Ok, I'm not one for flourishing adjectives, but this book truly is delicious. I first picked up "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society" at the local library, loved it, and then it was suggested to me to read "84, Charing Cross Road." What a treat! This is a collection of real letters between NYC writer Helene Hanff and a small London bookshop in post-WWII society. It gives the reader a good glimpse into the how much, and how little, society and literature has changed. They have since made this into a stage play, a tv special and a movie with Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. A wonderful read any day of the year.

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A charming book for book lovers. Ms. Hanff captures a slice of life that is gone forever. You feel you come to know each character in the book, and hate to reach the last page.

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I enjoyed this series of letters between a NYC lady and a London bookshop starting a few years after WWII. It was so interesting and such easy reading that I finished it in one day.

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What a lovely book. It is a quick read, but really captures a relationship between friends and books. I loved it.

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When I received the book, I was somewhat disappointed because it was so small. I rarely buy small books because I read so quickly, but I'm so glad I read this one. It a truly captivating story that will stay with me all my years.

It says on the cover, "A 20 year transatlantic love affair by mail." If there is a love affair going on, its with Books. These two people have a wonderful friendship, but there is definitely no love affair going on between them, so I'm disappointed they put that on the cover, although they may have been referring to the books.

This is a book I would recommend to anyone. Its truly magical. There is no way I can part with this one, I'm keeping this on my shelf. :)

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A really good quick read...
84, Charing Cross Road is a charming record of bibliophilia, cultural difference, and imaginative sympathy. For 20 years, an outspoken New York writer and a rather more restrained London bookseller carried on an increasingly touching correspondence. In her first letter to Marks & Co., Helene Hanff encloses a wish list, but warns, "The phrase 'antiquarian booksellers' scares me somewhat, as I equate 'antique' with expensive." Twenty days later, on October 25, 1949, a correspondent identified only as FPD let Hanff know that works by Hazlitt and Robert Louis Stevenson would be coming under separate cover. When they arrive, Hanff is ecstatic--but unsure she'll ever conquer "bilingual arithmetic." By early December 1949, Hanff is suddenly worried that the six-pound ham she's sent off to augment British rations will arrive in a kosher office. But only when FPD turns out to have an actual name, Frank Doel, does the real fun begin.
Two years later, Hanff is outraged that Marks & Co. has dared to send an abridged Pepys diary. "i enclose two limp singles, i will make do with this thing till you find me a real Pepys. THEN i will rip up this ersatz book, page by page, AND WRAP THINGS IN IT." Nonetheless, her postscript asks whether they want fresh or powdered eggs for Christmas. Soon they're sharing news of Frank's family and Hanff's career. No doubt their letters would have continued, but in 1969, the firm's secretary informed her that Frank Doel had died. In the collection's penultimate entry, Helene Hanff urges a tourist friend, "If you happen to pass by 84, Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me. I owe it so much."

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My favorite book ever.

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Fantastic and so easy to read! I have several copies so I always have one for loaning - they never come back! You will cry that the book comes to an end.

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I have stated reading it, I don't care for the style of writing. I lived in England for 3 years so it did bring back memories so I am enjoying it.

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Loved this book. It gave a lovely picture of the time & the places.

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Delightful book! So much character revealed in the short little letters.

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one of my all-time favorites
The restraint, growing connection, both humor and sadness in this exchange of letters - a wonderful read!

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I just finished reading this and I have to say I am utterly charmed.
The idea of a friendship across the ocean through letters and books and gifts. Right up my alley. Loved it!

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This short book of letters between Helene Hanff and a London bookseller are full of charm, erudition, opinion and grace. Reading it makes you want to take up some of the classics sitting on the shelf and get reading.

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This charming classic, first published in 1970, brings together twenty years of correspondence beetween Helene Hanff, a freelance writer living in NYC and a used book dealer in London. Through the years, though never meeting and separated both geographically and culturally, they share a winsome, sentimental friendship based on their common love for books. Their relationship, captured so acutely in these letters, is one that will grab your heart and not let go.

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