★★★★☆ | Reading and Books | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
I read the first half of this short epistolary book as an excerpt in Stories of Books and Libraries by Jane Holloway. I bought the print edition because the library didn’t offer it and the Kindle version cost too much. I read the rest of it over the course of an hour or two. I suspected it couldn’t end on a bright note and I was right. I shed a few tears at the sudden ending. Such is the way of life. Helene, as the crazy, run-at-the-mouth American contrasts nicely with the British reserve of Mr. Frank Doel. We learn all these bizarre details about Helene’s life, but have to coax the smallest of things from Frank. The spare book without any explanatory text to accompany the letters worked perfectly.
Highlights
Did you know John Donne eloped with the boss’s highborn daughter and landed in the Tower for it and starved and starved and THEN got religion. my word. (Page 47)
I houseclean my books every spring and throw out those I’m never going to read again like I throw out clothes I’m never going to wear again. It shocks everybody. My friends are peculiar about books. They read all the best sellers, they get through them as fast as possible, I think they skip a lot. And they NEVER read anything a second time so they don’t remember a word of it a year later. (Page 54)
Why is it that people who wouldn’t dream of stealing anything else think it’s perfectly all right to steal books? (Page 61)