84 Charing Cross Street is a collection of letters and letters from the American writer Helene Humphrey and Frank, the bookstore manager in London, England, from 1949 to 1969. All the letters included in the book are authentic, and these letters bear witness to the friendship between this pair of close friends who have never met for twenty years, and also show the sincere feelings between people, the first reading of the pulse is warm, and the second reading is moving.
Helen is a poor American female writer, she loves books as much as her life but is unable to find her favorite English literature in New York, inadvertently she saw an advertisement in The London Max and Cohen Bookstore, the other party claimed to specialize in out-of-print books, with the mentality of trying it out, Helen wrote her first letter on October 5, 1949, asking the other party for the books she needed, which unexpectedly opened her 20 years of adventure with the bookstore.
See literally
In the past twenty years, Helen and the bookstore manager Frank and his clerk have formed a close friendship through correspondence, and although the two sides have never met, they know each other, and the letters that come and go are no longer simple business, but also the beauty of expectations.
A small letter connects the two sides of the ocean, and also connects a group of people who have never known each other. This is the peculiar charm of letters!
Nowadays, our communication is becoming more and more convenient, and the WeChat mobile phone is instantaneous, truly realizing the "end of the world as a neighbor". However, in such a convenience, the beauty of the former Hongyan passing on the book and waiting for it has gradually been destroyed. Those feelings of anticipation and anxiety, those careful deliberations, have been buried in the dust of time.
Letters are not convenient enough, but letters have their own unique charm. When we are old, isn't it also a beautiful way of life to open those yellowed letters? Today's young people, when they are old, what can they open? Circle of friends?
Paper is short and long
This small collection of letters, known as the "Bible of Book Lovers", is sought after by book lovers all over the world because it inadvertently hits our hearts and writes the unique throbbing when flipping through paper books.
I held it for fear of defacing its delicate leather cover and thick beige inner pages. I didn't know that a book could be so fascinating, and just touching it would teach people to feel comfortable.
Once upon a time, when I got my beloved book, I felt the same way I did with her. I remember when I was a child, my father once rewarded me with a hardcover copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales, which was the first time I owned my own book, touching its imitation cover, fingers brushing the slightly raised handwriting on the page, and the tip of my nose sniffing the fragrance of wood fibers, and my soul was greatly satisfied, and in the years that followed, this book has accompanied me, elementary school, junior high school, and walked through my entire adolescence.
I think that anyone who loves books should be able to do anything else.
Today's era is the best era, the books you want to read beckon, no longer have to look hard, patiently wait; today's era is a worst era, reading meditation has become a luxury, fast-paced entertainment supremacy enriches our lives at the same time, but also swallows up our tranquility.
We live in a strange world—such a beautiful, lifelong book that you can have at the cost of watching a movie; going to the hospital for a pair of braces is fifty times more expensive.
We need such a simple, soothing concoction in our lives.
The end of the world is next to each other
The letters included in the book are not too long, and daily greetings and book binding are the usual themes, but it is these trivial things that record the truth of life and the fit of the heart.
At the beginning of the correspondence, both sides were solemn and polite, but with the increase of exchanges, the humorous Helene language gradually became lively and casual, infected by her, and the old-fashioned and serious Frank also treated each other with sincerity and intersected with heart.
When Helen learned that there was a shortage of supplies in London and needed a quota ration, she intimately sent eggs and ham to the bookstore people, taking this as an opportunity, many clerks of the bookstore also wrote letters of thanks, and established a close relationship with Helen, including Flak's family and neighbors also joined the team of correspondence with Helen, so that this transnational adventure gradually became powerful.
I thought to myself that this was a really uneconomical Christmas gift exchange. What I have sent you, you will eat and wipe out for at most a week, and you will not expect to keep it for the New Year, but the gift you have given me can live with me day and night until I die; I can even leave it to the world and smile.
It is very strange that such a group of people who are far away from the ocean and have never known each other have formed close friends, they care for each other, greet each other, they miss each other, even more intimate than many so-called friends who accompany them day and night, they are beyond matter, beyond identity, beyond all external attachments, is the true friendship of the soul, how can such friendship not be touching, how can it not be desirable?
Although planned for many years, Helen and Frank are finally on the same side, and Helene's bookstore has always been veiled with mystery, allowing us to imagine.
This is a cute shop that jumps out of Dickens's book alive, and if you let you see it, it is strange not to love death. All you can see is the bookshelves—ancient, dark bookshelves that rise to the ceiling, and the oak shelves that have been baptized over the years and are still shining even though they have faded.
Helen's correspondence with Frank ends with Frank's unexpected death, and for Helene, the bookstore where she lost her best friend is no longer the original bookstore. But after leaving the bookstore, where did she go to find the memories of the past? Only bookstores!
But the bookstore is still there, and if you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Street, please give me a kiss on my behalf, I owe her a lot...
Compared with many other works, the book has no unpredictable plot, no flowery rhetoric, no whiplash analysis, but it has attracted countless book lovers over the decades to make pilgrimages to Charing Cross Street in London, relying on nothing more than sincere emotions and heart touches.
See literally, communicate with each other.
The paper is short and long, and the distance is shortened.
The ends of the world are next to each other, frozen in time.