For the love of books and bookstores

 As I list all the things that I want to do as we get back to a more normal life, visiting a bookstore is near the top of my list.  I’ve been to a bookstore once since the pandemic started, and although I was there to make a quick pick-up of Christmas orders, I took a few minutes to look around while the store was quiet.  There is nothing like meandering through the aisles, admiring the shiny new covers, picking up books to rifle through the pages and smell their particular aroma.

The pure enjoyment I find in bookstores came across in two new books that are publishing this spring.  The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin (Harlequin, April 6) and The Bookshop of Second Chances by Jackie Fraser (Random House, May 4) are quite different in many ways, but they share some important characteristics.  

Both novels feature women accidentally employed in local bookstores whose proprietors are somewhat difficult men who are not keen to hire either one of them.  Thanks to women who stand up to them (a mother figure in The Last Bookshop and the protagonist in The Bookshop of Second Chances), both find themselves in jobs that hold no particular interest to them in the beginning but which increasingly take their attention.  These shops both need some tender loving care in terms of arrangement, stock and displays, and both women succeed in those things, while also promoting the shops in specific and successful ways for their time periods.   And finally, and best of all, each vividly portrays the atmosphere within the store and the great joy of reading and connecting with others through books.

In The Last Bookshop in London, young Grace Bennett moves to the city where she rents a room with a childhood friend of her late mother’s.  Grace works in the bookshop nearby with elderly owner Mr. Evans and starts making improvements to the dusty and disorganized interior, partly because her interest in reading is sparked by a handsome young airman whose own extensive reading helps her see books and reading in a new ways and partly by her visits to famous bookshops in London’s Paternoster Row.  Although this work is satisfying, Grace also is inspired to help in the war effort, and she becomes an ARP warden ushering people to safety in air raids.  One night in a dark and damp shelter, she starts reading to the people there, beginning a tradition and creating new relationships with the appreciative listeners.  This novel is in a long line of recent stories about World War II, but it is set apart by its intense descriptions of blackouts and air raids and the lovely descriptions of the enjoyment of reading.

In The Bookshop of Second Chances, forty-something Thea Mottram, devastated by the worst kind of betrayal in her marriage and a redundancy at work, discovers that she has inherited a Scottish "lodge" from her great uncle. Thinking that a change of scene will help her move on with her life, she goes north with a friend to check it out and see what do with the house and the library of rare and valuable books inside.  When friend Xanthe leaves, Thea remains in the village on her own, getting to know her neighbors and starting a job in the second hand bookstore, where owner Edward Maltraver’s prickly nature doesn’t put her off at all but simply amuses her.  She becomes fascinated with this type of business and suggests ways to make it more attractive to visitors and begins to promote it using her Instagram skills.  

This novel might be considered a romance or women's fiction, but its depth of understanding of grief following major life catastrophes and then how well that is portrayed through the first person narration (really, a conversation), kind of defies categorization. It feels so authentic and Thea is such a believable and quirky character that the plot is really compelling.

Both women, through their work in the bookshops and their friendships made through books, find themselves and become confident women after their early hardships.  I enjoyed these books about books and the stories of hope and community from reading, and it was a fun way to immerse myself in the bookshop experience until I can do so again!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for advance copies.

Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin

This thoroughly engaging second novel by author Uzma Jalaluddin channels "You’ve Got Mail" for the story of Hana Khan, a young woman pursuing her career in radio broadcasting while also anonymously producing a popular podcast about her own life as a South Asian Muslim woman called Ana’s Brown Girl Rambles.  As Ana BGR, she has an ongoing and interesting DM conversation with one of her listeners, only known to her as StanleyP.  Like their movie predecessors who hide in anonymity through AOL e-mail, their connection is very strong.  

In the real world of Hana’s Golden Crescent neighborhood in the east end of Toronto, things aren’t so rosy.  Hana’s father is still suffering from the effects of a car accident some years before, and Hana’s mother works long hours at their halal restaurant Three Sisters Biryani Poutine that is is now being threatened by a fancy new eatery being built across the road.  The owners are a wealthy entrepreneur and his handsome but conceited son Aydin, who gets off on the wrong foot with Hana when he compliments her mother’s cooking but criticizes the faded decor of Three Sisters.  Hana is having none of that, and the conflict begins.

In another part of Hana’s life, she is interning at a prominent Toronto radio station and trying to make a name for herself for her future career.  When a radio show about Muslims is proposed by her white supervisor and a station owner, she suggests some changes in the content that wouldn’t promote stereotyping and hate-filled responses.  She finds herself in a major dilemma as she is competing with another intern, dealing with the station managers’ ill-conceived ideas, and offering another path that would shed light on Muslim life in a series of compelling stories about family secrets.  

As Hana tries to wend her way through the various difficulties of her life, she creates some questionable ideas of her own, begins to see some circumstances in new ways, and relies on her online friendship with StanleyP to work a whole lot of her life out.  Through it all—good and bad—Hana Khan carries on!

The cast of characters is loads of fun and include Hana’s sister Fazeela and her husband Fahim and their little “cantaloupe” (Fazeela’s pregnancy), Hana’s irrepressible young cousin Rashid from India, Hana’s childhood friends Lily and Yusuf, Big J from the radio station who mentors her, her loving and supportive father, and her newly discovered and non-conformist aunt from India.

Uzma’s first novel, Ayesha at Last, inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, is one of my favorite adaptations because she captures the essence of the story while creating something completely new.  She has done the same thing here with her second book, and layered over the challenges and misunderstandings is some heartfelt and serious looks at community and neighborhoods, family secrets, Muslim life, and being true to yourself.  

Many thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for an advance copy.