Recommendations of a Bookseller

After the long winter, I was ready for an island getaway.  So when I picked up The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin and found myself accompanying young Amelia, a publishers’ sales rep on the ferry to Alice Island, Massachusetts, I settled in for a delightful ride.  When quirky Amelia meets curmudgeonly A.J. Fikry, the proprietor of Island Books, their encounter is as rocky as a stormy sea.  A recent widower, Fikry drinks himself to oblivion each night and cares more about literary books than good sellers, a luxury in which he can indulge since he owns a book that’s so valuable he can count on selling it to fund his retirement.  When the book is stolen and a baby is left in his care, the consequences are utterly life altering.

There’s a lot of marketing around this book and it’s truly a book nerd’s delight.  So you might have to wait a bit for it, but reserve it now.  Meanwhile read some of the recommended short stories that are interspersed between chapters with Fikry’s reviews written for his daughter.  

“Lamb to Slaughter” and “The Bookseller,” by Roald Dahl

“A Diamond as Big as the Ritz” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“A Good Man is Hard to Find,” by Flannery O’Connor

“The Girls in Their Summer Dresses,” by Irwin Shaw

“A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” by J.D. Salinger

“What We Talk about When We Talk about Love,” by Raymond Carver  

“A Conversation with My Father,” by Grace Paley

“The Celebrated Frog of Claveras County,” by Mark Twain

“Luck of the Roaring Camp,” by Bret Harte

“What Feels Like the World,” by Richard Bausch

“The Tell-Tale Heart,” by E.A. Poe

“Ironhead,” by Aimee Bender

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