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84, Charing Cross Road

4.16 of 5 stars 4.16 · rating details · 12,906 ratings · 1,834 reviews

It all began with a letter inquiring about second-hand books, written by Helene Hanff in New York, and posted to a bookshop at 84, Charing Cross Road in London. As Helene's sarcastic and witty letters are responded to by the stodgy and proper Frank Doel of 84, Charing Cross Road, a relationship blossoms into a warm and charming long-distance friendship lasting many years.

Paperback, 97 pages

Published October 1st 1990 by Penguin Books (first published 1970)

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Sep 13, 2011 Aldrin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Aldrin by: Chachic

The present is an undeniably significant time in the realm of books. It’s a time when the nature and limits of books are being redefined so aggressively that to enclose the very term in scare quotes does not necessarily amount to a vagary in punctuation. The mostly static evolution of books is now approaching a flash point, that is, if it hasn’t yet been reached. The signs are as clear as Truman Capote’s favorite Russian vodka. Accompanied by the consistent rise in the sales of books in their va...more The present is an undeniably significant time in the realm of books. It’s a time when the nature and limits of books are being redefined so aggressively that to enclose the very term in scare quotes does not necessarily amount to a vagary in punctuation. The mostly static evolution of books is now approaching a flash point, that is, if it hasn’t yet been reached. The signs are as clear as Truman Capote’s favorite Russian vodka. Accompanied by the consistent rise in the sales of books in their various electronic iterations, Kindles, iPads, and Nooks are taking the place of the codex format in the hands of readers. Bookstores, if not downsizing their personnel or reducing their floor area, are shutting down their operations entirely. It’s a terribly different landscape from that of two, three, or four decades ago, when books were books (prefixes like “e-” or “enhanced” and suffixes like “pdf” and “epub” were not yet conceived and required as qualifiers), bookstores were brick-and-mortar establishments run by real people, and a certain book lover had to write to a bookseller thousands of miles away just to get the books that she wanted.

The present is a setting into which the reappropriation of the essential elements of the story of “84, Charing Cross Road,” one of the most beloved books about books and people who love them, is virtually impossible. This nonfiction book, first published in 1970, is very much a product of its time. Formally it’s a collection of letters between a struggling freelance writer in New York City and a used bookstore employee in London. Letters! Do people even send those—old-fashioned snail mail—anymore? Surely e-mail, Twitter, or telepathic grunting hasn’t completely replaced it? LOL colon capital P. And a used bookstore? In this day and age, more and more readers are wont to ditch a visit to a nearby bookstore, used or not, knowing they could easily get a copy of a book they want with just a click of their computer mouses or a tap on their touchscreen devices.

Helene Hanff, the person at the American side of the transatlantic correspondence that forms the spine of “84, Charing Cross Road,” had neither a computer mouse (unless it’s of the rodent sort, to which her modest apartment might have proved comfortable) nor a touchscreen device. What she had in the way of an input mechanism and a processor was her trusty typewriter, on which she wrote on the 5th of October 1959 a letter of inquiry to the staff of Marks & Co., a used bookstore located at 84, Charing Cross Road, London, England. “I am a poor writer with an antiquarian taste in books and all the things I want are impossible to get over here except in very expensive rare editions, or in Barnes & Noble’s grimy, marked-up schoolboy copies,” she explained. “I enclose a list of my most pressing problems. If you have clean second-hand copies of any of the books on the list, for no more than $5.00 each, will you consider this a purchase order and send them to me?”

Thus began the exceptional long-distance friendship between Hanff and Frank Doel, the chief agent of the bookstore who rigorously responded to her inquiries. Indeed, there were many more inquiries beyond Hanff’s initial wishlist, for books ranging from the perennially popular to the incredibly obscure. Her incessant badgering about the books that Doel had so far failed to send coupled with his meek apologies for his apparent idleness is the source of most of this book’s lighthearted humor. It’s often entertaining to flip from a page containing Hanff’s jocular remarks into another with Doel’s shy reply. On one occasion she, having been hired as a scriptwriter for a murder mystery TV series where “all the suspects and corpses are cultured,” asked whether he would want to be “the murderer or the corpse” in an episode she’d like to do “about the rare book business in his honor.” A month and a half later he replied, “Your Ellery Queen scripts sound rather fun. I wish we could have the chance of seeing some of them on our TV over here—it wants livening up a bit (our TV I mean, not your script).” Whereas Hanff was of frank and lively disposition, Doel’s manner, as behooved his Britishness, was formal and precise, especially at first and sometimes to a fault. “I keep trying to puncture that proper British reserve,” Hanff wrote in a letter to one of Frank’s co-workers, “if he gets ulcers I did it.”

