Tag Archives: bookshops and libraries

A Right to Read: Segregation and Civil Rights

Posted on March 25, 2024 by smellincoffee

Alabama public libraries were early stages for Civil Rights projects, given their high public profile and higher deals: libraries were created for the common good, for the benefit of society, meant to serve everyone. How could they bar someone from … Continue reading →

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The Littlest Library

Posted on February 21, 2024 by smellincoffee

Such is my mood for cozy village novels featuring libraries and bookstores that I read this even knowing it was a romance. And I liked it. Granted, it’s set in a cozy rural village in Devon and features a librarian, … Continue reading →

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The Lonely Hearts Book Club

Posted on February 14, 2024 by smellincoffee

Sloane is a librarian in her late twenties, idly drifting into a contented if wholly nondescript and unsatisfying life. One of the few things she genuinely looks forward to are visits by an old crank, Arthur, a verbose curmudgeon whose erudite insults … Continue reading →

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From London with Love

Posted on February 5, 2024 by smellincoffee

Valentina was just a girl entering her teens when her mother disappeared — to London, her dad said. The years passed and nothing was heard from her. Now, as Val reels from the death of her marriage, she receives word of … Continue reading →

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Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

Posted on January 31, 2024 by smellincoffee

This book is exactly what it says on the tin: a collection of odd remarks overheard in bookstores, numbering a little over a hundred pages. If you are familiar with the Overheard in New York / Overheard in the Office / etc … Continue reading →

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The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Posted on January 20, 2024 by smellincoffee

A.J. Fikry is a widower with a bookstore and an increasingly serious drinking problem. (He’s not an alcoholic, he says, he just drinks to the point of passing out at least once a week.) The one bright spot: he has Tamerlane, … Continue reading →

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The Door to Door Bookstore

Posted on January 19, 2024 by smellincoffee

In the city of Munster, after the bookshop closes for the night, an aging fellow named Carl begins his rounds. Walking the city’s cobblestone paths, he visits a village within the metropolis that only he is aware of: a little community … Continue reading →

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Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

Posted on January 15, 2024 by smellincoffee

Takako’s boyfriend has just unceremoniously dumped her after announcing he’s engaged to his other girlfriend, the real one — the one she’d never heard about, but one whose existence now seems obvious in retrospect. Why was it they never had … Continue reading →

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The Bodies in the Library

Posted on February 22, 2020 by smellincoffee

The Bodies in the Library © 2019 Marty Wingate 336 pages Hayley has a secret: she doesn’t know a blessed thing about Agatha Christie’s fiction. Or Dorothy Sayer’s.   Her literary expertise is all things Austen, but thanks to a friend … Continue reading →

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