Friday, March 10, 2017

The Storied Life of A.J Fikry / Gabrielle Zevin / 260 pgs

I read this book solely because a friend of mine said it was her favorite book ever. I wasn't sure if our tastes exactly aligned, but it was a wonderful book. I highly recommend it to anyone. It has so many great quotes in it, that I find I want to make some sort of cross stitch pattern and stitch all of my favorite quotes.

The book is about a 39 year old widower, A.J. Fikry, whose wife died in a car accident the year before. He is old and grouchy before his time. He owns the only bookstore on the fictional Alice Island off the coast of Massachusetts, and lives in an apartment above it. One day he finds a 2 year old girl in his bookstore with a note from the girl's mom. The mom can no longer care for her child and wants the girl, Maya, to be raised among books. What A.J. decides to do afterwards changes his life and makes him a better man and a better bookseller.

Here are some quotes from the book that I loved:

Sometimes books don't find us until the right time.” 
"We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. "
We are not quite novels. We are not quite short stories. In the end, we are collected works.”
They had only ever discussed books but what, in this life, is more personal than books?”
We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on.” 
"Someday, you may think of marrying. Pick someone who thinks you're the only person in the room.”
Every word the right one and exactly where it should be. That's basically the highest compliment I can give.”
"And I like talking about books with people who like talking about books."

No comments:

Post a Comment