
An appreciation of Suffolk's bookshops
To celebrate Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Bookshop, Suffolk resident Emma Shercliff, the founder of Laxfield Literary Associates, picks her favourite Suffolk bookshops.
Not every town without a bookshop necessarily wants one, as Florence soon discovers in this wise and funny gem from Penelope Fitzgerald.
In a small East Anglian coastal town, outsider Florence Green decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop. Hardborough becomes a battleground, as small towns so easily do. Florence has tried to change the way things have always been done, and as a result she has to take on not only the people who have made themselves important, but natural and - on occasion supernatural - forces.
About the Author
The novelist and biographer Penelope Fitzgerald won the Booker Prize in 1979 with Offshore before executing a poacher-turned-gamekeeper u-turn and joining the 1991 judging panel.Eve Karpf brings Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Bookshop to life in the audiobook.
The film was written and directed by Isabel Coixet, and the Independent said it ‘may seem like an exercise in cosy heritage cinema but it has an edge’.