That letter was one of the many others which were not addressed to Doel but were included in the collection as they greatly supplemented the two main correspondents’ bookish banter. Soon after the first few exchanges between Hanff and Doel, other employees of Marks & Co. and members of his family became pen pals with her and offered their thoughts on a variety of topics, including the British royalty, postwar deprivation, Yorkshire pudding, and, of course, Doel himself. Also included were several letters from Hanff’s friend, Maxine, who had the chance to visit the bookstore at 84, Charing Cross Road: “It is the loveliest old shop straight out of Dickens, you would go absolutely out of your mind over it.” To be sure, Hanff did go out of her mind in her reply to Maxine, where she expressed her deep longing to see and smell the shop herself.

Redolent of obsolescence (or is that nostalgia?) from the standpoint of a twenty-first century citizen (or netizen, as it were), the correspondence between Hanff and the people of 84, Charing Cross Road, which lasted for an amazing two decades, is above all symptomatic of a condition that was in full sway then among the more dedicated of readers but is arguably less prevailing now in the digital era: bibliophilia. “I never knew a book could be such a joy to touch,” Hanff wrote a month after sending out her first letter, upon the arrival of a proper match for one of the items in her list. It’s titled “Virginibus Puerisque,” the first collection of essays by Robert Louis Stevenson, which, Hanff told Doel, was “so fine it embarrasses my orange-crate bookshelves, I’m almost afraid to handle such soft vellum and heavy cream-colored pages,” and was in stark contrast to “the dead-white paper and stiff cardboardy covers of American books.” Ah, the visual, tactile, and sometimes olfactory pleasures of book porn. Imagine a present-day Hanff experiencing a similar high from caressing and staring at her Kindle after successfully downloading the same Stevenson collection in e-book format from Project Gutenberg for much less than $5 (read: free). You can’t. You just can’t, for there are “book” lovers, and then there are book lovers. And Hanff, belonging to the latter sort, would sooner defenestrate the Kindle than read a “book” on it.

—
Originally posted on Fully Booked .Me.(less)

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Aug 26, 2012 Steve aka Sckenda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Steve aka Sckenda by: Jennifer (aka EM)

Shelves: about-books, london, new-york-city, writers, friendship, memoir, movie

Helene Hanff is poor script writer in New York City with a taste for antiquarian books, which she purchases from Marx & Co. , a London bookseller located at 84 Charing Cross Road. “Why should I run all the way to 17th Street to buy dirty, badly made books when I could buy clean, beautiful ones without leaving the typewriter?” 84, Charing Cross Road is Helene’s memoir that unfolds through transatlantic letters, dated from 1949 to 1969, between Helene and store employees, who become her friend...more Helene Hanff is poor script writer in New York City with a taste for antiquarian books, which she purchases from Marx & Co. , a London bookseller located at 84 Charing Cross Road. “Why should I run all the way to 17th Street to buy dirty, badly made books when I could buy clean, beautiful ones without leaving the typewriter?” 84, Charing Cross Road is Helene’s memoir that unfolds through transatlantic letters, dated from 1949 to 1969, between Helene and store employees, who become her friends.

Marx & Co. is a “lovely old shop straight out of Dickens,” redolent of must, dust, age, and solid wood. Its bookshelves of “old oak have absorbed so much dust they no longer are their true color.” They send Helene old books of soft vellum and heavy cream colored pages, which she stores in orange crate bookcases in her cramped apartment. In turn, Helene sends her literary friends food parcels (because postwar Britain rationed food as it rebuilt). They reciprocate by sending Helene recipes for Yorkshire pudding, personal photos, and handcrafted linen tablecloths.

Helene prefers English nonfiction from the 17th and 18th Century and memoirs (what she calls, “I-was-there books”). Except for “Pride and Prejudice” and “Tristram Shandy,” she dislikes stories and hates modern novels almost as much as she hates vile abridgements of Samuel Pepys' Diaries. Though a Jewish agnostic, Helene yearns to own the 40 volumes of John Donne's Complete Sermons (which, read aloud, sound to her “like a Bach fugue”).

Helene, who wears her moth-eaten sweaters and wool slacks, hates to read new books and instead covets second-hand books that open “to the page some previous owner read oftenest.” Helene loves inscriptions on flyleafs and notes in margins for the “comradely sense” of turning pages someone else has called her attention to. With pencil, she underlines meaningful text so that, when she dies, she will “point out passages to some booklover yet unborn.”

She dreams of traveling to the UK where she hopes to find “the England of English Literature.” Will Helene ever visit the bookshop? Will a romance develop between she and bookseller Frank Dowel? Does literary England still exist? – even in 1969, the age of the Beatles? Helene concludes that it does exist in the orange-crated books, her lifelong friends and "undead" voices that surround, embrace, and whisper to her.

