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This is not a book, at least to use. They are letters, not too many, about books. And about life. Letters that were never written for publication. Everything happened by chance and with an ocean in between. That such simple letters will be able to move thousands and thousands of outside readers proves once again that there is no formula that guarantees anything in literature.

The story starts on October 5, 1959 in New York. Helene Hanff , a 33-year-old girl who tries to gain a foothold in the theater as a writer, sends a letter to an English bookstore specializing in exhausted books after seeing an announcement in the Saturday Review of Literature . In the letter he defines himself as "a poor writer who loves old books" , sends a list of the titles that interest him and asks that the price not exceed five dollars per book. Twenty days later he receives a response from Marks & Co. Booksellers, located at 84, Charing Cross Road in London. And so, in a discontinuous swing, the relationship will continue for 20 years.

As the letters cross over, many details are discovered that will strengthen the deal, first of you and then more familiar. In each of them, and there is the grace, the personal comments ("my shelves made with boxes of oranges") alternate with the literary ones or about the peculiarities of a particular volume , mostly delicate ("a book like this , with glittering leather binding, its gold prints and its beautiful typography should be in a wood-clad library of a manor house in the English countryside ").

Letters from Sam Pepys, the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, Catulo, Virginia Woolf, Tristram Shandy, John Donne, Izaak Walton's perfect rod fisherman ... and various judgments parade: "You will be amazed to know [Helene writes Hanff to Frank Doel, his usual correspondent], from someone like me, who hates novels, that I've ended up daring with Jane Austen and I've been so passionate about Pride and prejudice ... " Or tips on how to clean a Grolier Bible, for which normal soap and water should be used, put a teaspoon of sodium carbonate in half a liter of warm water and use a soapy sponge; It can be brightened with a little lanolin. Also, for the not too seasoned reader, it is reported that the rations in Britain lasted from World War II until 1953, when nylon stockings could already be found in stores. Earlier, Helene Hanff had already managed so that the women employed at 84, Charing Cross Road had their pantyhose and did not lack powdered eggs or tongue cans.

Not all were trusts from the beginning because until 1952 Helene Hanff does not openly tell them that she makes a living as a crime script writer for a television series. He has also revealed that he smokes and drinks gin, that he is Jewish, messy and that he belongs to a Democratic club that he attends regularly, that he wears jumpers and corduroy pants and that he has found a perfect clipboard (a dessert knife with a mother of pearl handle ).

Details are falling here and there, sprinkled, but they often refer to books: " It is against my principles to buy a book that I have not read before : it is like buying a dress without trying it on," "I love the notes in the margins : I like the feeling of camaraderie that arouses turning pages that someone else has gone through before, "" the ghost of its previous owner points to paragraphs "...

The letters, for the most part, are answered by the Frank Doel bookstore, who is very difficult not to imagine as Anthony Hopkins, who, of course, starred in the film version with Anne Bancroft in The Final Letter (1987). Frank Doel is a meticulous and seasoned bookseller, very correct in the deal, who constantly encourages her to visit London . She, between her aversion to travel and her lack of money will delay her ... too much. When he finally decided, in 1971, Frank Doel had died and his bookstore was closed.

Two years before, going over the letters, he thought about publishing them as a story for a magazine but the text was too long. A friend handed them to an editor who saw his charm on the fly: the same day he read them he called Helene Helff and told him that he published them in book form. In 1975 the BBC produced a TV movie, in 1981 it triumphs as a theater adaptation in London and the following year on Broadway. And in 1987, the movie. In Spain, Isabel Coixet chose these letters for her debut as a theater director in 2004.

Nevertheless, this self-taught woman never had a high regard for herself : "I am a writer without culture or too much talent." He moved from his New York apartment, with his gin (others say whiskey, other than martini) and his cigarettes to a nursing home. He died there, without heirs and with diabetes, at 80, Thomas Simonnet tells a post scriptum in the Anagram edition.

If the letters touched the danger , with misunderstandings or timid insinuations, it is difficult to secure. Who did have it clear was the wife of Frank Doel, who wrote: "I have felt very jealous of you (...) I have also envied your ease of writing. Frank and I had opposite temperaments: he kind and calm; I, for my Irish ancestry, always fighting for my rights. "

Under the details of Helene Hanff with the six employees of the bookstore, her temper was beating . In 1950 it starts like this: WE ARE GOOD! Today I just want to say one thing ..., to YOU, Frank Doel: that we live in a depraved, destructive and degenerate era, in which a bookstore - a LIBRARY! - has no qualms about tearing apart beautiful books to use its pages as wrapping paper. "

Character and destiny.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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