything happens just as you want it to... from poignant moments to crystalline insights in exactly the right measure."—Oprah.com

“The settings are ideal for a summer-romance read…Who can resist floating on a barge through France surrounded by books, wine, love, and great conversation?”—Christian Science Monitor

“[A] bona fide international hit.”—New York Times Book Review

"Warmhearted...A charming novel that believes in the healing properties of fiction, romance, and a summer in the south of France."—Kirkus

"Engaging... [George's] sumptuous descriptions of both food and literature will leave readers unsure whether to run to the nearest library or the nearest bistro."—Publishers Weekly

"Uplifting... An international best seller, this one will make you happy."—The Independent

"The Little Paris Bookshop is an enchantment. Set in a floating barge along the Seine, this love letter to books - and to the complicated, sometimes broken people who are healed by them - is the next best thing to booking a trip to France."—Sarah Pekkanen, author of Catching Air

“Simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming, Nina George’s impressionistic prose takes the reader on a journey not just through the glories of France and the wonders of books, but through the encyclopedic panoply of human emotions. The Little Paris Bookshop is a book whose palette, textures, and aromas will draw you in and cradle you in the redemptive power of love.”—Charlie Lovett, author of The Bookman’s Tale

"Nina George tells us clever things about love, about reading that 'puts a bounce in your step,' about tango in Provence, and about truly good food. . . . One of those books that gets you thinking about whom you need to give it to as a gift even while you're still reading it, because it makes you happy and should be part of any well-stocked apothecary." —Hamburger Morgenpost (Germany)

“Enchanting and moving ... Rarely have I read such a beautiful book!”—Tina magazine (Germany)

About the Author

NINA GEORGE works as a journalist, writer, and storytelling teacher. She is the award winning author of 26 books, and also writes feature articles, short stories, and columns. The Little Paris Bookshop spent over a year on bestseller lists in Germany, and was a bestseller in Italy, Poland, and the Netherlands. George is married to the writer Jens J. Kramer and lives in Berlin and in Brittany, France.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1

How on earth could I have let them talk me into it?

The two generals of number 27 Rue Montagnard—Madame Bernard, the owner, and Madame Rosalette, the concierge—had caught Monsieur in a pincer movement between their ground-floor flats.

“That Le P. has treated his wife shamelessly.”

“Scandalously. Like a moth treats a wedding veil.”

“You can hardly blame some people when you look at their wives. Fridges in Chanel. But men? Monsters, all of them.”

“Ladies, I don’t quite know what . . .”

“Not you of course, Monsieur Perdu. You are cashmere compared with the normal yarn from which men are spun.”

“Anyway, we’re getting a new tenant. On the fourth floor. Yours, Monsieur.”

“But Madame has nothing left. Absolutely nothing, only shattered illusions. She needs just about everything.”

“And that’s where you come in, Monsieur. Give whatever you can. All donations welcome.”

“Of course. Maybe a good book . . .”

“Actually, we were thinking of something more practical. A table, perhaps. You know, Madame has—”

“Nothing. I got that.”

The bookseller could not imagine what might be more practical than a book, but he promised to give the new tenant a table. He still had one.

Monsieur Perdu pushed his tie between the top buttons of his white, vigorously ironed shirt and carefully rolled up his sleeves. Inward, one fold at a time, up to the elbow. He stared at the bookcase in the corridor. Behind the shelves lay a room he hadn’t entered for almost twenty-one years.

Twenty-one years and summers and New Year’s mornings.

But in that room was the table.

He exhaled, groped indiscriminately for a book and pulled Orwell’s 1984 out of the bookcase. It didn’t fall apart. Nor did it bite his hand like an affronted cat.

He took out the next novel, then two more. Now he reached into the shelf with both hands, grabbed whole parcels of books out of it and piled them up beside him.

The stacks grew into trees. Towers. Magic mountains. He looked at the last book in his hand. When the Clock Struck Thirteen. A tale of time travel.

If he’d believed in omens, this would have been a sign.

