It’s a slender little book, yet it contains worlds. The gathered correspondence is a portrait of a friendship created and sustained through words alone, testament to the power of reading and writing to connect us. Not only requests and receipts were to fly across the ocean, but questions, commentary, recipes, food parcels, gifts, insults and endearments.

Thus began a twenty-year exchange of letters and books between an impoverished New York writer and a bookshop in the city of her literary dreams. Your ad in the Saturday Review of Literature says that you specialize in out-of-print books… At some point I opened it and read for the first time: I vividly remember the cover of my parents’ paperback edition, with its red British pillar box and squat American mailbox spewing postmarks at each other on a yellow background. I don’t remember when I first read 84, Charing Cross Road, but I think I must have been between ten and twelve. I would definitely recommend this to everyone who loves books, nonfiction love stories (about books), reading real life letters to and from two very different people, and epistolary stories.Helene Hanff, 84, Charing Cross Road (1970) I just loved everything about it, and I even had a little cry at the end. I really don’t think that there was anything that I didn’t like about this book. John Nettles (narrator of UK TV series Airport) has a very soothing voice, which was perfect for someone who’s very formal and polite. I really loved the narrators too, Juliet Stevenson was able to deliver the sassiness of Helene’s letters, as well as some of the other more formal employees, and Frank’s Irish wife Nora. I couldn’t wait to hear what Helene had to say next, and then what Frank’s reply would be, he always managed to be polite even when she was being very demanding. I really enjoyed hearing all of their correspondences, and I could really relate to their love of literature. After a while, the employees at Marks & Co come to look forward to Helene’s letters, and they also start to write to her as well. These two very different people start this unlikely friendship having never met each other, and separated by an ocean, through their love of books. Frank would always reply to her letters very formally and politely, which really added to its charm. This was absolutely delightful! I really loved Helene, she was sassy, bold, sometimes a little bit rude, and straight to the point. And what followed was 20 years of a beautiful friendship between two very different people who shared a mutual love of books.

Helene started writing letters to secondhand bookshop Marks & Co (at 84 Charing Cross Road) in 1949 to request books that she couldn’t find in New York. The true life correspondence between Helene Hanff, a freelance writer living in New York, and Frank Doel, a secondhand bookseller working for Marks & Co in London.

84 charing cross book