The Bookshop on the Corner: A Novel

by Jenny Colgan

Lucy Price-Lewis (Narrator)

Nina Redmond is a literary matchmaker. Pairing a reader with that perfect book is her passion... and also her job. Or at least it was. Until yesterday, she was a librarian in the hectic city. But now the job she loved is no more. Determined to make a new life for herself, Nina moves to a sleepy village many miles away. There she buys a van and transforms it into a bookmobile--a mobile bookshop that she drives from neighborhood to neighborhood, changing one life after another with the power of storytelling. From helping her grumpy landlord deliver a lamb, to sharing picnics with a charming train conductor who serenades her with poetry, Nina discovers there's plenty of adventure, magic, and soul in a place that's beginning to feel like home... a place where she just might be able to write her own happy ending.

• ISBN10: 0062643215
• ISBN13: 9780062643216
• Publish Date: 20 September 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: HarperAudio
• Edition: Unabridged edition
• Format: Audiobook (MP3)
• Duration: 9 hours and 48 minutes
• Language: English

Reviews

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

I loved this book and I hated this book and literally nothing in between. Rather than have a completely ranting review, I’m going to try and sandwich the good and the bad together so we end up with a towering sandwich of Scooby Doo fame.

First of all, the book talk. I loved all the conversation about books. There were phrases and sentiments I related to so thoroughly, I wanted to reach out and embrace Jenny Colgan for just getting it. There was a moment where Nina reflected back on her childhood, and how her parents used to usher her out of the house to enjoy nature, so she promptly climbed a tree and read a book. This is absolutely how I spent my summers. I felt like Jenny Colgan heard my bookishness on a deep level and I adored that.

And I hated the romance. In all fairness, this book is marketed as a romance and I blatantly ignored that bit because I heard it was a book about books and I wanted to go to there. Besides, just about every book is marketed as a romance these days on one level or another. But let’s be real about the romance in The Bookshop on the Corner… it has all the cheesiest tropes. There’s a love triangle for most the book. Nina first falls in love with Merrick, who is repeatedly described as having “puppy dog eyes”. Then there’s the rustic farm boy, dark and bitter Lennox. Lennox is broken and bitter from his divorce, and Nina is a sweet romantic soul that brings a little light into his life while Lennox helps ground her.

But this does take place in gorgeous, rustic Scotland. With a little description, Jenny Colgan brings the fences and rolling hills and the sweet small town life. This is a place that still has barn dances and everyone known everyone and a city girl with a van full of books can make readers out of them all. The setting is terribly romantic and beautiful. I love places like this.

But on the other hand, Nina is a little too good. She’s naive mostly, but also fierce when the situation calls for it. She does whatever she pleases – even though they are small, nice things – and there’s no fallout or true consequences for her actions. She’s not classically beautiful, but everyone tells her she’s pretty. At the end of the book, Nina gets her happily ever after because of course she does. The characters are a little too smooth on the edges. I found myself rolling my eyes a lot. A lot.

All these elements rolled together pretty easily, so every time I was getting ready to put the book away and lecture the world about how tedious a passionate romance can be (read: I am not, and will never be, a romantic), something lovely popped in and I was okay with it and kept reading until the book was done. There’s a lot to be said about it, and this is an awesome book for people much less jaded than I am.

If you’re a romantic person, or if you like dreamy love stories, this is a wonderful book. The characters are perfectly sweet and wonderful and it’s easy to enjoy them. If you’re a book lover who also loves romance, this book is especially made for you. I really, really do recommend this to anyone, anyone, who enjoys romance because altogether this is a fantastic book for the right reader.

But, if you are a book lover, something to keep in mind: the books in this story are made up. So, um, don’t do what I did and try to find them on Goodreads to add to your TBR.

[mrs_mander_reads]

This was wonderful and cozy. Definitely chick-lit, but perfection.

[MurderByDeath]

Stupid pedantic complaint:  as it says on the back of the book, Nina opens a mobile bookshop.  So the title is driving me a little nuts.  It's not on the corner; it's a bookshop in a van.  It would, in fact, be hard for it to be on the corner without blocking a street.   Anyway, moving on, it's a pretty fantastic book.  About loving books.  Loving them so much you collect them all and bring them home until they start to exceed the limits of what your home's structure was engineered to put up with.  It's about friends, and small towns in the highlands of Scotland, and more books and eventually, there's a romance, but mostly it's about chucking everything and reinventing your life.  With books.   I've seen some comparisons to Sarah Addison Allen, and ... maybe I can see this, if you take away all the magical realism that's such a huge part of Allen's books.  The comparison that came to my mind while I was reading it was, truthfully, just as much of a stretch: Jennifer Crusie.  Colgan doesn't have that snarky overtone of humor, but the style of story - the slower buildup and pacing - is not dissimilar.  I don't read much in this genre so I don't have a lot of comparisons at hand.   There were a few areas where I felt like she skipped over pertinent details, and what happened to Alasdair?  He was an awfully significant cog in the machinery that got Nina her new life, and yet we never see him again - not even to say "thanks".  But I did love it, and I'll read it again someday.