He banged the bottom of the shelves with his fists to loosen them from their fastenings. Then he stepped back.

There. Layer by layer, it appeared. Behind the wall of words. The door to the room where . . .

I could simply buy a table.

Monsieur Perdu ran his hand over his mouth. Yes. Dust down the books, put them away again, forget about the door. Buy a table and carry on as he had for the last two decades. In twenty years’ time he’d be seventy, and from there he’d make it through the rest. Maybe he’d die prematurely.

Coward.

He tightened his trembling fist on the door handle.

Slowly the tall man opened the door. He pushed it softly inward, screwed up his eyes and . . .

Nothing but moonlight and dry air. He breathed it in through his nose, analyzing it, but found nothing.

——’s smell has gone.

Over the course of twenty-one summers, Monsieur Perdu had become as adept at avoiding thinking of —— as he was at stepping around open manholes.

He mainly thought of her as ——. As a pause amid the hum of his thoughts, as a blank in the pictures of the past, as a dark spot amid his feelings. He was capable of conjuring all kinds of gaps.

Monsieur Perdu looked around. How quiet the room seemed. And pale despite the lavender-blue wallpaper. The passing of the years behind the closed door had squeezed the color from the walls.

The light from the corridor met little that could cast a shadow. A bistro chair. The kitchen table. A vase with the lavender stolen two decades earlier from the Valensole plateau. And a fifty-year-old man who now sat down on the chair and wrapped his arms around himself.

There had once been curtains, and over there, pictures, flowers and books, a cat called Castor that slept on the sofa. There were candlesticks and whispering, full wineglasses and music. Dancing shadows on the wall, one of them tall, the other strikingly beautiful. There had been love in this room.

Now there’s only me.

He clenched his fists and pressed them against his burning eyes.

Monsieur Perdu swallowed and swallowed again to fight back the tears. His throat was too tight to breathe and his back seemed to glow with heat and pain.

When he could once more swallow without it hurting, Monsieur Perdu stood up and opened the casement window. Aromas came swirling in from the back courtyard.

The herbs from the Goldenbergs’ little garden. Rosemary and thyme mixed with the massage oils used by Che, the blind chiropodist and “foot whisperer.” Added to that, the smell of pancakes intermingled with Kofi’s spicy and meaty African barbecued dishes. Over it all drifted the perfume of Paris in June, the fragrance of lime blossom and expectation.

But Monsieur Perdu wouldn’t let these scents affect him. He resisted their charms. He’d become extremely good at ignoring anything that might in any way arouse feelings of yearning. Aromas. Melodies. The beauty of things.

He fetched soap and water from the storeroom next to the bare kitchen and began to clean the wooden table.

He fought off the blurry picture of himself sitting at this table, not alone but with ——.

He washed and scrubbed and ignored the piercing question of what he was meant to do now that he had opened the door to the room in which all his love, his dreams and his past had been buried.

Memories are like wolves. You can’t lock them away and hope they leave you alone.

Monsieur Perdu carried the narrow table to the door and heaved it through the bookcase, past the magic mountains of paper onto the landing and over to the apartment across the hall.

As he was about to knock, a sad sound reached his ears.

Stifled sobbing, as if through a cushion.

Someone was crying behind the green door.

A woman. And she was crying as though she wanted nobody, absolutely nobody, to hear.

2

“She was married to You-Know-Who, Monsieur Le P.”

He didn’t know. Perdu didn’t read the Paris gossip pages.

Madame Catherine Le P.-You-Know-Who had come home late one Thursday evening from her husband’s art agency, where she took care of his PR. Her key no longer fit into the lock, and there was a suitcase on the stairs with divorce papers on top of it. Her husband had moved to an unknown address and taken the old furniture and a new woman with him.

Catherine, soon-to-be-ex-wife-of-Le-Dirty-Swine, possessed nothing but the clothes she had brought into their marriage—and the realization that it had been naïve of her to think that their erstwhile love would guarantee decent treatment after their separation, and to assume that she knew her husband so well that he could no longer surprise her.