The spirit of Helene and Frank still exists. I commented on a recent review of this book by Jennifer (aka EM) from Ontario: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... . Through a fortuitous goodreads encounter, Jenn mailed me her copy of “84, Charing Cross Road,” with a personal inscription (like Helene would do). When I received it, I read it and marked it up (like Helene would do). I reciprocated by ordering Jenn a book from an international bookseller without ever leaving my “typewriter” (like Helene).

Moreover, several of us goodreaders have shared digital copies of an out-of-print book, Mortal Leap, which is being resurrected through the dedication of readers that will not let it die. Literary camaraderie and correspondence survive into the second decade of the 21st Century. (less)

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Jan 27, 2013 S©aP rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1900, letteratura-americana

Un viaggio straordinario nell'understatement anglosassone, che diventa poesia. In poche pagine sobrie e divertenti. Vi si narra di libri. Tuttavia, senza parlarne mai o quasi, vi si narra anche di amicizia, austerità, dignità, rispetto, fatica esistenziale, gioia condivisa, educazione, affetti, amore, gelosia, viaggio, aspettative, desideri, dipartita, anzianità, crescita, tradizione, timidezza, corresponsione di sensi, gratitudine, riconoscenza...
O meglio: si lascia sapientemente che sia la no...more

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Feb 15, 2011 Jeanette rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, booky-books, five-star-nonfiction

"If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me? I owe it so much."

This was my second reading of the book, and I'm adding a star to my original rating. I laughed a lot harder this time, and even got a little choked up near the end. I don't recall this much chortling, cackling, guffawing and snorting on my first time through. The contrast between Helene Hanff's brash American informality and Frank Doel's staid British professionalism is delightful. There's a certain charm in his p...more

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Aug 27, 2008 Kirk rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sentimental-faves

Good friends of mine, Dan and Sandy Kendall (whose brother used to be married to my aunt) recommended this short, epistolary romance to me. I read it in one sitting---it's that quick (clocking in at 95 pages) and, yes, that lovely. It's a nostalgic book, reminding one of a time when the thought of love and friendship blossoming over talk of the Collected Works of Walter Savage Landor didn't seem precious. The basic premise is that a New York bibliophile strikes up a relationship with the staff a...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Angus rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: borrowed, reviewed-and-blogged

Original post at Book Rhapsody.

***

A Transatlantic Friendship

Had I not been forced to read this book, I might have never laid my hands on it. I am not too keen on taking up recommendations whether they are from my friends or not because I would like to believe that I have a very distinct taste and I’d hate to experience disappointment when expectations are not met.

But there are rare occasions when I do read a book shoved to my face. If you want to capture such moments, make sure that 1.) the book...more

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Dec 27, 2012 Prashant rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: awesome-reads, book-for-booklovers, something-different, worth-reading

I simply loved this book and have many reasons for it.

My love for books is not old but books have kind of grown on me. I started off ordering online but when my monthly budget kept on overshooting every time I had to hunt for places to buy some clean second hand books at reasonable price. So now I visit a place nearby where book vendors set up their shops on the pavement. Now that I have more time to spend loitering, I visit the place twice a week and get 2 things that I love the most, coffee a...more

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Mar 19, 2013 Dolors rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2012

This edition contains Hanff's letters to Mark and Co sellers and its sequel "The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street". Both books are unusual and delicate treasures for book lovers.
The first book contains the letters Miss Hanff wrote to Mark and Co second hand bookshop, and specially, to Frank, one of the sellers there, for more than 20 years. Through the letters we are offered a real glimpse of what would have been like a post war life in Britain and also the attitude of American and British people r...more This edition contains Hanff's letters to Mark and Co sellers and its sequel "The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street". Both books are unusual and delicate treasures for book lovers.
The first book contains the letters Miss Hanff wrote to Mark and Co second hand bookshop, and specially, to Frank, one of the sellers there, for more than 20 years. Through the letters we are offered a real glimpse of what would have been like a post war life in Britain and also the attitude of American and British people regarding the historical moments they were living.
Helene letters were fresh, witty and they lacked the correct demeanour that her British correspondents required, a fact that gets more and more obvious as the years pass by. She finally breaks though the inflexible English composure and a real friendship emerges from her initial business letters.
The second part is an account of Hanff's stay in London where she is finally able to travel to England and see with her own eyes everything she has read about the country and its great writers, always with smart and funny remarks and that dry sense of humour of her, also present in her letters.
What can I say? I finished the book in one sitting and I felt I wanted more of that letters...it's easy to get carried away and read between those lines. You have to feel something special to maintain such correspondence with a complete stranger, someone you've never met. The fact that these letters were real makes the story even more compelling and, for once, we have proof that something magic can come out of our everyday lives, we just have to be aware of the little miracles happening all around us.

