這是一本關於愛書人和書店（特別是小書店）的故事。
太喜歡了，一連兩天，邊讀邊跟老公和孩子們感嘆，“實在精采！媽媽好喜歡好喜歡這本書！” 到後來弟弟都抱怨，“媽媽，你已經說了好幾次了！” 真的，讀到有趣的地方，我哈哈大笑，好久沒讀到這樣令我笑噴的書；讀到巧妙的名書名句引用，真有和作者心有靈犀一點通的默契，忍不住會心一笑；而讀到悲傷或者暖心到叫人落淚的地方，也叫我拼命用力地吞回去淚水。。。 越讀到後面，越捨不得讀完，而讀完後我立刻重新又讀了一遍。 超級霹靂大推薦！
擁有一間書店是很多愛書人的夢想。 我們一家人都很喜歡讀書，雖然各自喜歡的類型很不一樣，但是我們都很喜歡去書店，瀏覽、買書，一起靜靜地閱讀，享受暢遊書中世界的奇妙樂趣。
可是，你有沒有想過，書店裡那些書，是怎樣從出版社來到書店的書架上呢？ 光是在美國，每年出版的書籍數目高達60萬到1百萬本！ 這麼多要怎麼選？ 這就要仰賴各出版社的業務員了。 有經驗的業務員不但對自家出版社的新書瞭如指掌，和各書店老闆的關係也很緊密，了解他們的喜好，能夠很有效地推薦那些最合適這些書店的新書。
最新讀完的這本小說，“The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry” by Gabrielle Zevin，開篇的場景就是年輕的菜鳥書本推銷員，Amelia，去拜訪Alice小島唯一的一間書店“Island Books”，跟店主A.J.Fikry推銷冬季新書。 不過，這間書店可不像我們想像的那麼浪漫。 書店的老闆，39歲的A.J.個性自負而固執，放棄了在Princeton的文學博士學位，和老婆回她老家麻州Alice小島開了書店。 門口的招牌寫著，“No Man Is an Island; Every Book Is a World”。 多有夢想的一對愛書人伴侶！ 可是不幸， 太太因車禍過世了，A.J.悲痛欲絕；雪上加霜，在一次醉酒後，他最值錢的資產，一本價值40萬的珍藏詩集Tamerlane，也不翼而飛，本來就性情孤僻的他幾乎萬念俱灰。
失去了愛妻，失去了唯一貴重財產，但人生就是這麼奇妙，A.J.的店裡居然出現一個女棄嬰！ Maya的媽媽在投海自殺前留下遺言，希望女兒在書店長大。 養育Maya成為A.J.甜蜜的負擔，原本困頓的人生由此撥雲見日，和島上居民的關係也緊密起來。 關心Maya的媽媽們帶著孩子們來逛書店，A.J.跟她們學習媽媽經，也開始進貨給小朋友的繪本書和給主婦們的愛情小說；友善的警察局長成為他的朋友，警局的同仁也開始閱讀懸疑小說，甚至舉辦讀書會。 書籍和文字的力量，拉近了社區的人際關係，也豐富了島上居民的生活。 更奇妙的是，因為愛上同一本書，A.J.和Amelia也逐漸互生情愫。。。 原本充滿遺憾的人生滿載著愛，緊緊依偎，孤島般的書店也成為社區最重要的樞紐。 當然，後面還有twist，不過就不爆雷了。
這本小說的起承轉合很巧妙，每一章都以一本文學著作的書名和A.J.寫給Maya的簡短叮嚀作為開篇，輕易就點中了我們這些愛書人的死穴，只能由衷佩服Zenin的精巧安排。
整本書構思精巧，有愛情，有親情，有懸疑，有twist，情節沒有多大的起伏，節奏輕快而引人入勝。 Zenin的文筆非常獨特－－詼諧輕快，不時迸出睿智的火花；動人心弦，卻不是刻意賺人熱淚。
Alice小島是个虚构的地方，却叫我一直想起Martha's Vineyard。
太多喜欢的quotes：
“A place ain't a place without a bookstore,”
乐观的Amelia总觉得，“Most people's problems would be solved if they would only give more things a chance.”
警长好友说，“I've been a police officer for twenty years now and I'll tell you, pretty much every bad thing is life is a result of bad timing, and every good thing is the result of good timing.”
人和书也是需要缘分的吧。“Sometimes books don't find us until the right time.”
“A.J. watches Maya in her pink party dress, and he feels a vaguely familiar, slightly intolerable bubbling inside of him. He wants to laugh out loud or punch a wall. He feels drunk or at least carbonated. Insane. At first, he thinks this is happiness, but then he determines it's love. Fucking love, he thinks. What a bother. It's completely gotten in the way of his plan to drink himself to death, to drive his business to ruin. The most annoying thing about it is that once a person gives a shit about one thing, he finds he has to start giving a shit about everything.”
“The place Maya loves most is downstairs because downstairs is the store, and the store is the best place in the world…She runs her hand across the magazines, gives the rotating stand with the bookmarks a spin. Good morning, magazines! Good morning, bookmarks! Good morning, books! Good morning, Store!”
书本成为A.J.和Amelia最好的桥梁。“When she told me it was her favorite, it suggested to me strange and wonderful things about her character that I had not guessed, dark places that I might like to visit. People tell boring lies about politics, God, and love. You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?”
“Why is any one book different from any other book? They are different, A.J. decides, because they are. We have to look inside many. We have to believe. We agree to be disappointed sometimes so that we can be exhilarated every now and again.”
“Someday, you may think of marrying. Pick someone who thinks you're the only person in the room.”
A.J.跟Amelia求婚：“When I read a book, I want you to be reading it at the same time. I want to know what would Amelia think of it. I want you to be mine. I can promise you books and conversation and all my heart.”
“He knows she isn't perfect. She knows he definitely isn't perfect. They know there's no such thing as perfect.”
在婚礼上，读他们最喜欢的书的选句。“It is the secret fear that we are unlovable that isolates us,” the passage goes, “but it is only because we are isolated that we think we are unlovable. Someday, you do not know when, you will be driving down a road. And someday, you do not know when, he, or indeed she, will be there. You will be loved because for the first time in your life, you will truly not be alone. You will have chosen to not be alone.”
在这个日渐digital的世界，“There's something kind of heroic about being a bookseller.”
“All the best things in the world are being carved away like fat from meat. First, it had been the record stores, and then the video stores, and then newspapers and magazines, and now even the big chain bookstores were disappearing everywhere you looked. From his point of view, the only thing worse than a world with big chain bookstores was a world with NO big chain bookstores.”
给Maya的遗言：“The words you can't find, you borrow.
We read to know we're not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone.
My life is in these books, he wants to tell her. Read these and know my heart.
We are not quite novels.
We are not quite short stories.
In the end, we are collected works.
There are no collections where each story is perfect. Some hits. Some misses. If you're lucky, a standout. And in the end, people only really remember the standouts anyway.”
“Maya, we are what we love. We are that we love…We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on.”
