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An acclaimed novelist writes about the
unique joys of a good bookstore
Suzanne Shea has always loved a good book—and she’s
written five of them, all acclaimed. In the course of her
ten-year career, she’s done a good bit of touring,
including readings and drop-ins at literally hundreds of
bookstores. She never visited one that wasn’t memorable.
Two years ago, while recovering from radiation therapy,
Shea heard from a friend who was looking for help at her
bookstore. Shea volunteered, seeing it as nothing more than
a way to get out of her pajamas and back into the world.
But over next twelve months, from St. Patrick’s Day
through Poetry Month, graduation/Father’s Day/summer
reading/Christmas and back again to those shamrock displays,
Shea lived and breathed books in a place she says sells “ideas,
stories, encouragement, answers, solace, validation, the
basic ammunition for daily life.” Her work was briefly
interrupted by an author tour that took her to other great
bookstores. Descriptions of these and her memories of book-lined
rooms reaching all the way back to childhood visits to the
Bookmobile are scattered throughout this charming, humorous,
and engrossing account of reading and rejuvenation.
For anyone who loves books, and especially for anyone who
has fallen under the spell of a special bookstore, Shelf
Life will be required reading.
Suzanne Strempek Shea,
winner of the 2000 New England Book Award for Fiction, is
the author of four novels, Selling
the Lite of Heaven, Hoopi Shoopi Donna, Lily
of the Valley,
and Around Again, and the memoir Songs from
a Lead-Lined Room: Notes—High and Low—From My
Journey through Breast Cancer and Radiation.
She lives in Bondsville, Massachusetts, and sells books at
Edwards Books in Springfield.
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