Sunday, December 14, 2008
Back and Forth
The book for this week's review (which I read today in fact) is 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. The book is a collection of letters between Helene, a writer living in New York searching for obscure book and famous titles of British literature, and the workers of Marks and Co., a secondhand bookshop, with most of the correspondence between Helene and Frank Doel (as well as Doel family). The letters were quite moving especially since Helene would spend some of her meager salary sending packages of food to the employees of the store (as well as a neighbor of the Doels) during the heavy rationing period of the post World War II. The correspondence occurs over the course of about 20 years. The letters are quite lovely, a times humorous or sad but always with an obvious passion for literature. The book has been adapted into a TV miniseries, the stage, and a movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft (and Judi Dench as Frank's wife). I'm planning on watching the movie sometime (through Netflix) since the book is still very fresh in my mind.
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3 comments:
You will absolutely LOVE the movie - Anne Bancroft is wonderful, and Anthony Hopkins plays a stiff-upper-lipped Brit with underlying emotion to a T...or is that Earl Grey tea?
It's one of my favorite movies - makes me laugh and cry - mostly because Anne reminds me of my mom. Let me know what you think!
It's tooooo sad! Don't do it.
My last name is Doel and I haven't read the book yet. I've always meant to . . . your review encourages me to get on with it.
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