84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of 84, Charing Cross Road
Book Review: Do you really need me to write another 5 Star review?
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a thin, easy read. It is historic and true. It is a glimpse into some lives at a moment in time. Just get it. You'll read it in a day and be enriched. Here's to people who perform random acts of kindness.Book Review: For Every Book Lover
Summary: 5 Stars
On October 5, 1949, a woman in New York sent a letter to a London bookstore she had read about in the Saturday Review of Literature. She was anxious to purchase a few out-of-print books, so she enclosed a list and money with her letter. She had no idea that she had ignited a relationship through letters that would last for 20 years. Helene Hanff and Frank Doel enjoyed one of the most unusual relationships ever recorded in print. If you're a book lover, this is one book you must have. In less than 100 pages, you'll discover two people that embrace books with an intense passion. Touching, funny, and personal, 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD is a great way to spend an hour or two.
Book Review: Friendship with Depth and Love
Summary: 5 Stars
In these days of e-books, and bland books constructed from franchised ideas and formulas, we are presented "84, Charing Cross Road," a story about a relationship begun because of a mutual love of old great books.
Frank Doel owns the English bookstore, and Helene Hanff mails him a request for a book. Correspondence and a relationship begins. Contently and confidently married, Doel responds as an older brother might, and the two grow to cherish each other despite the distance.
As they care for each other, and slowly, their local friends and family become aware, we see how love transcends the sea. Neither character has an agenda, and this left me feeling a little less cynical about the world around me.
Like Nick Bantock's "Griffin and Sabine," it carries a romantic mystery and intrigue. We read the correspondence and imagine.
Like so many of today's e-mail- and chatroom-only friendships, they learn to appreciate each other, though knowing only the other as they choose to describe themselves.
This isn't a story about books or bookstores, despite the honest representation of their demeanor and personality. Any booklover knows the search for a book, and the texture of a bookseller's knowledge and connection with his books.
This is a book about the depth, trust, and love of one unexpected relationship. Book lovers will enjoy the context, and good friends will smile knowingly.
The movie with Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft is likewise worth viewing, carrying the letters into a emotional zone of charm and delight.
Book Review: Fun, touching, and charming
Summary: 5 Stars
This slim little volume is simply wonderful. Ms. Hanff is wity, generous, and has a "peculiar taste in books." Her insights on some of the books she reads are off-beat and delightful. A must read for any book lover.Book Review: Haunting, lyrical, and true
Summary: 5 Stars
Before I was to move to London for a six-month stay, I read Helene Hanff's "84 Charing Cross Road" hoping to get a feel for the city I was about to meet, or at least for what it used to be. A compilation of letters between a struggling writer (Hanff) in New York City and a London bookstore owner, this book paints a picture of harsh wartime realities tempered by a blooming long-distance friendship. Upon my arrival in London, I took a cab from Victoria Station to Bayswater, and as we wound through the heart of the city, we drove down Charing Cross Road. With open doors and dusty window displays, the bookstores lining the street were at the same time inviting and haunting, rousing the ghosts of the city. "84 Charing Cross Road" echoes the voices of real people, and those echoes still resonate through the streets of London