Some quotations from the book:
""Anachronism" implies something long dead, and nothing is dead here. History, as they say, is alive and well and living in London."
"I am so tired of being told what a terrible place New York is to live in by people who don't live there."
"...Shaw once observed, we are two countries divided by a common language."
" In London you shoo them away by talking to them. In New York talking to them would just get you their life stories."(less)

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Feb 13, 2012 TD rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, reading-group, re-read

**SPOILERS**

If you’ve anything approaching a love of books and reading it would be hard not to enjoy this short volume of carefully selected (and I imagine, carefully edited) correspondence between Helene Hanff, a New York script reader/writer, Anglophile and bibliophile, and Frank Doel, assiduous employee of “Marks & Co., Booksellers” in London who supplies Helene’s request for good, clean second hand (and often antiquarian) books. Their letters commence towards the end of 1949, and once He...more

**SPOILERS**

If you’ve anything approaching a love of books and reading it would be hard not to enjoy this short volume of carefully selected (and I imagine, carefully edited) correspondence between Helene Hanff, a New York script reader/writer, Anglophile and bibliophile, and Frank Doel, assiduous employee of “Marks & Co., Booksellers” in London who supplies Helene’s request for good, clean second hand (and often antiquarian) books. Their letters commence towards the end of 1949, and once Helene discovers England is still on food rationing she begins to send relief parcels of meats and eggs to Frank and the other employees of the bookstore. Thus commences a 20 year epistolary relationship, Helene’s generosity seemingly permitting ever greater extravagance in her wittily astringent but good-natured digs at Frank’s sense of British propriety (interestingly, if was Hanff who never had a romantic relationship during her life, while Frank re-married after the death of his first wife and had two daughters) and tardiness in satisfying her far-flung book requests. Sadly, Frank Doel died before Helene could make it to her beloved England to visit. The letters have been judiciously selected to provide a taut but redolent storyline – this necessary because the book could have quite easily slipped down the nostalgia slope. Helene’s bracing tone and humour is key here as well.

Writing about this book today, it is difficult to resist a spot of amateur sociology. Personal letter writing, symbol of Victorian wealth, individualism and an efficient postal service – and a practice largely coterminous with the rise of the novel – seems to find one of its last embodiments in Helene Hanff writing from (and reading alone in) her shabby New York bed-sit. She is an advocate of self-teaching. During the years spanning her correspondence with Frank Doel, America’s post-war sense of self-worth would begin to erode: Rosenburg, Stalin’s atom bomb tests; and reassuring values would be undermined by changing technology, new perspectives (Marshall McLuhan) and the ascension of popular culture (it is telling that in one of his final letters, Frank tells Helene that he likes The Beatles). From this perspective it is inviting to view these letters and the bond shared by Helene and Frank, broken upon his death, as a meditation on – tinctured by lament for - a world passing… “You see how it is, frankie, you’re the only soul alive who understands me”… and how that world is reconstituted imaginatively in/by desire and books. In the final letter, written to a friend travelling to her long-idealised London, Helene admits that the “England of English literature” may or may not in reality exist, but that “Looking around the rug [in my book-laden flat] one thing’s for sure: it’s here”.

As a curious aside, a colleague of mine worked at 84, Charing Cross Road - when it was a music shop, apparently. There you go.

____________________________________

My edition also contains “The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street”, the diary Helene Hanff kept when she did get to England in 1971. To a certain extent the diary gives the lie to the brash swagger of her letters; here Helene is off home turf, not in the best of health and, despite a few cranky spats and quips (I love her teaching the barman how to pour a Martini!), vulnerable - that is to say, she is all the things that can be read between the lines of the patter and persiflage of her missives to Frank Doel. And for that reason, “The Duchess of Bloomsbury” doesn’t settle at the height of its predecessor. The absence of Frank Doel’s voice backlighting Helene’s also planes away some of the depth and counterpoint found in the letters. But that isn’t to say the diary doesn’t make good reading. Or even necessary reading following “84 Charing Cross Road”; to cast things in terms Hanff may have appreciated, these diaries are to the letters what Edgar’s reign was to Leer’s: the famous book shop has been gutted, the Midsummer Night performance is gauchely harlequinesque, Stratford is a tourist trap and Oxford won’t let visitors into its halls. Even Dora and Sheila (Frank’s wife and daughter) are rather ordinary if kind, and Helene herself, in the shadow of Vietnam, no longer feels buoyed by the short-lived, post-WWII pride in American-ness. But she is on holiday and generally having a smashing time, and of course there are moments of epiphany when she receives that sense of humanity-polished tradition of which she craves confirmation and that she imagines fosters the kind of learning and literature she loves. Still, one gets the feeling that this is a version of England which will survive best in the groundless orbit of her reading.

