Recurring themes - Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

I am drawn to stories that feature bookstores, most likely because it is my secret desire to own one of my own. Not all stories about bookstores are happy, but all of them have an important message within them. My most recent bookstore read is Matthew Sullivan's Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, which centers around Lydia Smith one of the employees. Lydia we learn is a survivor of a horrific crime one that has changed her and how she relates to the world. To compound to her sorrows, she is the first to discover the body of a customer who has committed suicide in the store. He has left her a clue - a photograph of herself at her tenth birthday party surrounded by her two best friends.

The story continues to unfold as we learn about Lydia's past and how she begins to unravel the unusual suicide notes left behind by Joey. Joey has cleverly paired books that he owns with books still in stock at the store, his books have windows cut out from them which when overlaid the corresponding pages in the store's books reveal a message. Lydia is forced to find the truth about how her past and Joey's are intertwined.  

What through me for a loop (SPOILER ALERT) was that central to this story is the search for a birth parent. This is the second book this month that I've read that featured this theme at its heart (see post on Celine). Of course this may simply be another case of Baader-Meinhof (see post) that I am experiencing. Either way, both of these novels reveal the heartbreak of families when they are separated from one another. 

My favorite fantasy read - Owning a bookshop

Jenny Colgan's
The Bookshop on the Corner

Escapist literature is different for every reader and every once in a while you just need to get away from the world and into a good book. Life has been stressful lately - job, a family member with health problems, and the national election season - and I for one just needed to get away from it all. Thanks to the local library I found just the thing in Jenny Colgan's newest The Bookshop on the Corner. Colgan took me to Scotland and introduced me to a wonderful group of townsfolk, and to Nina Redmond a laid-off librarian who found the gumption to become the owner of a traveling bookshop.

Oh I've read lots of books that take place in bookshops and I dream of one day being independently wealthy enough to run one of my own. I know it's not easy running your own business let alone run a bookshop in today's electronic age. But studies show that people still like to read paper books and it might just lead to living longer. And who wouldn't want to tap into that.

I think this fantasy of mine may have started with reading Carolyn G. Hart's Death on Demand series where her protagonist inherits her uncle's bookstore. Other mystery based stories by Lorna Barrett's  set in a fictious Southern New Hampshire town, which based on the geographic clues isn't all that far from where I live, continue to feed my fantasies. As long as there are authors willing to write stories about bookstores, I will be willing to read them.

In search of a good read links:
Cozy mysteries set in bookstores