Book Review by Pat Allchorne: Found in a Bookshop by Stephanie Butland

“To a book lover, a bookshop is not a place in the world, but a world in itself.”

I returned three books to the library, not intending to borrow anything else yet, but then this title caught my eye. Anything with the words “book” or “bookshop” always attracts me, and so I came home with this volume. The above quote from the start of Chapter One resonated with me.

I am so glad I borrowed this book; it is a recent publication, written not long after the pandemic, and soon I found myself caring about the characters (and the bookshop!), which is always a good sign. Loveday Carew inherits the bookshop where she works from the previous owner, and has always prided herself on being able to recommend books to people who don’t really know what they want.

When the pandemic closes the shop, she is happy to deliver any books on her bike to anyone who does know what they want but, the footfall being non-existent, the possibility of the shop having to close altogether looms frighteningly nearer.

With her is her assistant, Kelly, afraid that she will lose the job she loves, and the two of them come up with a scheme to keep things going, prompted by a letter from Rosemary, together with £100 and a request to “Please send us books that we might think are wonderful”.  Kelly is IT literate and suggests a website advertising a Book Pharmacy, where people can ask for books to suit their requirements. After advertising in the local newspaper, requests begin to come in.

People often give their backstory, maybe in the hope that it will help Loveday and Kelly choose the right books for them – and it does, in many cases. They always recommend several, intending them as a choice, but more often than not the person requesting them buys them all.

The people emailing for advice are very varied; we have Rosemary and George, in their seventies, and George with terminal cancer. There is Jenny, safe in a women’s hostel with her little boy Milo, after escaping from an abusive marriage. Hozan Azad is a professor living with an extended family, and Trixie who is cut off from her girlfriend in Wales because of the pandemic. Casey is an overworked nurse who starts an email to the shop several times and gives up through sheer exhaustion, Adjoa is a mixed-race woman who has been the butt of racism both veiled and obvious, and so it goes on. 

The one that gets to Loveday the most is the email from Zoe, whose husband is a paramedic and has moved out of the family home in order to protect his wife, four-year-old son and three-week-old daughter. When Loveday reads in the local paper that the husband, Will, has died, her heart goes out to the mother she delivered books to, some of which were to keep her son happy at bedtime while his father was away.

Joining Loveday and Kelly at the shop, apart from Loveday’s boyfriend Nathan who is working on a reading refuge at the rear, is fifteen-year-old Madison, sulky and taciturn, who works on Saturdays. Very gradually she begins to fall under the spell of books and is expert at finding the requests and packaging them up.

There is a backstory to the people working in the shop, not just to those requesting books. Kelly’s boyfriend Craig moves in with her, prior to the pandemic Loveday’s mum Sarah-Jane worked at the hostel where Jenny now is, Madison had an ulterior motive in initially approaching the shop. Slowly the stories unravel and surprise us.

The bonus point for me is that books are mentioned that I haven’t come across before, and I now have a list of books to order from the library! The short chapters in between the main story which philosophise on life in general are so meaningful; one thought that I loved is that although editions of books are intrinsically the same, “It’s the state of mind and heart of the person reading (a book) that will make the book grow into something greater than the words printed in it”. The chapter which muses on how we all read a book differently, me picturing a character differently from how you would perceive that same character concludes with the words: “Books are the magical every day that is all your own”.

One very short chapter states that a question no one should ever ask is: “What is your favourite book?” I have been asked this on numerous occasions, and I can never give one answer. It then goes on to suggest much more suitable questions, such as what would be your favourite to read when you are sad? Or what to read when you want comfort? You can see what the rest are for yourself when you read this wonderful book.

I leave you with one more quote from the book:

“Reading should be a pleasure and a joy, an education and a promise, a release and an escape.” What more could we want?

ABOUT THE BOOK

Dear Lost for Words,

We are trying to stay at home . . . I am enclosing a cheque and I hope that you will use it to send us some books. Please choose books that we might think are wonderful.

Rosemary

Loveday Cardew's beloved Lost for Words bookshop, along with the rest of York, has fallen quiet. At the very time when people most need books to widen their horizons, or escape from their fears, or enhance their lives, the doors are closed. Then the first letter comes.

Rosemary and George have been married for fifty years. Now their time is running out. They have decided to set out on their last journey together, without ever leaving the bench at the bottom of their garden in Whitby. All they need is someone who shares their love of books.

Suddenly it's clear to Loveday that she and her team can do something useful in a crisis. They can recommend books to help with the situations their customers find themselves in: fear, boredom, loneliness, the desire for laughter and escape.

And so it begins.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephanie Butland is a writer, who is thriving after breast cancer. (She used to say she was a survivor, but that was a bit lacking in joie de vivre.)

Although she’d never have chosen it, her dance with cancer has changed her life in many positive ways. Now she is happier, healthier, and more careful with her precious life and the precious people and things in it.

Her writing career began with her dance with cancer, and now she is  a novelist.

Aside from writing, she works as a speaker and trainer, and she works with charities to help raise awareness and money in the hope that cancer will soon be about as scary as a wart.

She lives in Northumberland.

FOLLOW US ON GOODREADS