The Bookshop on the Corner

by Jenny Colgan

Of course she had been to Narnia and the Little House on the Prairie, and Wonderland,

Nina felt nervous. In novels, this usually meant that the next person you met was going to try and kill you and the rest of the community was going to cover it up, or everyone would turn into a werewolf.

she’d fantasized about a friendly farmer’s wife and home-baked apple pie and cream, then realized that she was thinking about an Enid Blyton novel, not a real place she was actually visiting.

For most of her life, the outdoors had simply been something to shelter from while she got on with her reading.

whenever reality, or the grimmer side of reality, threatened to invade, she always turned to a book. Books had been her solace when she was sad, her friends when she was lonely. They had mended her heart when it was broken, and encouraged her to hope when she was down.

“Just do something. You might make a mistake, then you can fix it. But if you do nothing, you can’t fix anything. And your life might turn out to be full of regrets.”

And for the children, she could show them where to dive into a crocodile-infested river, or fly through the stars, or open the door of a wardrobe

She tried to think of what Nancy Drew would do. Or Elizabeth Bennet, or Moll Flanders.

Very wrong. In Birmingham when it rained you popped into a café or stayed inside your cozy centrally heated house or went to the Bullring so you could wander around in comfort.

“when my parents were little, books were banned in my language. That is why, alas, I read in Russian first and then in the beautiful music of my homeland. So. Anything that spreads books and brings about more books, I would say it is good. Good medicine, not bad.”

It’s like an entire generation has been thrown into a world they don’t understand and where nothing makes sense, and they’ve just been told, tough luck, learn how to type or you can just starve to death.”

“Try this,” she said gently, handing over a copy of The Heart Shattered Glass.

There was a universe inside every human being every bit as big as the universe outside them. Books were the best way Nina knew—apart from, sometimes, music—to breach the barrier, to connect the internal universe with the external, the words acting merely as a conduit between the two worlds.

“Your metaphorical cardigan. Your librarian’s cardigan. It’s as if . . .” This was a long speech from Lennox, and he seemed to be flailing a little bit. “It’s as if you pull something around yourself, make yourself look smaller and more insignificant. Than you really are.”