The Bookshop on the Corner

by Jenny Colgan

Dogs are tremendously good at showing you you don’t have to check your phone every two seconds to have a happy life.

Because every day with a book is slightly better than one without, and I wish you nothing but the happiest of days.

“I never understand,” he said, shaking his head, “why anyone would go to the trouble of making up new people in this world when there’s already billions of the buggers I don’t give a shit about.”

Be silent, hide away and let your thoughts and longings rise and set in the deep places of your heart. Let dreams move silently as stars, in wonder more than you can tell. Let them fulfill you—and be still.

and suddenly out plopped a blinking, brand-new, soaking-wet little lamb. “OH!” said Nina. “OH my goodness!” Lennox looked at her with narrowed eyes. “What on earth did you think was going to come out?” he said. “Something shrink-wrapped at the co-op?”

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.