(less)

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Oct 08, 2007 Anne rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was introduced to this book many years ago as a child. I remember just loving it. It is a collection of letters from the late 50s through the 70s between the author, Helene - a writer in New York, and Frank Dole - an antiquarian bookseller. Helene begins in search of rare titles, which Dole doggedly tracks down for her. As their correspondence continues, an interesting friendship develops. Helene sends packages to the bookstore, to be shared by the other workers there. And eventually, she begi...more

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Apr 02, 2007 Jay rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Romatics who don't require romance

The best documentaries are the ones that filmmakers never intentionally set out to make. 84, Charing Cross Road is sort of the literary equivalent to me. Neither of the penpals could have had the foresight to know how deep of a relationship they would forge. Thanks to the prevalence of carbon paper at the time, their timeless correspondence was preserved. I've read this classic four times and it never gets old. It reaffirms my faith that people (strangers) can do great and noble things.

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Sep 04, 2012 Shriya rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone who enjoys reading!

Shelves: tome-travelling, favourites

If I had some authority, any at all, that would have enabled me to crown a book, I would crown '84, Charing Cross Road' as the BEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN .

To Navdeep Randhawa: Nothing could have ever honoured our friendship the way this book did! It is the perfect gift for a fellow admirer of books! Can I ever thank you enough for giving it to me? I think that would be as impossible as giving this incomparable book a review that can fully appreciate it!

To all and sundry: Are you still rea...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Srinivas rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: all-time-fav, non-fiction, books-about-books, autobiography-biography-memoir, writing

Every one

who likes to read books,
who likes to write about books,
who likes to talks about books,
who likes to buy 2nd hand books,
who likes the lavish smell of the books,
who likes to sniff the pages before going to buy the book,

MUST read this book.

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Dec 19, 2012 Ginny rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

”Sembra troppo nuovo e intatto per essere mai stato letto da qualcuno, pure deve essere così: continua ad aprirsi nei punti più deliziosi, il fantasma del precedente proprietario mi fa notare cose che non avevo mai letto prima.
[...] conserverò il mio fino al giorno della mia morte e morirò felice per la consapevolezza che lo starò lasciando a qualcuno che potrà amarlo. Lo riempirò tutto di leggeri segni a matita per indicare i passaggi migliori a qualche amatore di libri non ancora nato.”

Questo...more

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Apr 21, 2009 Melanie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: re-read, gift-i-received

I know it's kind of pathetic that I continue to re-read books, but I was at a low point several weeks ago and needed something to help cheer me up.

84, Charing Cross Road is a charming book, and as I was reading, my fellow bus and metro passengers may have been wondering why I was smiling so much.

Actually, my volume has two parts: The first is 84, Charing Cross Road and the second is The Duchess of Bloombury Street. The former is the correspondence between Helene Hanff (a lover of used books) an...more

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Jan 01, 2009 bookczuk rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookcrossing, biography-autobiography-or-memoir, favorite-author, first-novel-or-book, home-library, made-me-look-something-up, places-i-have-been, satisfying, moxie-review

One of my alltime favorite books. Through the actual letters between a used book store in London and an avid reader in the US, it is possible to get a glimpse of the world in 1949 and after. I always find myself fascinated by the correspondence and daunted by Hanff's reading list. Here's a partial list of the books mentioned in the book. Maybe I should use it as my "I need to read these books" list?

Partial list of the books Helen Hanff ordered from Marks & Co. and mentioned in 84 Charing Cro...more

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Feb 19, 2010 Hazel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Devoured this last night. I'd seen the movie, with Anne Bancroft as Helene, but until a friend recommended it, hadn't thought about the book. Thank you, Jamie, it was fabulous. Initially I thought it was amazingly crafted fiction. It took me a while to realise the letters were real. How revealing these brief interactions can be. I'm not convinced though, by the cover blurb which describes the relationship as a 'love affair'.

As usual when I read books about books, I found myself noting the titles...more

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Jan 25, 2008 Capitu rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is one of my all times favorite books. I have re-read it too many times to keep track, and I have given many copies to friends.

I find it uplifting when I need something upbeat to read. It is also perfect when I have just a couple of hours to devote to a book. But its size - so short - is no indication of the richness in it. This collection of letters between strangers reveals so much about them and the lives that they led: dreams of travel, love of books, financial troubles, solidarity, fr...more

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May 12, 2008 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you love books, you MUST read this one! The letters that Helen and Frank (and the others) write back and forth tell the story so much better than any attempt at narrative form would have. You can't help but fall in love with everyone, and knowing that it's a work of NON-fiction just makes it all the more perfect.

