I ended the year with a book that I’d bought in Dublin and I kicked off the year with a book that takes place in Dublin. It was by total accident, or maybe subconsciously I knew, but who has time to figure these things out? Onto the book!
The Lost Bookshop is a magical story about three different people: Opaline, Martha, and Henry. The magical part is quite literal so if you’re a bit more skeptical, then maybe this book isn’t for you. I do love a bit of magic every now and then, and thought this book did it very well with just enough of it.
In nineteen-twenty-one, Opaline is being told that she needs to marry. She doesn’t like the idea one bit, and defies her mother and bully of a brother by selling a few rare books from the family library to fund her escape to Paris. She soon realizes she needs a job, and stumbles into one at the Shakespeare and Company bookshop. Here she meets James Joyce, in the process of writing Ulysses, and Ernest Hemmingway, in the process of flirting. She also meets Armand again, a man she’d met on the ferry, who had prevented her suitcase being stolen.
In the now, there’s Martha, escaping an abusive relationship, and the Irish countryside, and starting over in Dublin. She finds a job as a housekeeper for an elderly lady, and the best thing about the job is that it comes with a small basement apartment. On the first morning there, she wakes up to the sound and view of pacing feet in front of her window. When she goes to yell out of the window, she discovers that the feet belong to Henry, an English scholar, looking to find a bookshop at number eleven. Except the only houses there are numbers ten and twelve. Just as the title puts it: the bookshop’s lost.
Martha has the ability to read a person, so she knows Henry is in love with another woman. She also experiences sentences popping up in her head without context, hears sounds in the basement apartment, and discovers tree branches growing into shelves on the wall, complete with books that pop up. She accepts these things as they come along, trusting her instincts and the good vibes of the place.
Henry has the focus on his research shifted when the funding of his project gets cancelled, and he travels home to England to rearrange things. Once there, he finds out that his father has been in rehab, and is really trying his best to stay sober this time. Having had an alcoholic father growing up, has however, left a dent in Henry. He’s not able to trust his father’s recovery, and is used to keeping his guard up.
Even though they don’t seem to have much, if anything, in common, Martha and Henry quickly connect and become friends. They bring out the best in each other, with Henry introducing Martha to learning and reading, and Martha teaching Henry to approach his research and problem solving, from new and different angles.
Slowly but surely, the two of them unravel the story of Opaline, and the different storylines start to come together.
Opaline, Martha, and Henry all experienced trauma and refuse to let it define them: they have painful pasts but know they can only move forward, and do so. They are able to re-open their hearts again, and love, and grow.
Aside from the magic-magic, the story contains plenty of book-magic. The characters appreciate books, and what they can bring a reader. It’s about the hidden stories inside a bookshop, the hunt for rare books, and a missing manuscript.
This book and I were a match made in book heaven, and I enjoyed every page of it.
Coincidence or magical interference? Last week I spotted an article in The Guardian about the Book of Kells and its new experience. Then a few hours after reading that article and texting friends about it, I was on the train, continuing my reading of The Lost Bookshop, and my mouth fell open when a scene happened where Henry takes Martha to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. The way she describes seeing it for the first time, the experience of being in the library’s Long Room, made me smile because I could so relate to that. And I couldn’t believe the happenstance of reading about it, after reading and texting about it earlier in the day. “No way!” was my out-loud reaction to it (startling the woman sitting next to me).
The universe works in mysterious ways I’m not smart enough to understand, but I do believe it is telling me I need to go to Dublin.
Bookworm in the City 