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The Bookshop

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The Bookshop

By: Penelope Fitzgerald, Stephanie Racine, David Nicholls - introduction
Narrated by: Eve Karpf, David Nicholls
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About this listen

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

In a small East Anglian town, Florence Green decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop.

Hardborough becomes a battleground. 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. Her fate will strike a chord with anyone who knows that life has treated them with less than justice.

©1978 Penelope Fitzgerald; Introduction David Nicholls 2013; Preface Hermione Lee 2013 (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers Limited Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-Ins Small Town & Rural Women's Fiction

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Critic reviews

‘Reading a Penelope Fitzgerald novel is like being taken for a ride in a peculiar kind of car. Everything is of top quality – the engine, the coachwork and the interior all fill you with confidence. Then, after a mile or so, someone throws the steering-wheel out of the window.’ Sebastian Faulks

‘Wise and ironic, funny and humane, Fitzgerald is a wonderful, wonderful writer.’ David Nicholls

‘Its stylishness, and this low-voiced lack of emphasis are a pleasure throughout, its moral and human positions invariably sympathetic. But it is astringent too: no self-pity in its self-effacing heroine, who in a world of let-downs and put-downs and poltergeists, keeps her spirit bright and her book-stock miraculously dry in the damp, seeping East Anglian landscape.’ Isabel Quigley, Financial Times

‘Penelope Fitzgerald’s resources of odd people are impressively rich. Raven, the marshman, who ropes Florence in to hang on to an old horse’s tongue while he files the teeth; old Brundish, secretive as a badger, slow as a gorse bush. And this is not just a gallery of quirky still lives; these people appear in vignettes, wryly, even comically animated…On any reckoning, a marvellously piercing fiction.’ Valentine Cunningham, TLS
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An easy read/listen, quite relaxing, not too heavy if you want some light fiction. Cosy would sum this book up.

A nice short read,/listen

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What made the experience of listening to The Bookshop the most enjoyable?

This was a lovely little book. I especially enjoyed the narration this time.

What did you like best about this story?

It had a bitter sweet theme.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

Three different narrators and all very good.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Quite sad really with the odd chuckle.

Short but sweet

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The story and plot are a framework to illustrate village characters. Interesting and a little sad as a portrait of village life but surely still familiar today.

A study of personalities

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I have been planning to read the Bookshop for some time but have simply never got around to it. I am so glad it is perfect audio book slow, gentle, funny and heartbrealking in a very short spaceof time. it si a very English book both in charachter and pace and I so loved it. The narration fits perfectly. Perhaps my favourite Audible so far.

Pretty much perfect

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I am new to Penelope Fitzgerald 's work. But now am a devoted fan. Great story,real characters. Loved it. Beautifully read. Sorry it's over.

Spellbinding

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I loved this book. It is short and leaves you thinking about what happens next. It is beautifully written with exquisite language and character. This audiobook performance is understated and bring the story to life.

Elegant read

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Thoroughly enjoyable, listened all in one go. I would recommend not listening to the forward beforehand. Felt a bit like a book of a film rather than the other way around but, I'd like to watch the film now.

Mixed feelings

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This is a tale with hidden depths and characters that are far more complex than they at first appear.
Set in a small, rural town in the late 1950s The Bookshop tells the story of a widow's struggle to establish a business in a community riven by class divisions and clashing ideas on the need for an Arts Centre.
The writing is sublime and the simplicity of the story is one of its strengths. But it is a novel that is full of thought-provoking themes - class, the value of education, the nature of work, the machinations of local politics, the danger of gossip, manipulation of people, what it is to be an outsider.
The ending is heart-breaking and I was very moved by the bookseller's plight. A brilliant novel.

Wonderful storytelling

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A tale of one woman's failure but ambiguously, elliptically, beautifully and assuredly written. A treasure.

A wonderful novel

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Super narration to this beautifully written story. Worth the listen. Humorous and attentive to detail this reading is the full script and brings the text to life.

Beautiful narrative to a sad story

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