84, Charing Cross Road

Overseas book hunt
leads to ham care packages
pork, that's true friendship.

This is a short book, but delightful. You get so much from so little correspondence. The people we meet really stick with us.

Well, this was lovely. Do yourself a favor and sit down for 2 hours to read it. Useful things I did not realize until I had the book:
1.) It's incredibly short
2.) It's not fiction. These are real letters Hanff collected and published.
3.) 95% of the books discussed hold no interest for me, and that didn't detract in the slightest.

Sometimes Hanff would annoy me with her sass, but then I'd remember that she was a lady living on her own in NYC in 1949&c, and making a living as a writer. Sass. Earned. And her actions make abundantly, touchingly clear that she was kind and giving, so mock-irate messages about the quality of a Latin Vulgate are completely excusable.

This also gives an eye-opening window into post-war conditions in England. That people would be so grateful for even powdered eggs speaks more poignantly than any history book ever could.