Rating: 
Summary: A Sad Vignette
Review: "The Book Shop" is not really a novel, but a tiny microcosm of a time and place long gone and yet still unfortunately true--a small English coastal town in the late 50s, where the efforts of one spunky widow to open up the village's only book shop are menaced by one nasty bully in the form of the town's most influential woman.In very few words, Penelope Fitzgerald creates an atmosphere of almost overwhelming ennui...one can feel the fog coming off the sea (maybe a metaphor for the close-mindedness of most of the town's citizens) and feel the tension that is closing in on our heroine, Florence Green. With mighty strength, Florence doggedly tries to make a go of her book shop by steadfastly ignoring her enemy, Violet Gamart, who wants the premises for an "arts center." The end is unbelievably sad, and more so because really, in four decades, nothing much has changed about human nature. This is a strange and depressing book, not to everyone's taste. I found it fascinating and well-written, but it takes some doing to get through it. This is my first Fitzgerald novel, and I am now interested in seeing her style in her other books. I cannot comment on whether this is representative of her other writings, but I would defnitely recommend giving it a try.
Rating: 
Summary: Gentle Comedy/Tragedy
Review: Fitzgerald's novel is reminiscent of one of my favorites, Vita Sackville-West, in her ease of manner with her characters. Fitzgerald knows Florence. . . Steven King (and probably others) says that some of his stories have a life of their own and come to him fully formed and all he does is write them down. Fitzgerald writes as if she had lived the story herself. The Bookshop is not a "comedy of manners", but there is still an Austin flavor to The Bookshop--it is a softly humorous character study in which not a whole lot happens. Regardless of that, I had to turn the page, had to continue my relationship with Florence and the town of Hardborough. The plot is simply that Florence, after being widowed, decides to open a bookstore in Hardborough. She's only lived there eight years, and as such is still a newcomer, which might account for some of the resistance met in her venture. Between a poltergeist, an angry Community Chairwoman, a general stubbornness of Hardborough to accept her shop, and normal business woes, Florence finds the path to being a bookseller is not a smooth one. The Bookshop has no great plot climax, no surprises or thrills, no exciting endings. . .it's just life, Florence's life, and as such is a gentle and pleasant read ,though not "light" for it has elements of the tragic to it. I look forward to reading Fitzgerald's other novels.
Rating:
Summary: A good character study, but an unsatisfying novel
Review: Having lived for more than eight years in the East Anglian coastal town of Hardborough, Florence Green determines, in 1959, to purchase the aptly named Old House, a damp and decrepit and indeed haunted property more than 400 years old. Her decision to open a bookshop in the building, while approved by a certain Edmund Brundish, the town's most respected scion, is opposed by an unfortunately more influential resident of Hardborough, Violet Gamart, who has the vague plan of turning the Old House into an art center. Florence's defiance of Mrs. Gamart's will begins an undeclared war between the two women, only one of whom knows for certain that a war is in fact being waged. Penelope Fitzgerald's The Bookshop chronicles the quiet but persistent opposition Florence faces in opening and running the shop as well as her encounters with the odd cast of presumptuous characters who populate Hardborough.
The Bookshop offers some very nice writing, as Fitzgerald's description of a horse forced to submit to having its teeth filed: "Once released, the horse sighed cavernously and stared at them as though utterly disillusioned. From the depths of its noble belly came a brazen note, more like a trumpet than a horn, dying away to a snicker." But the book as a whole is not entirely satisfying. The characters are too outspoken to always be credible, including the precocious eleven-year-old who works in the bookshop with Florence. The poltergeist who punctuates the silence of the Old House with its rapping serves no obvious narrative purpose. And the jumps in the narrative, with motivations and intervening action left to the imagination, make the story feel incomplete.
Debra Hamel--book-blog reviews
Author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece
Rating: 
Summary: "You may be confusing force and power."
Review: Middle-aged widow Florence Green decides to open a book shop in the small seaside town of Hardborough. The town's last book shop existed in Victorian times when the owner came to blows with an obnoxious customer about the delay in receiving "Dombey and Son." According to one local, "no one has been courageous enough to sell books in Hardborough" since that event. Florence Green has experience working in a book shop, and she imagines that Hardborough will be delighted to have a book shop of its own, so she takes her small nest egg and buys 'The Old House'--a long-vacant, damp, flooded property with historical significance.