[Kim Deister]

The Bookshop on the Corner I don't read a lot of contemporary romance, but every now and then, one grabs me and won't let go.  This was one of those novels and it was an impulse buy that I am extremely glad I made.  I was initially taken by the cover as it sat on the shelf in my local PX.  I had time to kill and no book with me, so I picked it up and settled into Starbucks and was immediately lost.  In the foreword.  Yes, the foreword.  It was smart and funny and it set the tone for the whole novel.
 
The novel is set in the United Kingdom, first Britain and then Scotland.  I'm from northern New York and living in Hawaii, but I felt like I was transported to the Highlands of Scotland.  Colgan's writing is so perfectly descriptive that I saw everything Nina saw.  It made me feel as if I were a participant in the story, rather than a far off observer.
 
Nina is a librarian who is forced to find a new way to make a living when her library closes to consolidate with another in a cost-saving measure.  She is left not only without a job, but feeling as if the printed word was a dying breed.  But it is enough of an impetus to make her throw caution to the wind and follow her dreams of owning her own little bookshop.  But, as is the trend in her life presently, none of her plans go through as they were supposed to and her life moves in totally different directions.  That theme, the idea of life throwing you a curve, is something I think that all readers can relate to on some level.  The idea of having to uproot everything you've known and find a new identity... ideas that are scary for all of us.  But that is what Nina does and it's a story that is truly engaging.
 
And the romance... that is something rather new for Nina, something she is not entirely comfortable with.  And all of a sudden, there is more than one man in her life.  Her former coworker Griffin confesses to his interest in her, which, although she doesn't return it, gives her a spark of confidence.  Then there is Marek, the exotic Soviet train worker she meets in the middle of the most unexpected moment.  Their romance blossoms, a sweet romance that shows promise.  And then there is Lennox, her surly (but gorgeous) landlord with a trainload of baggage of his own.  The twists and turns her love story takes are just as engaging as the rest of the story.
 
One of my favorite parts of the book, beyond the overflow of book love, was a subplot involving a teenage girl.  That story is poignant and tugs at the heartstrings in so many ways.
 
I think the most eye opening moment for Nina, which really hit me, was a a moment when she is driving down the main street of her new home and sees just about everyone in sight reading.  That scene was everything that I believe to be true about books and it was a great bit!

[layawaydragon]

I loved everything about The Bookshop on the Corner.

Except the name. It’s a bookmobile not a corner store, which gave me the wrong mental image. Same with the book cover. I want to see the van. It’s awesome. Come on, work with me here!

So I should say, everything substantial was perfect. I knew when I started the Message to Readers dedication this was going to be good. That was adorable and sweet. Don’t skip it! I LOVE Colgan’s voice/writing. Her backlog is now on my TBR list.

The Good:

LOVED Nina
Loved the writing
Loved the plot
Loved the message to readers in the beginning
Every character felt real
Quotable
Book recommendations

Nina is wonderful and flawed. I connected with her so much it hurt. She’s been coasting through her life with books and her life is in upheaval with the library’s new direction.

It’s a mid-life crisis. She’s a hopeless romantic. It’s brilliantly introspective rather than external cruising for dudes and make-overs. I am so impressed with how real her character is, her internal dialogue, and her progression.

The first third is set-up: her life at the library, what’s changing, and getting on the path to the aforementioned bookmobile store. At no point was I anxious to move on. I loved every minute of it.
She’d managed to hold reality at bay for the best part of thirty years, but now it was approaching at an incredibly speedy rate, and she was absolutely going to have to do something—anything—about it.

And then the fun of her new venture began. OH BOY! Here’s two non-spoiler pieces that I picked out: the ewe birth and silly conversation about what kind of a sofa Nina's is.

After that, I sped through it. I couldn’t stop to make Goodreads updates. I did make pages of bookmarks and highlights though. Including like every passage about book recommendations.

Not only was it a book lover's dream, it wasn't predictable. I didn't know who, how or why as far as the romance and Nina's business went.

There are some sex scenes later on. It’s glossy perfection rather than erotic details, which can be read in public without embarrassment. I was reading my copy at work because it was slow and I couldn’t resist.

P.S. very disappointed Up on the Rooftops isn’t a real book. I honestly searched for it after finishing The Bookshop on the Corner, desperate to read it. That’s just mean, Colgan.