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Jul. 12th, 2025 11:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantslest you think that having returned The Pushcart War to its rightful owner I went away with my bookshelves lighter! I did NOT, as she pushed 84, Charing Cross Road into my hands at the airport as I was leaving again with strict instructions to read it ASAP.
This is another one that's been on my list for years -- specifically, since I read Between Silk and Cyanide, as cryptography wunderkind Leo Marks chronicling the desperate heroism and impossible failures of the SOE is of course the son of the owner of Marks & Co., the bookstore featuring in 84, Charing Cross Road, because the whole of England contains approximately fifteen people tops.
84, Charing Cross Road collects the correspondence between jobbing writer Helene Hanff -- who started ordering various idiosyncratic books at Marks & Co. in 1949 -- and the various bookstore employees, primarily but not exclusively chief buyer Frank Doel. Not only does Hanff has strong and funny opinions about the books she wants to read and the editions she's being sent, she also spends much of the late forties and early fifties expressing her appreciation by sending parcels of rationed items to the store employees. A friendship develops, and the store employees enthusiastically invite Hanff to visit them in England, but there always seems to be something that comes up to prevent it. Hanff gets and loses jobs, and some of the staff move on. Rationing ends, and Hanff doesn't send so many parcels, but keeps buying books. Twenty years go by like this.
Since 84, Charing Cross Road was a bestseller in 1970 and subsequently multiply adapted to stage and screen, and Between Silk and Cyanide did not receive publication permission until 1998, I think most people familiar with these two books have read them in the reverse order that I did. I think it did make sort of a difference to feel the shadow of Between Silk and Cyanide hanging over this charming correspondence -- not for the worse, as an experience, just certain elements emphasized. Something about the strength and fragility of a letter or a telegram as a thread to connect people, and how much of a story it does and doesn't tell.
As a sidenote, in looking up specific publication dates I have also learned by way of Wikipedia that there is apparently a Chinese romcom about two people who both independently read 84, Charing Cross Road, decide that the book has ruined their lives for reasons that are obscure to me in the Wikipedia summary, write angry letters to the address 84 Charing Cross Road, and then get matchmade by the man who lives there now. Extremely funny and I kind of do want to watch it.
This is another one that's been on my list for years -- specifically, since I read Between Silk and Cyanide, as cryptography wunderkind Leo Marks chronicling the desperate heroism and impossible failures of the SOE is of course the son of the owner of Marks & Co., the bookstore featuring in 84, Charing Cross Road, because the whole of England contains approximately fifteen people tops.
84, Charing Cross Road collects the correspondence between jobbing writer Helene Hanff -- who started ordering various idiosyncratic books at Marks & Co. in 1949 -- and the various bookstore employees, primarily but not exclusively chief buyer Frank Doel. Not only does Hanff has strong and funny opinions about the books she wants to read and the editions she's being sent, she also spends much of the late forties and early fifties expressing her appreciation by sending parcels of rationed items to the store employees. A friendship develops, and the store employees enthusiastically invite Hanff to visit them in England, but there always seems to be something that comes up to prevent it. Hanff gets and loses jobs, and some of the staff move on. Rationing ends, and Hanff doesn't send so many parcels, but keeps buying books. Twenty years go by like this.
Since 84, Charing Cross Road was a bestseller in 1970 and subsequently multiply adapted to stage and screen, and Between Silk and Cyanide did not receive publication permission until 1998, I think most people familiar with these two books have read them in the reverse order that I did. I think it did make sort of a difference to feel the shadow of Between Silk and Cyanide hanging over this charming correspondence -- not for the worse, as an experience, just certain elements emphasized. Something about the strength and fragility of a letter or a telegram as a thread to connect people, and how much of a story it does and doesn't tell.
As a sidenote, in looking up specific publication dates I have also learned by way of Wikipedia that there is apparently a Chinese romcom about two people who both independently read 84, Charing Cross Road, decide that the book has ruined their lives for reasons that are obscure to me in the Wikipedia summary, write angry letters to the address 84 Charing Cross Road, and then get matchmade by the man who lives there now. Extremely funny and I kind of do want to watch it.
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Date: 2025-07-12 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-12 08:06 pm (UTC)My partner read _84 Charing Cross Road_aloud to me the first time I read it, which is one of the better ways of absorbing it. Hanff had a few non-84-related books which I haven't read (_Underfoot in Showbusiness_ sounds quite good). The 84-related stuff that she wrote later gets less charming and more formulaic as it goes, so approach with caution. (I haven't seen either of the movies.) (Or the Chinese romcom, wow.)
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Date: 2025-07-12 08:08 pm (UTC)I still haven't read 84, Charing Cross Road! I would look forward to your report on the romcom it inspired, though.
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Date: 2025-07-12 10:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-12 11:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-13 12:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-13 10:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-13 09:47 pm (UTC)That romcom sounds amazing!
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Date: 2025-07-14 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 12:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 12:34 pm (UTC)The friend who lent me 84 Charing Cross Rd is on a quest to collect as much Hanff as possible so I'm relying on her to inform me of gems -- I'm definitely looking forward to experiencing more of her writing at some point.
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Date: 2025-07-26 12:35 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2025-07-26 12:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 12:41 pm (UTC)