Customer Reviews
Utterly Charming - By: Graceann Macleod, 04 Aug 2008 
Thank goodness this book is so short, because I could not put it down until I had read every last word. What a delightful little read, & how desperately I wanted to be a part of that book shop, & then Helene's little apartment. Not to be missed. Follow it up with the lovely film starring Anne Bancroft & Anthony Hopkins.
in haste... - By: A. S. Taylor, 17 Jan 2008 buy this book, it warms your heart. i am amazed it escaped my grasp for so long. sure, it's twee, there's no angst or attitude, politics or grit. amen, to that. it's a simple story about civilised people in a by-gone age, & it's true. i have since stalked the long closed bookshop. perhaps better to sit in a bloomsbury square & long for times past...
If you love books - you'll love 84 Charing Cross Road - By: A. Hope, 17 Apr 2007 This has become a favourite book for me. Told with such poignant charm, through the letters & other communications from the time. Even those letters which are obviously missing, lost through the passage of time - tell their own story. Helene's long distance friendship with Frank Doel, & others he worked with at that now famous address is a bittersweet one, & one which will remain with the reader long afterwards. Helene's love of books is infectious - & this book is therefore a must for anyone who feels strongly about the books in their home.
Friendship with Depth and Love - By: Brockeim, 17 Oct 2006 In these days of e-books, & bland books constructed from franchised ideas & formulas, we are presented "84, Charing Cross Road," a story about a relationship begun because of a mutual love of old great books.
Frank Doel owns the English bookstore, & Helene Hanff mails him a request for a book. Correspondence & a relationship begins. Contently & confidently married, Doel responds as an older brother might, & the two grow to cherish each other despite the distance.
As they care for each other, & slowly, their local friends & family become aware, we see how love transcends the sea. Neither character has an agenda, & this left me feeling a little less cynical about the world around me.
Like Nick Bantock's "Griffin & Sabine," it carries a romantic mystery & intrigue. We read the correspondence & imagine.
Like so many of today's e-mail- & chatroom-only friendships, they learn to appreciate each other, though knowing only the other as they choose to describe themselves.
This isn't a story about books or bookstores, despite the honest representation of their demeanor & personality. Any booklover knows the search for a book, & the texture of a bookseller's knowledge & connection with his books.
This is a book about the depth, trust, & love of one unexpected relationship. Book lovers will enjoy the context, & good friends will smile knowingly.
The movie with Anthony Hopkins & Anne Bancroft is likewise worth viewing, carrying the letters into a emotional zone of charm & delight.
A wonderful book of letters - By: Anthony Baird, 23 May 2005 Helene Hanff & Frank Doel's letters to one another are beautifully written & very touching. The relationship that develops between the two of them despite, or perhaps because of, never meeting is great to see. The fact that it takes so long to happen as well (over a period of almost 20 years) just adds to how deep the friendship between these two people clearly was. The second part of the book (The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street) give a touching account of Helene Hanff's eventual visit to London to promote her book, sadly after Frank Doel has died & is a good postscript to the letters (even though it is actuallly longer than the main part of the book).
