The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

[GABSTER]

This story was cute and a lively easy read. It kept me engaged as Jean made his journey of grief to visit his long lost love. The friends he meets along the way are great characters that inevitably teach Jean about himself and where he would like to end up mentally after his journey. It is nicely written and I found myself googling "Sanary's Southern Lights" wanting to read this masterpiece myself...but alas it is merely a fictional piece made up to inspire Jean. Pairing Jean the bookseller with the young author Max is great juxtapositioning of two different gentlemen at 2 totally different points in their lives. At times the emotions of Jean get a little thick and you wish the author would just proceed with the plot but overall and enjoyable read with a sad & happy ending that wraps up all the little loose ends I was wondering about.

[JenThomason1109]

I also loved this book! I agree that there were times it seemed to drag out, but it was beautifully written.

[belleami]

The Little Paris Book Shop is a book that will steal your heart. It is a story of miscommunication with disastrous consequences. By a simple act, lives are changed forever. The repercussions resound through twenty-years leaving a trail of broken hearts. Jean Perdu and Manon Morello shared a secret love, a love outside her marriage for five years. Born in Provence, Manon felt a desire to experience more of life and love. On a train to Paris, she found it, she found it with Jean. When for reasons the reader will later learn she abruptly ends her relationship with Jean, the wheels of heartbreak are put into motion. Jean will live, or not live, for the next twenty years in a parallel universe of loss and despair. His only solace is his floating book barge Lulu the Literary Apothecary that for twenty years was moored to a bank on the Seine in Paris. From his floating book shop he gains the reputation of prescribing the right book for each person. He offers psychological healing through the pages of books, at least for everyone other than himself.
Fate intervenes and Jean at long last is motivated to seek the answers to the events that transformed his life. He sets off with a young man, a bestselling author, who is searching for his own purpose. Together they journey down the rivers of France to Avignon, and ultimately sans the barge, to Provence and the Luberon gathering a few kindred souls along the way. The journey will open doors, bring closure, and transform all of their lives.
I strongly recommend The Little Paris Book Shop, please don’t hold its best seller status against it. It is beautifully written, however, I sensed some oddities in the translation. It was originally written in German and I believe French. Notwithstanding this book is a joy.
I quote a lovely passage, “To carry them within us—that is our task. We carry them all inside us, all our dead and shattered loves. Only they make us whole. If we begin to forget or cast aside those we’ve lost, then…then we are no longer present either… All the love, all the dead, all the people we’ve known. They are the rivers that feed our sea of souls. If we refuse to remember them, that sea will dry up too.”