“A common mistake,” Madame Bernard, the lady of the house, had pontificated in between puffing out smoke signals from her pipe. “You only really get to know your husband when he walks out on you.”

Monsieur Perdu had not yet seen the woman who’d been so coldheartedly ejected from her own life.

Now he listened to the lonely sobs she was desperately trying to muffle, perhaps with her hands or a tea towel. Should he announce his presence and embarrass her? He decided to fetch the vase and the chair first.

He tiptoed back and forth between his flat and hers. He knew how treacherous this proud old house could be, which floorboards squeaked, which walls were more recent and thinner additions and which concealed ducts that acted like megaphones.

When he pored over his eighteen-thousand-piece map of the world jigsaw in the otherwise empty living room, the sounds of the other residents’ lives were transmitted to him through the fabric of the house.

The Goldenbergs’ arguments (Him: “Can’t you just for once . . . ? Why are you . . . ? Haven’t I . . . ?” Her: “You always have to . . . You never do . . . I want you to . . .”) He’d known the two of them as newlyweds. They’d laughed together a lot back then. Then came the children, and the parents drifted apart like continents.

He heard Clara Violette’s electric wheelchair rolling over carpet edges, wooden floors and doorsills. He remembered the young pianist back when she was able to dance.

He heard Che and young Kofi cooking. Che was stirring the pots. The man had been blind since birth, but he said that he could see the world through the fragrant trails and traces that people’s feelings and thoughts had left behind. Che could sense whether a room had been loved or lived or argued in.

Perdu also listened every Sunday to how Madame Bomme and the widows’ club giggled like girls at the dirty books he slipped them behind their stuffy relatives’ backs.

The snatches of life that could be overheard in the house at number 27 Rue Montagnard were like a sea lapping the shores of Perdu’s silent isle.

He had been listening for more than twenty years. He knew his neighbors so well that he was sometimes amazed by how little they knew about him (not that he minded). They had no idea that he owned next to no furniture apart from a bed, a chair and a clothes rail—no knickknacks, no music, no pictures or photo albums or three-piece suite or crockery (other than for himself)—or that he had chosen such simplicity of his own free will. The two rooms he still occupied were so empty that they echoed when he coughed. The only thing in the living room was the giant jigsaw puzzle on the floor. His bedroom was furnished with a bed, the ironing board, a reading light and a garment rail on wheels containing three identical sets of clothing: gray trousers, white shirt, brown V-neck sweater. In the kitchen were a stove-top coffee pot, a tin of coffee and a shelf stacked with food. Arranged in alphabetical order. Maybe it was just as well that no one saw this.

And yet he harbored a strange affection for 27 Rue Montagnard’s residents. He felt inexplicably better when he knew that they were well—and in his unassuming way he tried to make a contribution. Books were a means of helping. Otherwise he stayed in the background, a small figure in a painting, while life was played out in the foreground.

However, the new tenant on the third floor, Maximilian Jordan, wouldn’t leave Monsieur Perdu in peace. Jordan wore specially made earplugs with earmuffs over them, plus a woolly hat on cold days. Ever since the young author’s debut novel had made him famous amid great fanfare, he’d been on the run from fans who would have given their right arms to move in with him. Meanwhile, Jordan had developed a peculiar interest in Monsieur Perdu.

While Perdu was on the landing arranging the chair beside the kitchen table, and the vase on top, the crying stopped.

In its place he heard the squeak of a floorboard that someone was trying to walk across without making it creak.

He peered through the pane of frosted glass in the green door. Then he knocked twice, very gently.

A face moved closer. A blurred, bright oval.

“Yes?” the oval whispered.

“I’ve got a chair and a table for you.”

The oval said nothing.

I have to speak softly to her. She’s cried so much she’s probably all dried out and she’ll crumble if I’m too loud.

“And a vase. For flowers. Red flowers, for instance. They’d look really pretty on the white table.”

He had his cheek almost pressed up against the glass.

He whispered, “But I can give you a book as well.”

The light in the staircase went out.

