A Book to Heal your Soul

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

      I avoided this book the first several times it was suggested to me.  Why would I want to read about a bookshop?  Is the whole book about other people reading?  Sounds boring.

      And then I absolutely lost myself in it. I felt such a warmth and draw to its pages; like it was the place I was meant to be.  The character’s pain and struggles and sadness really drew you in as much as their vitality for life (when they began to discover it).

There wasn’t a character in the book that “looked” like me – I am a mom of little kids, married for five years to the man I love, and a former teacher – the main character was a fifty-year-old man who had been living a closed-off life mourning the loss of his true love 20 years prior. But the idea that we all are growing in life, we can realize problems and solutions, we struggle through to find love and happiness and beauty connected me to each unique character.

      Jean Perdu runs a book apothecary.  Books have a healing power, a motivational sway, and an outlet for emotions that people just need sometimes – and Perdu was able to deliver it. He was a soul reader. He would look into his customer’s inner beings, search them, and come up with a book that would heal their ailments.

      The language envelopes you; you can almost smell the sea as Nina George describes it, you can feel Perdu’s pain knot in your stomach as his grief encapsulates him, and you can feel the edge of desire ride through your skin as he discovers love again.

      Go with Perdu on his adventure down the river in his bookshop and through the veins of his heart as they begin to learn how to let the life blood through them again.

You can find The Little Paris Bookshop here.

Hannah