I had wanted to get my hands on this book for a v. long time, and I'm so glad that I finally did. (And I couldn't have picked it up at a more perfect place--a library book sale--one o...more

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May 15, 2007 Lily rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone that is sentimental and romantic

Shelves: suggested-by-a-friend

This book was suggested to me by Mel, my German friend. We have a sort of transatlantic book club going on and she was really surprised that I had never even heard of this book, or the movie that was made from it! This book is a collection of letters between an American Woman and the employees of a rare book shop in London. The letters span from the late 1940s to the early 1960s and as someone who loves writing and receiving letters, I found it incredibly interesting to read the correspondence o...more

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Aug 22, 2008 Trevor rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature

I love this book and love the film they made of it too. It is sloppy and sweet and warm and, you know, just right. It is the sort of book one could read in an hour or two over a pot of tea on a cold winter's afternoon and just enjoy. Pure delight.

If you needed to be reminded that love of literature is as good a foundation of love of the world as any other 'religion', that the people we write to can be closer and dearer to us than those we see day after day - then this really is a book written to...more

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Sep 09, 2011 Kathryn rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Highly recommended to anyone who love books, letters or England

Recommended to Kathryn by: Jeannette

Helene was disgusted with American books lacking quality and availability, especially for the older books she so craved. When she wrote Marks and Co. in England, hopeful of finding a used book she desperately wanted, she found much more. She found a whole group of people who became her friends and who beckoned her to England.

Here is selected correspondence from a nearly twenty year friendship between American writer Helene and British bookstore employee Frank that began in 1949. It's fascinatin...more Helene was disgusted with American books lacking quality and availability, especially for the older books she so craved. When she wrote Marks and Co. in England, hopeful of finding a used book she desperately wanted, she found much more. She found a whole group of people who became her friends and who beckoned her to England.

Here is selected correspondence from a nearly twenty year friendship between American writer Helene and British bookstore employee Frank that began in 1949. It's fascinating not only to see the development of their relationship (and how Helene's charming letters and generous nature prompted others to write her, too) but also the course of history since we begin so soon after WWII. Helene sends the gang and Marks and Co. some much welcomed food since England was still under war rations; in turn, they send her a gorgeous antique book ;-) Fascinating to think that her last letter to Frank was in 1969, so many changes over those two decades!

I loved this book! It's hard to describe it in words because I think much of the beauty of it is the "voice" of the characters, how their personalities just sparkle off the page and I really felt that I came to know them through reading their letters as, indeed, they came to know one another only through letters. Helene seemed like quite the individual and I can just imagine the expression on Frank's reserved British face when he first got her letters which were so unabashed, full of letters in all caps, and multiple exclamation marks ;-) Yet, he did understand her, and I loved how, over the years, his letters lost much of their formality (especially in the very official business-y closing he insisted on using for the first two years!) and he eventually joined his family and co-workers in signing off by "sending his love" to Helene. Letters can be powerful and magical things! I've known a few people who never understood how I could consider my pen-pals "friends"; "but you've never *met* them!" the naysayers cry in disbelief. There is an old quote that says, "More than kisses, letters mingle souls." I think that can certainly be true in a romantic way, and can also be adapted to something like, "More than face-to-face visits, letters mingle souls" and applied to friendship, as well.

Highly recommended to anyone who love books, letters or England! I fit all three and am so happy my friend Jeannette's urging finally got me to read this gem!(less)

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Aug 09, 2007 Mandy rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: writers, readers, book lovers and london-lovers

Nonfiction. An easy read for an evening with tea and biscuits. Helen Hanff writes letters to a bookseller at 84 Charing Cross Rd. requesting he send her various copies of books (classics). While they converse over the course of decades via mail, both letters show the cultural differences of the U.S. and the U.K., as well as reflect the wartime atmosphere in London. Great read.

What's even better is I purchased a book while in london on Charing Cross road. It's my new favorite.

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Dec 06, 2008 Rissie rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book reminds me of the process I go though when buying used books online.

• The book I really want is out of print.
• I order online from a seemingly reputable seller.
• The book does not come as soon as expected and I email to find out what’s going on.
• The seller emails to say that the book has been sent and should arrive any day.
• The book finally arrives in perfect condition and I feel guilty for only having spent $2 on it. Five stars!
• I order another book from the same seller.
• This tim...more

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Feb 02, 2012 Bonnie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-about-books, non-fiction, read-in-2012, adult, british-uk

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4.5 stars

84, Charing Cross Road is a truly delightful true story of friendship retold through a series of letters that were written between 1949 and 1968. The friendship between Helene Hanff and Frank Doel developed after Helene had sent a request for a specific list of books to Marks & Co. in London. From there, the correspondence continued over the years between the two but also between the other employees of Mark & Co. and even with Fran...more

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Oct 12, 2009 Patricia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: booksaboutbooks, britain

Hanff's bookseller, Frank Doel must have had some patience as well as an appreciation for her wit. I can understand his decorous silence after some of his hard searched acquisitions met with laments. However, even Hanff's howls of disappointment generally come across as refreshingly passionate, witty, and sympathetic to anyone who has been pining for a certain volume. I savored Hanff's vividly conveyed pleasure as the books arrive and she lingers over details of binding, cover, and paper. The le...more

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Mar 14, 2010 Najibah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: every book-lovers

Shelves: books-on-books, read-2010, in-current-library, epistolary, fiction

Buku ini antara yang paling cepat saya habisi tahun ini. Beberapa hari tak berpisah dengannya, malah sempat mencatat nota panjang, hati berasa sangat lapang. Paling seronok, buku ini turut memuatkan diari Helene Hanff ketika melawat London, iaitu bukunya sebuah lagi: The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street.