“What kind of book?” the oval whispered.

“The consoling kind.”

“I need to cry some more. I’ll drown if I don’t. Can you understand that?”

“Of course. Sometimes you’re swimming in unwept tears and you’ll go under if you store them up inside.” And I’m at the bottom of a sea of tears. “I’ll bring you a book for crying then.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow. Promise me you’ll have something to eat and drink before you carry on crying.”

He didn’t know why he was taking such liberties. It must be something to do with the door between them.

The glass misted up with her breath.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

When the hall light flared on again, the oval shrank back.

Monsieur Perdu laid his hand briefly on the glass where her face had been a second before.

And if she needs anything else, a chest of drawers or a potato peeler, I’ll buy it and claim I had it already.

He went into his empty flat and pushed the bolt across. The door leading into the room behind the bookcase was still open. The longer Monsieur Perdu looked in there, the more it seemed as though the summer of 1992 were rising up out of the floor. The cat jumped down from the sofa on soft, velvet paws and stretched. The sunlight caressed a bare back, the back turned and became ——. She smiled at Monsieur Perdu, rose from her reading position and walked toward him naked, with a book in her hand.

“Are you finally ready? asked ——.

Monsieur Perdu slammed the door.

No.

3

“No,” Monsieur Perdu said again the following morning. “I’d rather not sell you this book.”

Gently he pried Night from the lady’s hand. Of the many novels on his book barge—the vessel moored on the Seine that he had named Literary Apothecary—she had inexplicably chosen the notorious bestseller by Maximilian “Max” Jordan, the earmuff wearer from the third floor in Rue Montagnard.

The customer looked at the bookseller, taken aback.

“Why not?”

“Max Jordan doesn’t suit you.”

“Max Jordan doesn’t suit me?”

“That’s right. He’s not your type.”

“My type. Okay. Excuse me, but maybe I should point out to you that I’ve come to your book barge for a book. Not a husband, mon cher Monsieur.”

“With all due respect, what you read is more important in the long term than the man you marry, ma chère Madame.”

She looked at him through eyes like slits.

“Give me the book, take my money, and we can both pretend it’s a nice day.”

“It is a nice day, and tomorrow is the start of summer, but you’re not going to get this book. Not from me. May I suggest a few others?”

“Right, and flog me some old classic you’re too lazy to throw overboard where it can poison the fish?” She spoke softly to begin with, but her volume kept increasing.

“Books aren’t eggs, you know. Simply because a book has aged a bit doesn’t mean it’s gone bad.” There was now an edge to Monsieur Perdu’s voice too. “What is wrong with old? Age isn’t a disease. We all grow old, even books. But are you, is anyone, worth less, or less important, because they’ve been around for longer?”

“It’s absurd how you’re twisting everything, all because you don’t want me to have that stupid Night book.”

The customer—or rather noncustomer—tossed her purse into her luxury shoulder bag and tugged at the zip, which got stuck.

Perdu felt something welling up inside him, a wild feeling, anger, tension—only it had nothing to do with this woman. He couldn’t hold his tongue, though. He hurried after her as she strode angrily through the belly of the book barge and called out to her in the half-light between the long bookshelves: “It’s your choice, Madame! You can leave and spit on me. Or you can spare yourself thousands of hours of torture starting right now.”

“Thanks, that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“Surrender to the treasures of books instead of entering into pointless relationships with men, who neglect you anyway, or going on crazy diets because you’re not thin enough for one man and not stupid enough for the next.”

“It’s absurd how you’re twisting everything, all because you don’t want me to have that stupid Night book.”

The customer—or rather noncustomer—tossed her purse into her luxury shoulder bag and tugged at the zip, which got stuck.

Perdu felt something welling up inside him, a wild feeling, anger, tension—only it had nothing to do with this woman. He couldn’t hold his tongue, though. He hurried after her as she strode angrily through the belly of the book barge and called out to her in the half-light between the long bookshelves: “It’s your choice, Madame! You can leave and spit on me. Or you can spare yourself thousands of hours of torture starting right now.”

