The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

Who could pass up a homeless little book-about-books like this? I rescued a battered copy out of the dollar bin at the used book store in town, and at only 123 pages had it read in an afternoon. It's a sweet but frustrating story about a woman trying to open and run a bookshop in a small English town. Frustrating because she runs into . . . opposition? What kind of small minded characters would oppose a quiet country bookstore in an old stone house? Baffling.

This, Penelope Fitzgerald's second novel, was her first to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It is set in a small East Anglian coastal town, where Florence Green decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop. "She had a kind heart, but that is not much use when it comes to the matter of self-preservation". Hardborough becomes a battleground, as small towns so easily do. 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 make themselves important, but natural and even supernatural forces too. This is a story for anyone who knows that life has treated them with less than justice. (back cover)