Bookshop on the Corner (Colgan)

The Bookshop on the Corner 
Jenny Colgan, 2016
HarperCollins
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062467256


Summary
Nina Redmond is a librarian with a gift for finding the perfect book for her readers. But can she write her own happy-ever-after?

In this valentine to readers, librarians, and book-lovers the world over, the New York Times-bestselling author of Little Beach Street Bakery returns with a funny, moving new novel for fans of Meg Donohue, Sophie Kinsella, and Nina George’s The Little Paris Bookshop.

Nina Redmond is a literary matchmaker. Pairing a reader with that perfect book is her passion—and also her job.

Or at least it was. Until yesterday, she was a librarian in the hectic city. But now the job she loved is no more.

Determined to make a new life for herself, Nina moves to a sleepy village many miles away. There she buys a van and transforms it into a bookmobile—a mobile bookshop that she drives from neighborhood to neighborhood, changing one life after another with the power of storytelling.

From helping her grumpy landlord deliver a lamb, to sharing picnics with a charming train conductor who serenades her with poetry, Nina discovers there’s plenty of adventure, magic, and soul in a place that’s beginning to feel like home—a place where she just might be able to write her own happy ending. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—January 1, 1972
• Where—Prestwick, Ayrshire, Scotland, UK
• Education—University of Edinburgh
• Awards—Romantic Novelists' Association's Romantic Novel of the Year
• Currently—lives in France and London, England


Jenny Colgan is a British chick-lit writer of romantic comedies since 2000. She also used the pseudonym Jane Beaton and J. T. Colgan for other fiction. In 2013, her novel Welcome to Rosie Hopkin's Sweetshop of Dreams won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the .

In 2000, she published her first novel, iniating a string romantic comedies. Since then she has published more than 20: some series and others standalones. Her most recent is her 2016 novel, The Bookshop on the Corner.

Personal life
Jenny Colgan was born in 1972 in Prestwick, Ayrshire, Scotland, British. She studied at Edinburgh University. She worked for six years in the health service, moonlighting as a cartoonist and a stand-up comic.

She is married to Andrew, a marine engineer, and has had three children. She divides her time between France and London.

Novels
• Stand Alone
Amanda's Wedding (2000)
Looking for Andrew McCarthy (2001)
Talking to Addison (2001)
Working Wonders (2003) aka Arthur Project
Do You Remember the First Time? (2004) aka The Boy I Loved Before
Sixteen Again (2004)
Where Have All the Boys Gone? (2005)
West End Girls (2006)
Operation Sunshine (2007)
Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend (2008)
The Good, the Bad and the Dumped (2010)
The Loveliest Chocolate Shop In Paris (2013)
The Little Beach Street Bakery (2014)
The Bookshop on the Corner (2016)

• Cupcake Cafe
Meet me at the Cupcake Cafe (2011)
Christmas at the Cupcake Cafe (2012)

• Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop
Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams (2012)
Christmas at Rosie Hopkins’ Sweet Shop (2013)

• As Jane Beaton
Maggie, a Teacher In Turmoil
    Class (2008)
    Rules (2010)

• J. T. Colgan
Doctor Who: Dark Horizons (2012)

(Author bio from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/21/2014.)

Book Reviews
What’s a shy English librarian to do when she’s downsized out of a job?... With a keen eye for the cinematic, Colgan  is a deft mistress of romantic comedy.... A charming, bracingly fresh happily-ever-after tale with playful nods to the Outlander series.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime use these LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for The Bookshop on the Corner...then take off on your own:

1. Describe Nina: just how socially and/or professionally unprepared is she to face a world outside of a library? Would you consider her job—matching people to books, what's often referred to as a Readers Advisor—a dream job as Nina did?

2. Talk about the library's closing? Are library closings a growing trend, or will they be several years from now? What is happening in your own community; are funds being cut to libraries, hours shortened, books not bought, staff not hired? What does the future hold for libaries, and how are they coping with the digital age?

3. What are some of the struggles Nina undergoes to get her dream library off the ground? Talk about the decisions she has to make. Does the van seem like an overly risky venture for someone like Nina?

4. The book contains sly allusions to the Outlander series. Have you located any of the references? Why might the author have decided to include them?

5. Describe the village of Kirrinfief, including the characters who populate it. Whom did you find most intriguing? What was village life like without books? Imagine yourself living in Kirrinfief, or a place like it: how would you fare absent access to books?

6. Did you predict the ending?

(Questions by LitLovers Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)