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A review by amyvl93
84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
2.5
Well, don't I feel like a buzzkill. I was so excited to pick up 84 Charing Cross Road as I enjoy epistolary writing and I'd heard this was really a love letter to books. And I was left quite disappointed.
This edition contains both 84 Charing Cross Road a collection of letters between Helene Hanff, a New York-based writer, and Frank Doel, a bookseller at Marks & Co - an antique bookshop - in London as well as others in Doel's family and within the wider Marks & Co family; and The Duchess of Bloomsbury, Hanff's diary of the visit she finally makes to London after the letter collection is published.
My main reaction is one of underwhelm; I found Hanff's letters to Marks & Co to verge on the rude (maybe it's my strong British-ness) and whilst her sending of packages to war-torn and recovering London was charming, it also felt a tad strange. There's also minimal discussion of actual books in here - Hanff doesn't care for fiction, and her tastes run in the deeply academic.
The best writing comes when Hanff arrives in London - her revelling in the history of the city was lovely to read. However, her experience in London is quite a rarefied one, whilst at times fun to read about a time capsule of London in the 1970s it's quite a limited view - despite constant letters about her precarious financial state, she seems to at least know an awful lot of wealthy people, and I was slightly baffled by the splash the book made within literary circles.
This edition contains both 84 Charing Cross Road a collection of letters between Helene Hanff, a New York-based writer, and Frank Doel, a bookseller at Marks & Co - an antique bookshop - in London as well as others in Doel's family and within the wider Marks & Co family; and The Duchess of Bloomsbury, Hanff's diary of the visit she finally makes to London after the letter collection is published.
My main reaction is one of underwhelm; I found Hanff's letters to Marks & Co to verge on the rude (maybe it's my strong British-ness) and whilst her sending of packages to war-torn and recovering London was charming, it also felt a tad strange. There's also minimal discussion of actual books in here - Hanff doesn't care for fiction, and her tastes run in the deeply academic.
The best writing comes when Hanff arrives in London - her revelling in the history of the city was lovely to read. However, her experience in London is quite a rarefied one, whilst at times fun to read about a time capsule of London in the 1970s it's quite a limited view - despite constant letters about her precarious financial state, she seems to at least know an awful lot of wealthy people, and I was slightly baffled by the splash the book made within literary circles.