Words leave imprints in your mind like footprints in the sand...
2000s: This is a book trail and a trail through books! Each chapter starts with a quote from one of the bookshop owner’s favourite books. Heartwarming and uplifting – set in a bookshop, about books and the story of a bookseller and book rep. Just lovely.
A.J. Fikry is the owner of Island Books. The sign above the door says: “No man is an island: every book is a world.”
A J Fikry owns a failing bookshop. At the same time he struggles with the loss of his wife and so starts to shut himself off from the outside world. One day a visitor to the bookshop leaves behind something he doesn’t quite know what to do with – something that will change him for ever.
A novel about books and the passion many people have for reading and the power that it can hold.
A.J. Fikry gives his daughter advice in the terms of books. At the start of every chapter, there is a book title with a short paragraph of how AJ has used it to give advice to his daughter growing up. A kind of literary guide to life. A thrilling and lovely apt idea. For example the first chapter where he meets and reacts rather badly to a travelling sales rep by the story Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl and the arrival of an unexpected delivery to the shop by the tale of The Luck of Roaring Camp where a mining camp adopts a baby they call Luck. And AJ Fikry’s delivery is something that certainly acts as a good luck charm to him and all he knows.
This is a novel set in an island bookshop, on an island cut off from the mainland. A bookshop at the heart of a community.
Talking about the necessity of encountering stories sat precisely the right time in our lives he tells us –
The things we respond to at twenty are not necessarily the the same things we will respond to at forty and vice versa. This is true in books and also in life.
AJ Fikry is quite the character – he owns a book shop but reels of a long list of books and book genres he doesn’t like as soon as the sales rep from a Knightly Press walks through the door to try and sell him some of their winter list. A funny moment and an insight into the life of a bookseller and a travelling book sales rep.
He rants that he doesn’t like certain genres, that he is repulsed by others – Literary should be literary and genre should be genre and crossbreeding rarely results in anything satisfying.
It is a book for readers about readers and booksellers. The bookshop here is the central character and its magic weaves through each and every page. You immediately want to go there and buy as many books as you can in order to save the store from closure.
Why we read
Why we love
Why sometimes we need a second chance
How reading and books change a person for the better
“People tell boring lies about politics, God and love. You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question; What is your favourite book?”
Susan: @thebooktrailer
To say anything more would spoil enjoyment of the novel. Of particular enjoyment however is the relationship between Fikry and the visiting book representative who tries to sell books to the bookshop with very humourous results. Police Chief Lambiese is another character I immediately warmed to as he is a great addition with a story and voice of his own.
Suffice to say I have been dreaming of sitting in Island Books and getting a job there and never leaving. The book and story has never left me since I read it.
Author/Guide: Gabrielle Zevin Destination: Martha’s Vineyard Departure Time: 2000s
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