“Thanks, that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“Surrender to the treasures of books instead of entering into pointless relationships with men, who neglect you anyway, or going on crazy diets because you’re not thin enough for one man and not stupid enough for the next.”

She stood stock-still by the large bay window that looked out over the Seine, and glared at Perdu. “How dare you!”

“Books keep stupidity at bay. And vain hopes. And vain men. They undress you with love, strength and knowledge. It’s love from within. Make your choice: book or . . .”

Before he could finish his sentence, a Parisian pleasure boat plowed past with a group of Chinese women standing by the railing under umbrellas. They began clicking away with their cameras when they caught sight of Paris’s famous floating Literary Apothecary. The pleasure boat drove brown-green dunes of water against the bank, and the book barge reeled.

The customer teetered on her smart high heels, but instead of offering her his hand, Perdu handed her The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

She made an instinctive grab for the novel and clung to it.

Perdu held on to the book as he spoke to the stranger in a soothing, tender and calm voice.

“You need your own room. Not too bright, with a kitten to keep you company. And this book, which you will please read slowly, so you can take the occasional break. You’ll do a lot of thinking and probably a bit of crying. For yourself. For the years. But you’ll feel better afterward. You’ll know that now you don’t have to die, even if that’s how it feels because the guy didn’t treat you well. And you will like yourself again and won’t find yourself ugly or naïve.”

Only after delivering these instructions did he let go.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ballantine Books; Reprint edition (March 22, 2016)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0553418793
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0553418798
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.17 x 0.87 x 7.96 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #16,552 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #493 in Psychological Fiction (Books)
- #1,442 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- #5,336 in Contemporary Romance (Books)

Customer Reviews:
5,575 ratings

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Nina George

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Born 1973 in Bielefeld, Germany, Nina George is a prize-winning and bestselling author (“Das Lavendelzimmer” – “The Little Paris Bookshop”) and freelance journalist since 1992, who has published 26 books (novels, mysteries and non-fiction) as well as over hundred short stories and more than 600 columns. George has worked as a cop reporter, columnist and managing editor for a wide range of publications, including Hamburger Abendblatt, Die Welt, Der Hamburger, “politik und kultur” as well as TV Movie and Federwelt. Georges writes also under three pen-names, for ex “Jean Bagnol”, a double-andronym for provence-based mystery novels.

In 2012 and 2013 she won the DeLiA and the Glauser-Prize. In 2013 she had her first bestselling book “Das Lavendelzimmer”, translated in 27 langues and sold more than 500.000 copies.

In November 2011, Nina George established the “JA zum Urheberrecht” (YES on Author’s Rights) initiative, which supports the rights of authors, artists and entertainers and is dedicated to resolving issues within the literary community as well as establishing fair and practical rights-license models for the web-distribution. 14 writers’ associations and 27 publishing partners have since joined the JA…-Initiative. George supports the “Initiative Urheberrecht” (Author’s Rights Initiative—www.urheber.info) as well as the “gib 8 aufs Wort”-campaign of the VG Wort.

In August 2014 George initiated the Amazon-protest in Germany www.fairer-buchmarkt.de, where overs 2000 germanspeaking authors – Nobelprizewinnig Elfriede Jelinek or Bestsellingauthor Nele Neuhaus – sign an open letter to Jeff Bezos and Amazon, protesting against the banned-book-methods of the giant retailer in the Hachette/Bonnier-dispute.

In 2015 George is the founder of the Initiative Fairer Buchmarkt e.V., which supports questions of law in daily business of authors – for ex in contracts, fees or author’s rights and e-Business.

George is Member to PEN, Das Syndikat (association of German-language crime writers), the Association of German Authors (VS), the Hamburg Authors’ Association (HAV), BücherFrauen (Women in Publishing), the IACW/AIEP (International Association of Crime Writers), the GEDOK (Association of female artists in Germany), PRO QUOTE and Lean In. Nina George sits on the board of the Three Seas Writers’ and Translaters’ Council (TSWTC), whose members come from 16 different countries.

