Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Book Summary and Reviews of The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson

The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson

The Bookseller

by Cynthia Swanson

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • Published:
  • Mar 2015, 352 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

A provocative and hauntingly powerful debut novel reminiscent of Sliding Doors, The Bookseller follows a woman in the 1960s who must reconcile her reality with the tantalizing alternate world of her dreams.

Nothing is as permanent as it appears...

Denver, 1962: Kitty Miller has come to terms with her unconventional single life. She loves the bookshop she runs with her best friend, Frieda, and enjoys complete control over her day-to-day existence. She can come and go as she pleases, answering to no one. There was a man once, a doctor named Kevin, but it didn't quite work out the way Kitty had hoped.Then the dreams begin.

Denver, 1963: Katharyn Andersson is married to Lars, the love of her life. They have beautiful children, an elegant home, and good friends. It's everything Kitty Miller once believed she wanted - but it only exists when she sleeps.

Convinced that these dreams are simply due to her overactive imagination, Kitty enjoys her nighttime forays into this alternate world. But with each visit, the more irresistibly real Katharyn's life becomes. Can she choose which life she wants? If so, what is the cost of staying Kitty, or becoming Katharyn?

As the lines between her worlds begin to blur, Kitty must figure out what is real and what is imagined. And how do we know where that boundary lies in our own lives?

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. This is a stunner of a debut novel, astonishingly tight and fast paced." - Library Journal

"Dexterously traversing past and present, fact and fiction, Swanson's clever first novel ingeniously explores the inventive ways the human spirit copes with trauma." - Booklist

"Swanson masterfully crafts both Kitty's and Katharyn's worlds, leaving open the question of which of them is real until the final pages. Swanson's evocative novel freshly considers the timeless question, 'What if?" - Publishers Weekly

"Unfortunately, Kitty is too perfect and naive in both her worlds to be very interesting. And for a novel about a bibliophile, there's little about books beyond an adolescent interest." - Kirkus

"Swanson's debut novel is slightly mysterious and thoroughly engrossing, one of those books that will stay with the reader long after it is complete." - Romantic Times

"In The Bookseller, writing with a sharp-tinged empathic pen, Cynthia Swanson takes us on a startling journey where a woman is thrust into the alternative world that might have been, had she made different choices." - Randy Susan Meyers, author of Accidents of Marriage

"Cynthia Swanson's The Bookseller is both a delightful and haunting exploration of identity, love and loss." - Joanna Hershon, author of A Dual Inheritance

"I inhaled The Bookseller… A deeply satisfying read." - Ann Napolitano, author of A Good Hard Look

This information about The Bookseller was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Mal

Boring
Not really sure what to make of this book. It left me scratching my head and digging for answers as to what I read.

I'm confident I understand the direction Swanson was going, for me, it failed in execution. Needless to say my reading journey was severely stunted.

Swanson undoubtedly stepped out of the box. She demonstrated her originality while clearly setting herself apart. I have mixed feelings regarding Kitty/Katharyn, she has good intentions yet she contradicts these intentions in many ways.

This has to be the most boring book I have ever read. I kept with it hoping the excitement would unleash but it was a futile exercise. I stifled my yawns and made it through to the end feeling as if I could have used my valuable time otherwise. I wasn't a fan of the way autism was approached, yes the narrative is set in the 1960's contributing to the ignorance (fingers crossed) but it still made me very uncomfortable. I'm also not a huge fan of 'what if?' which of course is the premise of this book. The narrative was leaning towards 'tell' as opposed to 'show' and it made for one grueling ride. The ending was predictable adding to my frustration.

After reading this book, spending time with Kitty/Katharyn it's official I love my life even more than I did prior to cracking this book open. This book is proof one should participate in life than be a spectator.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

Censorship, like charity, should begin at home: but unlike charity, it should end there.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.