La historia nos va a narrar las vivencias de Florence Green en un pequeño publecito de Inglaterra. Esta señora, heredará una significativa cantidad de dinero al morir su marido y decidirá poner rumbo a Hardborough, para abrir nada más y nada menos que una librería. Allí elegirá para montar el negocio una edicificio en la costa que llevaba bastantes años abandonado y será entonces cuando la protagosnista recibirá la poco aceptación de algunos miembros del pueblo a su presencia.

Curiosamente este libro empieza lento, pareciendo simple. Y no sabía muy bien que pensar de él cuando llevaba casi la mitad, pero entonces empieza a abrirse la historia, o al menos, fue ahí donde empecé a meterme yo. Me he enamorado de el personaje de Florence Green. Mujer fuerte y dura. Intersantísima. Y también me gustaron, por supuesto, tanto Christine como el entrañable señor Brundich, que me ha enamorado.

En la contraportada se la denomina la digna sucesora de Jane Austen. No me parece descabellado. En absoluto. Como pega pondría el final. No es un mal final, pero esperaba otra cosa. Leeré más cositas de la Fitzgerald pronto. Ahora a ver la peli <3.

"—Dicen que usted no se asusta.
—¿Cómo lo sabe? —preguntó ella.
—Dicen por ahí que está usted a punto de abrir una librería. Eso significa que no le importa enfrentarse a cosas inverosímiles."

"La librería" de la autora británica
Penelope Fitzgerald

Ultimately, a sad book. But sad in the way Dickens could be sad, a commentary on the unfairness of class and gender, of government and courts, of life itself; though not without a laugh at all of it. You could fall in love with some characters: the protagonist, Florence Green, who determines to own the eponymous Bookshop; but also 11 year-old Christine who helps her and Wally, a bit older and a scout, who helps her too; and most especially Mr. Brundish, a bit of an eccentric who understands all of it. And you might despise others: Milo North, a traitorous dandy; every solicitor who makes an appearance; and certainly Mrs. Gamart, entitled enough to want to destroy it all.

I was constantly entranced with the revealing dialogue, like this between Brundish and Gamart:

'But you mustn't speak to me like that, Mr Brundish. You can't realize what you are saying. You must think me outrageous. Is that it?'

Mr Brundish gave the impression of carefully turning the words in his mind, as though they were pebbles of which he must ascertain the value.

'I find that I cannot answer either "yes" or "no". By "outrageous" I take that to mean "unexpectedly offensive". Certainly you have been offensive, Mrs Gamart, but you have been exactly as I expected.'

This was a small canvas, but rich in what it exposed.

At one point, Florence Green considers making Lolita available for sell and asks Mr. Brundish his opinion. He counsels:

'I don't attach as much importance as you do, I dare say, to the notions of right and wrong. I have read Lolita, as you requested. It is a good book, and therefore you should try and sell it to the inhabitants of Hardborough. They won't understand it, but that is all to the good. Understanding makes the mind lazy.'

If you've read this, or will read this, you will, I hope, understand why I gave Brundish the final word.

This is a remarkable story about an ordinary woman, Florence Green, who in 1959, decides to open a bookshop in a small East Anglia coastal town - Hardborough. Does she succeed though? All I will say is that she had to contend with local opposition. Also remember we are talking about a different era, pre-internet. Booksellers then worked extremely hard and did not necessarily make financial gains. Their love of books gave them one incentive - to encourage everyone to read.

I've never forgotten the comment from one Goodreads' friend: "I prefer writing over plot".

That is so true here. The story in itself is somewhat pedestrian but there is something in Penelope Fitzgerald's writing style that transcends all of that. She brings to life prose that is lyrical and fascinating.

Such a well-written book.

Audiobook beautifully narrated by Eva Karpf

The Bookshop is a slim novel about an idealistic woman who is forced to battle small town politics. Florence Green, a courageous and kind widow, decides to open the first bookshop in the little town she lives in. She buys an abandoned house which she converts in a bookshop and her living quarters. The place is damp and supposedly haunted, but the tenacious woman manages to do quite well at the beginning. However, not everybody is happy about her success and a conflict will jeopardize everything she's worked for.

