The Bookshop

Penelope Fitzgerald’s wonderful Booker-nominated novel.This | Penelope Fitzgerald’s second novel | was her first to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It is set in a small East Anglian coastal town | where Florence Green decides | against polite but ruthless local opposition | to open a bookshop. ‘She had a kind heart | but that is not much use when it comes to the matter of self-preservation.’Hardborough becomes a battleground | as small towns so easily do. Florence has tried to change the way things have always been done | and as a result | she has to take on not only the people who have made themselves important | but natural and even supernatural forces too. This is a story for anyone who knows that life has treated them with less than justice.