This was an amazing book, I could not put it down. It's the story of Ivan and Francesca, who open The Good Novel bookstore in Paris. Their goal is to sell good novels to their customers, nothing more. All of the books in their store were suggested by a secret committee of eight novelists, but someone is trying to kill these writers and there seems to be a conspiracy against the bookstore. The store is under siege via cyber attacks and propaganda appearing all around the neighborhood, simply because they only want to sell good novels! There is also a love triangle between Ivan and a student who does not seem very interested in him, and Francesca, of course, is secretly in love with Ivan.

The characters in the this book talk about the difficulty of finding another good book after you have read one. I have this problem too. I had it after I finished this novel. But it's always a joy to read a good novel and then go searching for another one. -JM

A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cosse, 424 pages; Europa Editions, 2010.

5 olives