The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

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A Life of Books

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin is about a curmudgeonly bookstore owner who has slipped into depression and alcoholism after his wife died in a car accident. Without Nic, A.J. is suffering and so is business since she was the people person. At 39, he’s just looking forward to retiring, and the rare edition of an Edgar Allan Poe book is his ticket out of there, until there’s a snag.  Someone stole it. And that’s not all. In the greatest twist of fate, a baby is left in his store with a note from the mother stating that she can no longer take care of Maya and wants her to grow up being a reader.

This is a touching, quick and easy read that I thoroughly enjoyed from beginning to end. I liked the setting--on Alice Island by Martha’s Vineyard.  I was already planning my next vacation there ready to sip a Queequeg at the Pequod even if the salty, fruity, fishy concoction sounded disgusting—until I found out it’s a fictional location.  I also liked all the characters in the book from Chief Lambiase, who starts a book club for cops, to Amelia, the publisher’s book rep with unusual wardrobe tastes.

One of the greatest attractions to this book was the load of literary references. A story about a book store owner is bound to drop a book title here and there. But there were a LOT of books mentioned in this novel.  I counted over seventy titles which were seamlessly woven throughout the story with additional references to authors.  It was fun to spot the ones I’ve read, and interesting to see other popular books. 

Book List of The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry: 
  • A Conversation with My Father by Grace Paley
  • A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor
  • A Little Princess
  • A Perfect Day for a Bananafish by J.D. Salinger
  • A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
  • A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
  • A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
  • Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  • Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
  • Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
  • Brownies by Z.Z. Packer 
  • Bullet in the Brain by Tobias Wolff
  • Caligula by Anthony A. Barret
  • Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slodbodkina
  • Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
  • Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
  • Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
  • Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Z.Z. Packer
  • Fat by Raymond Carver
  • From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
  • House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
  • I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
  • In Search of Lost Time by Proust
  • In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried by Amy Hempel
  • Indian Camp by Ernest Hemingway
  • Infinite Jest by David Foster
  • Ironhead by Aimee Bender
  • James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
  • Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo
  • Juiced by Jose Canseco
  • L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy
  • Lamb to Slaughter by Roald Dahl
  • Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
  • Luck of the Roaring Camp by Bret Harte
  • Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
  • Old School by Tobias Wolff
  • Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
  • Our Town by Thornton Wilder
  • Poor Bastard by Jeffery Deaver
  • Principles of Accounting II
  • Red Pony by John Steinbeck
  • Silas Marner by George Eliot
  • Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
  • Tamerlane by Edgar Allan Poe
  • Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
  • The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by Matthew Tobin Anderson
  • The Awakening by Kate Chopin
  • The Beauties by Anton Chekhov
  • The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  • The Bookseller by Roald Dahl
  • The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain
  • The Crucible by Arthur Miller
  • The Diamond as big as the Ritz by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The Doll’s House by Katherine Mansfield
  • The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
  • The Girls in Their Summer Dresses by Irwin Shaw
  • The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Soltzhenitsyn
  • The Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan
  • The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe C.S. Lewis
  • The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
  • The Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone
  • The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
  • The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
  • The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurst
  • What Feels Like the World by Richard Bausch
  • What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
  • Where The Wind Things Are by Maurice Sendak
  • Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

 Happy Reading,
Annette


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