84, Charing Cross Road

The sun came out and I settled into the old rocker on the sun porch to read. 84, Charing Cross Road was a delight. Helen Hanff is just a hoot and she wins over the more formal, reticent Brits with her enthusiasm and affectionate snarkiness. I laughed out loud when she said it was easier to write to England to order books than get downtown in New York! The original Amazon...

It would be lovely as a story of friendship built through letters but it also provides an intimate view of post-war Britain where powered eggs (!) were welcome as rationing limited access to food. Mostly, as someone who grew up writing letters, I was nostalgic for slower times when part of the joy was in the anticipation.

Wikipedia has a partial list of the books show more Hanff ordered through Marks & Co. show less

In October 1949 Helene Hanff, a single woman living and working in her small New York apartment, responded to an ad placed in the Saturday Review of Literature by Marks & Co, a bookshop in London that specialized in used books. Thus began a two-decade long correspondence and friendship between the reserved bookseller and the irrepressible Miss Hanff.

What a delight it is to be allowed to watch this growing relationship, fueled by a shared love of books, and an ability to laugh at oneself and one’s follies. I laughed aloud in places. I shared her outrage at books being torn apart to use as wrapping, and then agreed with Frank Doel’s explanation on the practicality of this practice. I marveled at their generosity – not just in the show more gifts they gave one another, but more importantly, their generosity of spirit, how they gave so freely of their thoughts, gratitude, wishes, grievances, and forgiveness.

I saw the movie, starring Anne Bancroft, many years ago. As I read the letters, I could not help but picture Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins as Helene and Frank. I’m so happy that Hanff decided to publish it, and that Doel’s family gave their wholehearted permission and encouragement to her to do so.

As with most books I read these days, I got this from the library, but I’m going to go out and buy a copy for myself. It’s the kind of book I’ll read over and over just for the sheer joy of it. show less

An absolutely gorgeous collection of correspondence between a British bookseller and an American with an odd taste in literature. Taking place just after World War 2’s end, this story shows two perspectives of everyday postwar life. We see kindness and compassion from all sides as we look into an intimate side of history that is often brushed over. A million out of 5 stars, I will absolutely be picking a copy of Miss Hanff’s memoir on these letters.

An epistolary memoir, taking the form of twenty years of letters, from 1949 to 1969, between New Yorker Hanff and London bookseller Frank Doel, of the Marks & Co. antiquarian bookstore.

This is a small book -- less than 100 pages, many of them less than half full, and even that largely taken up with letterhead, salutations, and closings -- and it has the reputation of being a charming, heartwarming valentine to friendship.

I don't get it.

Hanff is the epitome of the Ugly American, a brash, pushy, intrusive woman with absolutely no sense of (or interest in) where to draw appropriate boundaries in a commercial relationship. She scolds Doel and his colleages when she thinks they haven't acted quickly enough to find the specific rare books show more she's looking for; she babbles on at length about her personal life; she winds up attempting to befriend not only Doel and his co-workers, but his wife, daughters, and next door neighbor. And her awfulness is clear from her second letter, in which she scolds a London bookstore for billing in British currency instead of "translating" into dollars.

To give credit where credit is due, she is also kind and generous, often sending holiday parcels of food that's difficult for Londoners to get during post-war rationing.

But if I had been Frank Doel, after reading the first two or three letters from Hanff, I would have written back that Marks & Co. unfortunately did not usually offer the sort of books that she was interested in, and referred her to whichever London bookseller was at the top of my enemies list. show less

This collection of letters has been on The List for ages and I know it's beloved by many an LTer. I am, unsurprisingly, one of their number now that I've finally read this short volume. While I had seen the film adaptation in advance of this, my first reading, and thus the outlines of the relationship was already familiar, there is such joy in sinking into Helene Hanff and Frank Doel's correspondence over the course of twenty years. Hanff's brash humour leaps off the page as she requests various books from the secondhand bookshop in which Doel works and contrasts delightfully with Doel's ever so British circumspectness that still reveals genuine fondness. Witnessing them exchange notes on books as well as slowly building bonds gives you show more such a warm fuzzy feeling for when it was possible to send a letter to a stranger and have that somehow lead to a deep and abiding friendship. A read for all the bibliophiles, whether you share Hanff's taste in books or not. show less

Oh my goodness I love this book! I reread it this week and was reminded why this simple story is so powerful. It’s the real story of a woman writing letters back and forth over two decades with a bookseller in London. But it’s the human connection over an ocean that is beautiful. Their shared love of literature and genuine kindness was so refreshing. I can’t recommend it enough. It’s just lovely. Definitely going to reread the sequel next.

This book is just a collection of letters between a struggling writer in NYC and her bookstore of choice in England. Actually, saying it's "just" a collection of letters is an understatement. Even though it clocks in at just under 100 pages total and probably less than an hour of reading, it's filled with warmth and humor and a snapshot of history thrown in for good measure. The book has been sitting on my shelf for some time and I had actually even considered throwing it into the pile of books I meant to sell without ever reading - I'm glad I didn't and now, it's not going anywhere even AFTER having read it. I highly recommend this for a light read, although it might also leave the more sensitive reader a little misty-eyed.