It is a quiet, elegant and subtle novel]. It manages to be poignant and to show the best and worse about human nature without shouting. I was charmed by the beautiful and complex writing, about the way the author succeeded to create complex characters in a few pages. It was my first book by Penelope Fitzgerald but I already feel like an established admirer of her work. I cannot wait to read more, it was a real pleasure to discover her writing.

No ha sido lo que esperaba, las expectativas que son muy malas. Esperaba encontrar una novela dedixada al amor por los libros y ni siquiera la propietaria de la libreria me ha transmitido amor por los libros. Es más una novela sobre la vida diaria de los habitantes del pueblo. Una pequeña decepción.

3'5

Deje que le diga qué es lo que admiro del ser humano. Lo que más valoro es la virtud que comparten con los dioses y con los animales, y que, por tanto, no debería considerarse una virtud. Me refiero al coraje. Usted, señora Green, tiene esa cualidad en abundancia.

El final me ha parecido un poco precipitado, pero por lo demás...

Un título que incluya la palabra "librería" ya es minipunto extra para mí, pero a la vez tiene la contrapartida de que mis expectativas puedan crecer demasiado.

Algo así me ha sucedido con La librería de Penelope Fitzgerald, porque por un lado me ha gustado esta historia breve, sencilla y contada con mucho gusto en la que su protagonista, Florence Green, va superando obstáculos y zancadillas tirando de coraje, pero reconozco que esperaba que me emocionase en algún momento... y no lo ha hecho. Quizá ha podido influir que daba por hecho que en la novela iba a encontrar mucho amor por los libros y no he visto ni mucho ni poco. Se intuye que esa pasión por la literatura habita en nuestra protagonista, pero no se menciona ni se muestra en ningún momento.

A medida que se va acercando el final el interés crece. ¿Quién ganará la guerra silenciosa entre La resiliencia de una librera solitaria y la presión de todo un pueblo?

Novela leída en la sala Libro de cine del Club Literario Atreyu. Tengo ganas de ver la película de Isabel Coixet basada en esta novela y comentarla con mis compañer@s de lectura conjunta.

"Sin embargo, el coraje y la perseverancia son inútiles si no se ponen a prueba".

The widow Florence Green opened a small bookshop in a haunted old building in a Suffolk village. Unfortunately Mrs Gamart, a wealthy woman with political connections, was not pleased. Although the Old House had been vacant for over five years, Mrs Gamart now wanted it for an Arts Center. This small book is a look at English village life in 1959, and the attempt of the kind Mrs Green to survive. She doesn't stand a chance against the powerful, conniving people who want her to vacate the building. Penelope Fitzgerald gives us a good picture of the personalities of the residents in the seacoast village, and the forces that worked against Mrs Green.
3.5 stars

Well, this was rough. For a book with a shelf of books on the cover, plus, it claims to be about a woman moving to a coastal town to open a bookshop, this was highly dull, and not what I expected at all. I haven't had to throw one off a high building for a while.

After a leisurely ponder I've decided that what made this so bad, was Florence herself. There is no valid or interesting reason why Florence wanted to open a bookshop right there in that horrid little town. Throughout the book, she constantly patronises her way through things to get what she wants, and yet the book describes her very differently, as a kind person with good qualities. I don't understand it, and quite frankly, I don't want to.

To open a bookshop you really need to have a love of literature, but Florence didn't really seem bothered about books at all. This blew me away actually, because I couldn't put my heart into believing I was reading about an individual that puts all of her passion into enjoying books and providing books for the pleasure of others. This did not sit well with me.

I found all of the characters to be bland, and for the most part, I thought they had ugly personalities with no real redeeming qualities about them, which is sad really, because this story could have been made much more poignant and interesting. Florence had a rival in here, but nothing significant really passed between them. It wasn't exciting, and I didn't care about arguments between characters I dislike.

I would love to run my own little bookshop one day in a cute little town or village somewhere, and I was hoping to get some pleasure out of this book reading about someone else doing so. The title misled me unfortunately, as this wasn't really about a bookshop at all, it was about a supercilious woman that bought a bookshop in a town full of rather horrid residents for no real reason. This was like a sponge which failed to rise.

In the 1950s, Florence Green, an educated widow, arrives in the quiet town of Hardborough on the coast of England and decides to open a bookstore. However, against all expectations, this attitude will disturb the local community's life, which is very conservative and closed to itself. Realizing the population's resistance, Florence fights against all adversities, showing everyone how books can open doors to the world.