I read this one again after recommending it to someone and realizing it had been a while. I adored this book when I first read it, it was right down my bookish street and in Helene Hanff I found someone with both my love of books and sense of humour. Hanff is the author of the (famous in the bookish world) epistolary book, 84, Charing Cross Road. That book charts a relationship she formed with the employees of a bookstore located in London at that address. She lived in New York and didn’t have much money, but liked old books that she had a lot of trouble finding in the US. She found an add for Marks & Co. booksellers in London, wrote to them, and thus began a set of relationships that would far outlive the store itself.
In this book, Hanff shares her own reading history, how she came to love the books she did, and how her life went both before and after her most famous book. In this she has challenges, moves around, changes careers, and travels. She takes us along with her, and though most of the time it’s just pretty normal stuff, somehow it is a book that I just love spending time in. It’s comforting and familiar and feels like the perfect place to go when life is a bit much.
I can’t believe I didn’t think to read this earlier in the pandemic, but I’m really glad I did now. I don’t have a whole lot more to say about the book, other than that it’s still one of my all-time favourites, that everyone who loves books should read it, likewise everyone who loves 84. It’s just a brilliant little piece of bookish life.
This is the remarkable story of how Helene Hanff came to write 84, Charing Cross Road, and of all the things its success has brought her. Hanff recalls her serendipitous discovery of a volume of lectures by a Cambridge don, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. She devoured Q’s book, and, wanting to read all the books he recommended, began to order them from a small store in London, at 84, Charing Cross Road. Thus began a correspondence that became an enormously popular book, play and television production, and that finally led to the trip to England – and a visit to Q’s study – that she recounts here. In this exuberant memoir, Hanff pays her debt to her mentor and shares her joyous adventures with her many fans. – Goodreads
Book Title: Q’s Legacy
Author: Helene Hanff
Series: No
Edition: Paperback
Published By: Penguin Books
Released: August 5, 1986
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir, Writing, Reading
Pages: 177
Date Read: February 17-May 14, 2022
Rating: 10/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.02/5 (1,748 ratings)
This sounds great! I’ve never heard of it before. So many books to add to the TBR! I see your Top Ten Tuesday headline above this, and it sounds like a good topic. I could put 100 on the list, probably. It’s been forever since I’ve managed a Tuesday post, because I barely get my Monday post done before Tuesday!
I love it. I don’t think it’s everyone’s cup of tea, as it’s quiet and has a bit of an irreverent sense of humour, but it’s fantastic if that’s your thing. You’ll like it if you like 84, Charing Cross Road. It was a hard topic – because I had to narrow it down! I hear you. I do the Tuesdays in advance, so they’re usually scheduled, but then I never manage to get Mondays as they have to be done live since I’ll never know which books I’ll finish that week!