I needed more books about books in my life, so I turned to The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald. Books themselves have very little place in the overall plot, and that’s all to the good, as well cheer our heroine on as she explores widowhood as an outsider in a tightly-knit, and often closed-minded, small community.
The book is dryly funny, witty, and compassionate. It’s a fantastic romp while also being a treatise of the power of having enough gumption to follow a dream, even when that feels like an act of resistance.