Nina George teaches writing at Literaturbüro Unna, Alsterdamm Kunstschule, Wilhelmsburger Honigfabrik, where she coaches young people, adults and professional authors.

George also moderates (bilingual) readings and works as a speaker.

www.nina-george.com

find me also on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/NinaGeorge.S...

www.ninageorge.de

DE

Die mehrfach ausgezeichnete Publizistin Nina George, geboren 1973, veröffentlichte bisher 23 Romane, Krimis, Science-Thriller sowie ca. 88 Kurzgeschichten und über 500 Kolumnen.

Ihr Pseudonym Anne West gehört zu den erfolgreichsten deutschsprachigen Erotika-Autorinnen.

Für ihren Roman Die Mondspielerin wurde George mit der DeLiA 2011, dem Literaturpreis für den besten Liebesroman des Jahres, ausgezeichnet. Mit dem Wendekrimi Das Licht von Dahme war George 2010 für den Friedrich-Glauser-Preis nominiert. Sie gewann ihn 2012 mit dem in Nigeria angesiedeltem Fußballkrimi „Das Spiel ihres Lebens“.

George gründete 2011 die Initiative „JA zum Urheberrecht“, mit der sie sich aktiv für die Rechte aller Kreativarbeiter und Kulturschaffenden gegen die Mentalität der Gratiskultur im Internet einsetzt.

Sie ist Mitglied im Syndikat, den Mörderischen Schwestern sowie des Verbands deutscher Schriftsteller.

Nina George lebt im Hamburger Grindelviertel.

Bio and photo from Goodreads.

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5,575 global ratings

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M Denise Costello

I love to read any book written about or set in ...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 9, 2015

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The Little Paris Bookshop is a gem of a story written by Nina George. My book club chose this 2015 novel and the title drew me in immediately. I love to read any book written about or set in the City of Light. The bookshop referred in the title was a very unique bookshop—it was a barge moored on the Seine, filled with all sorts of books, as well as its proprietor, Jean Perdu, and two cats. Jean Perdu (Lost John) is a 50-something man who prescribes books to people to cure what ails them. Be it relationships, loves, family issues, politics, or work, Perdu knew the exact book to aid his customers in their quest for something they needed to heal or advance their lives.

Quote describing Perdu's gift:
Perdu used his ears, his eyes and his instincts. from a single conversation, he was able to discern what each soul lacked. to a certain degree, he could read from a body’s posture, its movements and its gestures, what was burdening or oppressing it. and finally, he had what his father had called transperception. “You can see and hear through most people’s camouflage. and behind it you see all the things they worry and dream about, and the things they lacked.”

So the next time I travel to Paris, I will be looking out for this sweet boat waiting for me on the Seine. Oh, how I wish!

Perdu is a wonderful helper to his customers, but his own life seemed very lonely and depressing. He lives in a building and interacts with some of his neighbors and concierge, but had suffered a tragic romance 20 years earlier and really had little social interaction or love life since then. Throughout the novel, George lets us know the circumstances of this great romance via Perdu’s recollections and a diary left by his lost love, Manon. One of the couples that live in his building are getting a divorce, and Perdu decides to bring the woman some books to help her heal and move on. As they talk and get to know each other, a bond forms and Perdu once again starts to feel his emotions and seems to want to love someone again.

One of the other neighbors in Perdu’s building is popular author, Max, whom Perdu really did not know well or hold in high esteem. He had sold many books recently and was always recognized in public, but Perdu paid little attention to him. This author was younger than Perdu and seemed to look up to him regardless of Perdu’s treatment of him. After meeting with the soon to be divorcée, Perdu’s emotions were running high when he decided on the spur of the moment to unmoor the Literary Apothecary, and travel the canals south and find out what really happened to his lost love. Max happened to be nearby and jumps aboard. An extraordinary adventure begins!

