"The Little Paris Bookshop' by Nina George

The Little Paris Bookshop, Nina George (3.0)

I ended up enjoying this book, though I had some serious reservations throughout. I was mostly dismayed by the premise: it begins with a man mourning the loss of a woman. His pain is so deep and sharp that he cannot enter the room she was last in and can’t even say her name (he writes it as _____). From this beginning, one imagines an old man who has lost his wife or partner of many years. My consternation comes a couple of chapters in when you realize he is 50 years old and the woman spent a total of 160 days with him and left him 20 years ago! Love may be deep – but that came across as ridiculous – a man wastes 20 years of the prime of his life for someone he had an affair with? Fortunately for the reader, the main character has a clever job (he is a literary apothecary who runs a bookstore on a barge in the Seine river) and the rest of the book has delightful characters. As an apothecary, he recommends books to his patrons depending on what he perceives they need. Readers will enjoy the book references. We follow his journey to finally process the mourning of his love and their relationship and it’s a colorful journey down the rivers and canals of central France.