The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald Search Amazon for other books by or about Penelope Fitzgerald. Rating: Reviewed by: Anne Douglas

Small-town life is a theme that recurs throughout the arts in America. From drama (Grover's Corners in Thornton Wilder's Our Town) to movies (Bedford Falls in It's a Wonderful Life), from television (Mayberry in The Andy Griffith Show) to painting (images by Norman Rockwell), America's small towns are both celebrated and scorned.

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald proves that the challenges of small-town life are not unique to the United States. When relative newcomer Florence Green opens a bookshop in the English coastal town of Hardborough she is forced to admit that her home of ten years is still very much a foreign land. Mrs. Green soon realizes she has more to contend with than a shop that is both constantly damp and haunted. An indifferent customer base, hostile shopkeepers, and her own ignorance hammer Mrs. Green's idealistic vision of a literary gathering place.

Penelope Fitzgerald is a star among England's contemporary writers, the winner of the prestigious Booker Prize in 1979. The Bookshop was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It is a slim novel - less than 125 pages - and so it is tempting to call it "a jewel," to claim that there is not one extra word. But in fact, the book would have benefited by being a bit longer. The character of Florence Green is not well developed; we have no idea what she looks like, for example, and the question of why she thought she could successfully operate a bookshop lingers from start to finish. Supporting characters are also given cursory development, which hardly seems suitable in a book about a town where everyone knows everything about everyone else. In spite of these shortcomings, however, by the time you reach the poignant final sentence, you will be glad to have visited the bookshop in Hardborough.