Helene Hannff

A friend loaned me copies of 84 Charing Cross Road and Q's Legacy last year, and I loved them. Hanff had an amazing sense of humor, and she was a bibliophile of the first order IMHO. Charing Cross Road is an epistolary book chronicling her correspondence with a British book dealer in the 50's and 60's, and its definitely a laugh out loud book. The best way I can describe her sense of humor is to say its a bit like Lewis Black, which is oddly appropriate, as she's jewish (not that I'm saying all jews are like that.) At one point she requests a copy of the Latin Vulgate, and when she gets it responds "WHAT KIND OF A BLACK PROTESTANT BIBLE IS THIS?" After a paragraph disparaging the church of england for "tinkering with the vulgate latin" asserting in no uncertain terms that they'll burn for it, she goes on to say "Its nothing to me, I'm jewish myself." The first time I read the book I was sitting on my friend's couch in her apartment, and you could probably her me laughing from the parking lot. :D

84 Charing Cross Road was made into a film starring Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins and Judi Dench.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090570/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_84

Leo Marks son of one of the co-owners was prominent in SOE (Special Operations Executive) during WWII, responsible for sending agents into occupied countries to gather information. He was skilled in codes and codebreaking and wrote the poem used by Violette Szabo (The life that I have...) as a cryptographic key to her messages back to Britain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Marks

>2 Amanda_Jane_Uren:

The Folio Society published a nice edition of Leo Marks's book about his war: Between silk and cyanide

Slightly Foxed and Folio Society published nice editions of 84 Charing Cross Road. Between Silk and Cyanide is very moving and humbling. Manderley Press published Letters from New York which continues Helene Hanff's numerous adventures https://www.manderleypress.com/shop/p/letterfromnewyork

84 Charing Cross Road is one of all-time favorite reads and they did a pretty good job of it with the movie, too.