Recommended Reading: 84 Charing Cross Road

I just finished a book that was recommended for my class: 84 Charing Cross Road, by Helene Hanff. It is a slim book, a collection of letters between Helene Hanff and a bookseller in London called Marks & Co., Booksellers. The bookstore is no longer there, but this book is airy and delightful.

Some of my favorite quotes:

"A newspaper man I know, who was stationed in London during the war, says tourists go to England with preconceived notions, so they always find exactly what they go looking for. I told him I'd go looking for the England of English literature, and he said: 'Then it's there.'"


"Thank you again for the beautiful book, I shall try very hard not to get gin and ashes all over it, it's really much to fine for the likes of me."


"I go through life watching the english language being raped before me face. like miniver cheevy**, i was born too late. and like miniver cheevy i cough and call it fate and go on drinking."


Ah, to love books. To stay up until 1 in the morning finishing the best of them.

**Miniver Cheevy

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would send him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam's neighbors.

Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant.

Miniver loved the Medici,
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.

Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing:
He missed the medieval grace
Of iron clothing.

Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.

-- Edwin Arlington Robinson