Buku ini membuat saya berfikir tentang banyak perkara mengenai tabiat membaca sendiri. Patutkah saya meneruskan membaca sebarang fiksyen, atau memburu bukan fiksyen yang jauh lebih penting? Patutkah...more Buku ini antara yang paling cepat saya habisi tahun ini. Beberapa hari tak berpisah dengannya, malah sempat mencatat nota panjang, hati berasa sangat lapang. Paling seronok, buku ini turut memuatkan diari Helene Hanff ketika melawat London, iaitu bukunya sebuah lagi: The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street.

Buku ini membuat saya berfikir tentang banyak perkara mengenai tabiat membaca sendiri. Patutkah saya meneruskan membaca sebarang fiksyen, atau memburu bukan fiksyen yang jauh lebih penting? Patutkah saya meneruskan niat menghabiskan 50 buku setahun, atau membaca buku yang benar-benar penting sebanyak 50 kali? Manakah akan lebih bermakna?

Buku ini juga seperti berpesan, agar jangan lelah dalam memburu impian:

I tell you, life is extraordinary. A few years ago I couldn't write anything or sell anything, I'd passed the age where you know all the returns are in, I'd had my chance and done my best and failed. And how was I to know the miracle waiting to happen round the corner in late middle age? 84, Charing Cross Road was no best seller, you understand; it didn't make me rich or famous....It brought me to England. I changed my life (p. 150)

Ini mengingatkan saya kepada 'Law of Attraction' - yang menekankan agar jangan pernah ragu, tetapi percaya bulat bahawa selama kita mewujudkan gelombang-gelombang positif ke arah impian, maka tunggu impian itu mendatangi kita dengan penuh kesabaran.

Mulanya saya fikir akan mencari buku-buku yang Helene sebutkan dalam surat-suratnya, tetapi setelah cuba membaca beberapa baris dari karya-karya Quiller-Coach di http://bartleby.com, saya sangsi dengan keupayaan sendiri untuk setabah Helene, menghabiskan The Art of Writing, buku-buku yang disebut dalam The Art of Writing, serta buku-buku yang disebut dalam buku-buku yang disebut dalam The Art of Writing, selama tempoh 11 tahun. Itulah yang disifatkannya pendidikan kolej, sukatan yang dicarinya sendiri menjangkau Transatlantik dan menghasilkan 84, Charing Street yang sangat diminati oleh para peminat buku.

Pendek kata, sebagai pencinta buku, banyak hal dalam buku epistolari Helene Hanff & Frank Doel ini yang boleh kita kaitkan dengan diri. Oleh sebab buku-buku Helene begitu pendek, sampai di penamat saya masih berasa belum cukup lagi.(less)

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Nov 29, 2012 Lynai rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: borrowed

84, Charing Cross Road is what we call in the book club as our traveling book where a book will be passed on to each member who signed up right after he/she has finished reading it. I was third in line on the list and when it arrived at my office a few months ago, I was excited not so much about reading it, but by the sheer fascination of the concept of a book traveling from one place to another. Hee. :)

This book, 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, is actually a collection of letters betwee...more 84, Charing Cross Road is what we call in the book club as our traveling book where a book will be passed on to each member who signed up right after he/she has finished reading it. I was third in line on the list and when it arrived at my office a few months ago, I was excited not so much about reading it, but by the sheer fascination of the concept of a book traveling from one place to another. Hee. :)

This book, 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, is actually a collection of letters between the author herself who is in New York City and Frank Doel who works at a certain bookshop located at 84, Charing Cross Road in London, England.The correspondence between Helene and Frank and later the bookshop’s staff, portrays a progression of friendship that endured a span of more or less 20 years which began with a query on some hard-to-find books made by Helene on October 5, 1949.

I would love to visit 84, Charing Cross Road if only to relive the moments that were portrayed on the book. Wikipedia says the Marks & Co. bookstore where Frank Doel used to work is no longer there at present, and a restaurant stands in its place.