When Florence's plans for The Old House become public knowledge, Mrs. Gramart, wife of General Gramart (the closest thing to royalty for the town) decides she wants the building to establish an Arts Centre. Mrs. Gramart "the natural patroness of all public activities in Hardborough" wants Florence to move into the soon-to-be vacant fish shop instead. Florence may understand books, but she doesn't understand a great deal about human nature. She dismisses Mrs. Gramart's desire for The Old House. It seems preposterous to Florence that Mrs. Gramart should want the property now that it's hers and no longer for sale.
"The Bookshop" is a perfectly contained and controlled story in which Penelope Fitzgerald captures the essence of small town life. Hardborough isn't a very pleasant place. It's full of small mindedness, petty revenges and the slow suffocation of neighbours knowing all one's business. Poor Florence means well, but her well-intended business plans suffer from the beginning. The shop is haunted, customers can't behave, and betrayal lurks where it's least expected. The character of Milo North is particularly interesting. It's rumoured that Milo has some sort of job in television, but as in all aspects of Milo's life, the facts are vague. Milo is a fascinating type, and again Florence's naivety leads her astray. She's unable to discern that "his fluid personality tested and stole into the weak places of others until it found it could settle down to its own advantage." "The Book Shop" is a delight, and Fitzgerald creates her tale with a deft hand and a delicate wit. Any brave soul who is considering opening a book shop should read this cautionary tale--displacedhuman
Rating:
Summary: A Sad Vignette
Review: "The Book Shop" is not really a novel, but a tiny microcosm of a time and place long gone and yet still unfortunately true--a small English coastal town in the late 50s, where the efforts of one spunky widow to open up the village's only book shop are menaced by one nasty bully in the form of the town's most influential woman. In very few words, Penelope Fitzgerald creates an atmosphere of almost overwhelming ennui...one can feel the fog coming off the sea (maybe a metaphor for the close-mindedness of most of the town's citizens) and feel the tension that is closing in on our heroine, Florence Green. With mighty strength, Florence doggedly tries to make a go of her book shop by steadfastly ignoring her enemy, Violet Gamart, who wants the premises for an "arts center." The end is unbelievably sad, and more so because really, in four decades, nothing much has changed about human nature. This is a strange and depressing book, not to everyone's taste. I found it fascinating and well-written, but it takes some doing to get through it. This is my first Fitzgerald novel, and I am now interested in seeing her style in her other books. I cannot comment on whether this is representative of her other writings, but I would defnitely recommend giving it a try.
Rating:
Summary: a different view
Review: This book should be read as Greek tragedy wherein the inevitable downfall is insured by a flaw in the heroine's character. In this case, Florence's hubris alienates everyone about her. If read as just another story about small-town pettiness, this short novel is 100 pages too long.
Rating:
Summary: The ideal book to give to someone locked in a room...
Review: as it can slide easily under most doors, and is an excellent read. It will become a precisely drawn world to live in for a few hours before devoting yourself to trying to get out of the room again. The characters were sharply drawn, and the ending grabbed at my throat a little. My only complaint is the same one I have about Hardy: the author, despite having a keen sense of humor, seems to think that life is inevitably a rather sad affair - which, who knows, maybe it is - but how one dramatizes that inevitability is a different story. Here the little doomsday machine that the author creates for her beloved people doesn't seem to arise naturally from the personalities of the characters or the general state of their world, but from the author's belief that things just can't work out for people. In a historical novel like The Blue Flower, the end is already a matter of fact, so no one can accuse her of contriving to scuttle the ship, but here I felt like maybe she had taken an axe down to the hold herself. A beautiful piece of writing nonetheless.
Rating:
Summary: Fitzgerald's characters are incredibly real and engaging
Review: The Bookshop is probably my favorite of this author's work so far. It's not a nice story. Not all great stories necessarily have happy endings. Priceless scene between the two aristocrats toward the end of the book. Fitzgerald takes provincial nastiness and describes it with such beauty it's impossible to be too disappointed.
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