Name: The Little Paris Bookshop
Rating: 4 (0 reviews)
Author: Nina George

About this book

Summary

Book Summary

"There are books that are suitable for a million people, others for only a hundred. There are even remedies - I mean books - that were written for one person only…A book is both medic and medicine at once. It makes a diagnosis as well as offering therapy. Putting the right novels to the appropriate ailments: that's how I sell books."

Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can't seem to heal through literature is himself; he's still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened.

After Perdu is finally tempted to read the letter, he hauls anchor and departs on a mission to the south of France, hoping to make peace with his loss and discover the end of the story. Joined by a bestselling but blocked author and a lovelorn Italian chef, Perdu travels along the country's rivers, dispensing his wisdom and his books, showing that the literary world can take the human soul on a journey to heal itself.

Internationally bestselling and filled with warmth and adventure, The Little Paris Bookshop is a love letter to books, meant for anyone who believes in the power of stories to shape people's lives.

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Media Reviews

"Her sumptuous descriptions of both food and literature will leave readers unsure whether to run to the nearest library or the nearest bistro." - Publishers Weekly

"A charming novel that believes in the healing properties of fiction, romance, and a summer in the south of France." - Kirkus

"Through its well-drawn characters, this novel carefully explores these relationships between lovers, friends, and family, and the painful sacrifices made selflessly for them." - Booklist

This information about The Little Paris Bookshop 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.

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Reader Reviews

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Jocelyn

Little paris bookshop
Books about books, libraries, or bookstores always interest me, so I just had to read The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George.

The story starts out in Paris. Jean Perdu runs a bookstore on a converted barge on the Seine. He calls himself a literary apothecary because he can tell, after asking a few questions, just the book that a person needs at that point in their life. Unfortunately, he can not do the same for himself. We learn that he had a great love, Manon, who suddenly left him one day. She left a note, but fearing what it would say he never read it and then shut himself off from any other relationship.

One day, a new woman moves into his apartment building. Her husband decided he needed a newer model, so she is bereft. The landlady asks M. Perdu to loan Catherine some furniture. In order to do so, he must open up the room he'd blocked off when Manon left. He gives a table to Catherine, but has to leave it outside her door. He eventually meets her and they hit it off. Catherine finds the letter that Manon left (she doesn't read it) and gives it to M. Perdu. He finally reads it and discovers it is not at all what he thought.

While on his boat/store shortly afterwards he decides to set sail to the south of France. A moody first novelist, who is working on a second book after a huge hit with the first, joins him. Together they take a journey of discovery.

I liked this book because they story was told slowly and gently. The characters were very interesting and you get to care about them. Sometimes the word choice was a bit odd, but it was translated from German, so it may be a translation issue. I would recommend this to people who like character driven books, books set in France, or books about personal discovery.

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Free books to read and review (US only)
Find books by time period, setting & theme
Read-alike suggestions by book and author
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and much more!
Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
More about membership!

Author Information

Biography

Nina George

Nina George works as a journalist, writer, and storytelling teacher. She is the award winning author of 26 books, and also writes feature articles, short stories, and columns. The Little Paris Bookshop spent over a year on bestseller lists in Germany, and was a bestseller in Italy, Poland, and the Netherlands. George is married to the writer Jens J. Kramer and lives in Hamburg and in Brittany, France.

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