Helene Hanff is a funny and witty lady as depicted in her letters, and she is kindhearted as well. Frank Doel, on the other hand, tries to maintain a formal demeanor initially considering that he is dealing with a business relationship, but later on he was won over by Helene’s queries and generosity. The books requested by Helene were all antiquarian, I haven’t even heard any of the books mentioned ever, but I am somewhat fascinated with the passion she has with reading and acquiring them.

With the influx of online shops and book stores who have delivery services to almost all parts of the world (i.e. Book Depository), and the growing popularity of ebooks, the ease of which books may be acquired these days is as easy as just a few mouse clicks. The friendship that developed between Helen Hanff and the 84, Charing Cross Road bookstore staff seems to be far from happening in this day and age of digital technology but I would like to think that books will always bind together people who love them, and in this way, I have found it in my book club which initiated this Travelling Book idea. And isn’t it lovely and so apt to have 84, Charing Cross Road as the book to start this concept?

I can’t wait to pass this on to Mae, and I hope wherever 84, Charing Cross Road travels to and in whose hands it will land through time, it will bring with it friendship and kindness and an unceasing love for books.

Also posted in It's A Wonderful Bookworld!(less)

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Dec 29, 2009 Lindsey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own, memoir, favs

This perfect book made me cry in the middle of an airport on New Year's Eve. I am not a crier.

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Nov 15, 2012 julie rated it 5 of 5 stars

i think the timing was right for me and this book. i found it utterly charming, smart and sassy. i was so sad it ended so quickly, i wanted it to go on and on.

it was a library book for me and in typical me fashion, i wrote and underlined in it anyway. in pencil. so fittingly, the first quote i want to remember is about precisely that:

"you leave me sitting here writing long margin notes in library books that don't belong to me, some day they'll find out i did it and take my library card away." (...more

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About Helene Hanff

Helene Hanff (April 15, 1916–April 9, 1997) was an American writer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she is best known as the author of the book 84 Charing Cross Road, which became the basis for a play, teleplay, and film of the same name.

Her career, which saw her move from writing unproduced plays to helping create some of the earliest television dramas to becoming a kind of professional New Y...more Helene Hanff (April 15, 1916–April 9, 1997) was an American writer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she is best known as the author of the book 84 Charing Cross Road, which became the basis for a play, teleplay, and film of the same name.

Her career, which saw her move from writing unproduced plays to helping create some of the earliest television dramas to becoming a kind of professional New Yorker, goes far beyond the charm of that one book. She called her 1961 memoir Underfoot in Show Business, and it chronicled the struggle of an ambitious young playwright to make it in the world of New York theatre in the 1940s and 1950s. She worked in publicists' offices and spent summers on the "straw hat" circuit along the East Coast of the United States, writing plays that were admired by some of Broadway's leading producers but which somehow never saw the light of day.

She wrote and edited scripts for a variety of early television dramas produced out of New York, all the while continuing to try and move from being what she called "one of the 999 out of 1,000 who don't become Noel Coward." When the bulk of television production moved to California, her work slowly dried up, and she turned to writing for magazines and, eventually, to the books that made her reputation.

First published in 1970, the epistolary work 84 Charing Cross Road chronicles her 20 years of correspondence with Frank Doel, the chief buyer for Marks & Co., a London bookshop, on which she depended for the obscure classics and British literature titles around which her passion for self-education revolved. She became intimately involved in the lives of the shop's staff, sending them food parcels during England's post-war shortages and sharing with them details of her life in Manhattan.

Due to financial difficulties and an aversion to travel, she put off visiting her English friends until too late; Doel died in December 1968 from peritonitis from a burst appendix, and the bookshop eventually closed. Hanff did finally visit Charing Cross Road and the empty but still standing shop in the summer of 1971, a trip recorded in her 1973 book The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street.

In the 1987 film of 84 Charing Cross Road (film), Hanff was played by Anne Bancroft, while Anthony Hopkins took the part of Frank Doel. Anne Jackson had earlier played Hanff in a 1975 adaptation of the book for British television. Ellen Burstyn recreated the role on Broadway in 1982 at the Nederlander Theater in New York City.

She later put her obsession with British scholar Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch to use in a book called Q's Legacy. Other books include Apple of My Eye, an idiosyncratic guide to New York City, and A Letter from New York (1992), which reprinted talks she gave on the BBC's Woman's Hour between 1978 and 1985.

Hanff was never shy about her fondness for cigarettes and martinis, but nevertheless lived to be 80, dying of diabetes in 1997 in New York City. The apartment building where she lived at 305 E. 72nd Street has been named "Charing Cross House" in her honor. A bronze plaque next to the front door commemorates her residence and authorship of the book.

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Quotes from 84, Charing Cross Road

“I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest. The day Hazlitt came he opened to "I hate to read new books," and I hollered "Comrade!" to whoever owned it before me.” — 73 people liked it

“I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages someone long gone has called my attention to.” — 36 people liked it

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