(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/novelbookstore/novelbookstore.jpg) | The founding of a unique Paris bookstore triggers jealousies and threats in Cossé's intriguing follow-up to The Corner of the Veil (1999). Former comic-book seller Ivan "Van" Georg and stylish Francesca Aldo-Valbelli team to establish the Good Novel, a bookshop that will stock only masterpieces in fiction, which are selected by a secret committee of writers. At first, the warm welcome of the bookstore results in soaring sales. Then attacks in the press, the opening of rival bookstores, and attempts against the lives of committee members by persons unknown sour the atmosphere for the Good Novel's community of readers and writers. Cossé poignantly depicts characters who have turned to literature for solace against the pain in their lives, creates ongoing speculation as to the shadowy first-person narrator, and furnishes sly commentary about gatekeeping in the literary world. --Publishers Weekly Discussion Leaders BarbStAubrey (augere@ix.netcom.com) and Marcie (marciei@aol.com) |
"I have never dreamt of either success of money. I don't think about it. It is elegance that interests me. I mean elegance in the broadest sense - intellectual, moral, physical, elegance in one's relations with other people..."
"Our bookstore is more like a rebellious fashion designer who's had enough of shapeless rags and sinister colors-- so he launches a line of clothing which is all elegance and fun"
"You have just confirmed to me that one of the most fortunate purposes of literature is to bring like-minded people together and get them talking "
"How many great novels exist in French, do you think? Thousands, but how many? Let me formulate the question yet another way: we needn't be afraid of being arbitrary, for our choice of books will be. Let's be downright arbitrary. We'll settle on a number that seems a good place to start, and we'll take it from there."
"We want necessary books, books we can read the day after a funeral, when we have no tears left from all our crying, when we can hardly stand for the pain; books that will be there like loved ones when we have tidied a dead child’s room and copied out her secret notes to have them with us, always, and breathed in her clothes hanging in the wardrobe a thousand times, and there is nothing left to do; books for those nights when no matter how exhausted we are we cannot sleep, and all we want is to tear ourselves away from obsessive visions; books that have heft and do not let us down …"
"We have no time to waste on insignificant books, hollow books, books that are here to please. We want books that are written for those of us who doubt everything, who cry over the least little thing, who are startled by the slightest noise.
"By definition, confusion is beneficial to mediocrity."