From the Booker Prize-winning author of 'Offshore', 'The Blue Flower' and 'Innocence' comes this Booker Prize-shortlisted story of books and busybodies in East Anglia.
This, Penelope Fitzgerald's second novel, was her first to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It is set in a small East Anglian coastal town, where Florence Green decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop. 'She had a kind heart, but that is not much use when it comes to the matter of self-preservation.'
Hardborough becomes a battleground, as small towns so easily do. Florence has tried to change the way things have always been done, and as a result, she has to take on not only the people who have made themselves important, but natural and even supernatural forces too. This is a story for anyone who knows that life has treated them with less than justice.
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[In 1959, Florence Green occasionally passed a night when she was not absolutely sure whether she had slept or not]***
(@4thEstateBooks, 7 March 2013, first published 1 October 1978, 163 pages, e-book, # popsugarreadingchallenge 2020, a book that has a book on the cover, bought from @AmazonKindle)
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I've never read the author before but she's been on my TBR list for ages. I've been avoiding the movie version of this on Netflix for ages because I wanted to read the book first. This is well written and entertaining. I loved the concept behind the book, ruffling feathers in a town very much set in its ways. Florence is a great character, her optimism in the face of disapproval in inspirational. Hardborough is a small town and the reaction to Florence's bookshop with people either for or against it is totally believable. Small towns can be like that. The only thing that let this down a little is the lack of books for a book about a bookshop. I wanted more references to the books Florence stocked or some insight into the habits of the villagers who join her lending library.
