The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street

The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street

  - Helene Hanff

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It is almost one and a half years since I read ‘84, Charing Cross Road’, the delightful memoir by Helene Hanff. The 20-year old friendship cultivated over a shared love of books comes across beautifully in Helene’s engaging writing interspersed with humor and full of charm in this work. Ever since then, I have wanted to read ‘The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street’, but I wanted to buy the paperback for both the books and kept waiting for the price to come to a reasonable level; in the end, I gave up and went with the kindle version of The Duchess also.

In this book, Helene describes her long-awaited visit to London, a fulfillment of her lifelong dream. The few weeks that she manages to stay there, are full of meeting old friends and making new ones, visits to places with close ties to her literary heroes, and of course, literary events. It must have been a bittersweet experience for her, with Frank Doel gone and Marks and Company, the bookshop where this journey started, closed down. But what comes through in the writing is her unbridled joy in here and now, and the thought that impresses upon you is – here is a woman who knows how to experience life.

Related in a warm, conversational tone, it is full of her own brand of humor, which I found really captivating. I found it even more enchanting than the first book - we experience the city and other places through her eyes, share in her excitement and disappointments and feel the charm of not just her words, but also her personality. It is made richer by her in-person interactions with people, from old and new friends, to editors and readers, to hotel staff and strangers.

I highly recommend both the books!