I don’t want to give any little thing away so I will stop where the real escapade commences. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book from beginning to end. Not only were there magnificent quotes on love and reading and books all throughout, but Ms. George is obviously a Hemingway fan. She mentions the writer at least four times (more than the one or two times for most), and I think she even got the idea for part of her story from Hemingway’s life. Let me just say that at one point in his life, Hemingway was in love with two women at the same time.

Following are a few of the quotes I bookmarked as I read:

We cannot decide to love. We cannot compel anyone to love us. There’s no secret recipe, only love itself. And we are at its mercy–there’s nothing we can do.

Reading–an endless journey; a long, indeed never-ending journey that made one more temperate as well as more loving and kind.

Whenever Monsieur Perdu looked at a book, he did not see it purely in terms of a story, minimum retail price and an essential balm for the soul; he saw freedom on wings of paper.

“Saudade”: a yearning for one’s childhood, when the days would merge into one another and the passing of time was of no consequence. It is the sense of being loved in a way that will never come again. It is a unique experience of abandon. It is everything that words cannot capture.

All the love, all the dead, all the people we’ve known. they are the rivers that feed our sea of souls. If we refuse to remember them, that sea will dry up too.

The trouble is that so many people, most of them women, think they have to have a perfect body to be loved. But all it has to do is be capable of loving–and being loved . . .

2 people found this helpful

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Anne Bonnette

Tragically beautiful

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 9, 2022

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I found this book hard to get invested in at first. There were many characters and I couldn't form a bond with any of them right off the bat. But I kept reading, and my gosh, it was like a road map to many people's lives. The writer has such a great nuanced way of delivering the hurt, suffering, and self imposed loneliness that many subject themselves to when they lose that one great love. And the acceptance, healing and vulnerability that must be accomplished to open themselves again to a second love, to happiness, to believing and knowing they deserve that happiness. At least that is what I took away from this novel. It may very well have different undertones but I feel if you read this book you will leave getting exactly what you needed from it just as you would if you visited Mr. Perdu in his bookstore. Excellent.

One person found this helpful

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Becky Wilson

My Favorite one to date!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 23, 2016

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Bonjour Mesdames et messieurs! What? You knew this was coming, right? A writer who loves Paris finds an actual book written as a love letter to people who enjoy reading. It's heartbreaking, tender and hysterically funny. One could even compare it to a modern day Wizard of OZ.

Monsieur Perdu is 50 years old and stuck in life. His paralysis comes from a broken heart. He once passionately loved a woman, though she was married (she and her husband had an agreement). But out of the blue she abandons Perdu leaving a sole letter in his apartment. A letter he would not open for 21 years while his life becomes brittle and empty. He can't even mention her by name, he loved her so completely, she is simple a breath (Ahh) if you listen to the audio version.

("——’ s smell has gone.")

So, Perdu tends to his loyal customers who've named him a literary apothecary from his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine. He has a gift for seeing, reading and hearing peoples' souls and can tell what each person needs to read at their precise moment in life. Each book is a prescription for them to move forward.

("Books are like people, and people are like books. I’ll tell you how I go about it. I ask myself: Is he or she the main character in his or her life? What is her motive? Or is she a secondary character in her own tale? Is she in the process of editing herself out of her story, because her husband, her career, her children or her job are consuming her entire text?”)

OR

(“Books are more than doctors, of course. Some novels are loving, lifelong companions; some give you a clip around the ear; others are friends who wrap you in warm towels when you’ve got those autumn blues. And some… well, some are pink candy floss that tingles in your brain for three seconds and leaves a blissful void. Like a short, torrid love affair.”)

A new occupant comes to the building, Catherine, who was ruthlessly thrown out by her husband with only the clothes on her back. When she arrives at 27 Rue Montagnard, Perdu looks after her cautiously as he feels himself drawn to her. But when they are finally eating dinner one night, it happens. Catherine not only stirs his heart, but she demands he read the 21 year old letter "——’ left for him.

Another dagger strikes him when he reads it, learning his one true love left him because she was dying and she didn't want to burden him. She had hoped that he'd travel to see her because she couldn't travel anymore. Imagine how you would feel: is it too late?

Hitting rock bottom, Perdu starts the floating bookstore's engine and begins his journey south to make peace. A cast of neurotic characters join him as he slowly begins to feel alive again.

(Is there really no book that could teach me to play the song of life?)

The whole novel is a metaphor for living. There are so many wonderful quotes, you may find yourself in tears. And no, don't roll your eyes at me men! This is a book especially for men.

Let me share with everyone a passage that hit me like a brick. One that caused a deep stir within my own soul:

"I read books— twenty at a time. Everywhere: on the toilet, in the kitchen, in cafés, on the metro. I do jigsaw puzzles that take up the whole floor, destroy them when I’ve finished and then start all over again. I feed stray cats. I arrange my groceries in alphabetical order. I sometimes take sleeping tablets. I take a dose of Rilke to wake up. I don’t read any books in which women like —— crop up. I gradually turn to stone. I carry on. The same every day. That’s the only way I can survive. But other than that, no, I do nothing."

This was me. I've been reading non-stop for the past few months, avoiding life like Monsieur Perdu. And it took a book to make me realize this fact. Books can change your life. I highly recommend this soulful novel.

4 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

K

Started well but overall didn't enjoy

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 15, 2016

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I loved the initial chapters before they set sail - an original idea, intriguing plot and really enjoyed the characters painted. After that I found the story irritating and just wanted to finish. For me, such a shame it didn't carry on as it has started.

18 people found this helpful

S.M. Johnson

Enchanting

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 12, 2020

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The Little Paris Bookshop - what a lovely name for a novel. But it isn't. It has been and we are told the history of Jean Perdu's time running this bookshop in Paris. But the bookshop is on a barge on the Seine and as we join the story the barge leaves it moorings and sets off down the Seine. So we are told stories of things that happen on board and also things that happen at the places they tie up along the way and the people they meet. Oh yes, and there is also a very old love story woven in..... it is an enchanting book - the descriptions are very vivid and there is a wonderfully romantic feeling of France throughout. Unusual, individual and enchanting.

4 people found this helpful

GreenInk

An incongruous title for such a wonderful book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 30, 2021

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It may seem slightly odd to take issue with the title of a book, but I do so only in case anyone may be put off by what appears to be a rather twee subject matter. Yes there is a small Paris Bookshop in the book, but it provides only a backdrop to a far more substantial story. The main characters set off for differing reasons on a journey by narrow boat (the eponymous Bookshop) along the rivers and canals of France and the reader is invited to travel with them. There is a searching of a past and a searching for a future and the present intrudes too. I really enjoyed this book of love and friendship which is beautifully and thoughtfully written.

One person found this helpful

English Voodoo

Quaint Parisian Adventure

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 9, 2015

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Not my normal kind of book, but one I was drawn to in a shop and inspired to treat myself to a copy.
Something about the literary apothecary idea and treating peoples maladies with books certainly seemed like a lovely idea.

There is a lot more to the story than that though, as the tale follows the life of Mr Perdu as he slowly comes back to life after a 20 year pause that has seen a self imposed wallowing stop him from moving on from the mysterious ending of a love affair.

As the tale weaves itself, we find out all about his lost love and how he came to be how he is.
We also find out how to restart a life and heal old wounds with adventure and friendship, as a band of unlikely friends join Mr Perdu on his boat and slowly find themselves dealing with what has held them all back.

This is a lovely little story with plenty of humour and intelligent ideas that is perfect for someone who likes something a little different.
Well written and aimed at a book reading audience, this is a little escape to the French waterways that is a joy to join.

20 people found this helpful

VampireGirl74

lovely book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 9, 2022

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A wonderfully written story. You think you are getting one thing and end up with something completely different. Fantastic characters & the descriptions of the scenery makes you feel like you can almost touch it. Well worth checking out.

2 people found this helpful

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Buy new:

$9.84

FREE delivery: Monday, Feb 6 on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon.

Ships from: Amazon.com

Sold by: Amazon.com

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$7.18