2024 the best book seller review

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A provocative and hauntingly powerful debut novel reminiscent of Sliding Doors, The Bookseller follows a woman in the 1960s who must reconcile her reality with the tantalizing alternate world of her dreams.

Nothing is as permanent as it appears . . .

Denver, 1962: Kitty Miller has come to terms with her unconventional single life. She loves the bookshop she runs with her best friend, Frieda, and enjoys complete control over her day-to-day existence. She can come and go as she pleases, answering to no one. There was a man once, a doctor named Kevin, but it didn’t quite work out the way Kitty had hoped.

Then the dreams begin.

Denver, 1963: Katharyn Andersson is married to Lars, the love of her life. They have beautiful children, an elegant home, and good friends. It’s everything Kitty Miller once believed she wanted—but it only exists when she sleeps.

Convinced that these dreams are simply due to her overactive imagination, Kitty enjoys her nighttime forays into this alternate world. But with each visit, the more irresistibly real Katharyn’s life becomes. Can she choose which life she wants? If so, what is the cost of staying Kitty, or becoming Katharyn?

As the lines between her worlds begin to blur, Kitty must figure out what is real and what is imagined. And how do we know where that boundary lies in our own lives?

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00L7WZDES
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper; Reprint edition (March 3, 2015)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 3, 2015
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 4461 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 302 pages
Reviewer: Sandra Dee
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Fascinating novel
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is hard to describe it without ruining the story! It is well written and interesting; the characters could be people I know.

Reviewer: LJHazy
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The Reality is It's an Unforgettable Read
Review: Cynthia Swanson has perfectly recreated the early 1960s era in her unique, rather complex debut novel, The Bookseller. The storyline kept my attention throughout, as I tried to figure out the mysterious twists and turns which made this novel so interesting.Set in Denver, Colorado initially in 1962, the book is extremely well researched, depicting the literature, music, culture, happenings in the local area, and national and world politics during this period, which had an impact on the characters' lives. The story is character driven, and the characters are well developed to the point that I felt I knew them personally.The main character, Kitty Miller, is a single, 38-year-old co-owner of Sisters' Bookshop with high school friend Frieda Green, and she is repeatedly having dreams so vivid they seem real. In these dreams, she is living a completely different life, the life she used to envision for herself. Kitty calls this her alternate reality, and at first cannot wait to get to sleep to enjoy this other world. However, the dreams begin to complicate her life, and Kitty is having enough problems at that time. In her "true life," due to changes in traffic flow, their business decreases, and Sisters' Bookshop has increasing financial troubles, which causes stress for, and between, Kitty and Frieda. But Kitty's parents, her support system, are on an extended vacation that leaves her to seek solace in her continuing dreams. However, Kitty reaches the point where she has to take action regarding the dreams and their meaning.The Bookseller is an excellent multi-themed novel about life during the 60s. Through her descriptive prose Swanson reveals the many social injustices inflicted upon not only women, but also other minorities living in Denver, as well as the world. Mainly, she very artfully reveals that although we have more freedoms, times have not changed very much, and women still face many of the same problems and decisions in certain matters today as they did over 50 years ago.This is a story about life, love, and relationships (friends, neighbors, families, etc.), and our attempts, as women, to have it all, do it all, and be it all. I highly recommend this book to "girls" of all ages, and maybe even to the "guys" who have a desire to understand them better. If it is a story about life, then it is also a story about love. It is about wanting to make a difference with the life we are given and the choices we make. The Bookseller is told in such an unforgettable way that the reality is you are missing out if you do not read it.

Reviewer: Sam Houston
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Fans of the unreliable narrator device are definitely going to enjoy this one
Review: The Bookseller is a psychological novel in which the reader spends as much time inside the head and dreams of its main character as it does outside her thoughts. Sometimes, in fact, it is difficult to tell which is the real world and which is the dream world - and that is as true for Kitty, "the bookseller" for whom the book is titled, as it is for the reader. Fans of the unreliable narrator device are definitely going to enjoy this one.Kitty and her best friend Frieda are concerned that the little bookstore they own together may not be long for this world. Once a thriving place that could depend on walk-in customers served by the city's public transportation system, the bookstore is becoming more and more isolated every day because walk-in traffic has all but disappeared along with the city buses that used to service the neighborhood streets. Worse, new malls are springing up on the outskirts of the city to service suburban customers who no longer even need to come into town to do their shopping.Perhaps that is why Kitty lives an entirely different life in her dreams, one in which she is known as Katherine, a name more suitable for the young mother of three children that she is in her dream world. These dreams, though, are no ordinary dreams. They are so real, so detailed, and so happy that Kitty looks forward to visiting Katherine's world more and more - especially to spend time with Katherine's completely devoted husband, Lars. Things are definitely better in Katherine's world than in Kitty's - at least for a while.But are things ever that simple? At the realization that neither of her worlds is perfect, Kitty finds it more and more difficult to live in either of them. If she could only blend the two, she thinks, picking and choosing what she likes best from each, her life would be perfect - but Kitty knows that is impossible. Then she begins to wonder which of her worlds is the real one, and more importantly, which one she will choose to inhabit.For the most part, The Bookseller is a well-written and intriguing novel, one in which the author slowly provides clues and revelations that will keep the reader guessing right along with its main character. The problem is that all of that tension ends when Kitty very suddenly figures everything out, and more unbelievably, immediately accepts what she has learned about herself. The abruptness of the plot resolution left me feeling that The Bookseller may have been edited with a bit too much zeal. That said, The Bookseller does offer an intriguing psychological puzzle that readers will enjoy trying to solve as they turn its pages. In the end, it is not a particularly difficult problem to solve, but novel offers a fun ride along the way.

Reviewer: Pequena Martinha
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Um livro bem interessante com livros e livraria no enredo, mas o pano de fundo tem a ver com sonhos, devaneios, amizade. Gostei bastante. Nível do inglês para leitura: intermediário 1.

Reviewer: Lorin Kinsella
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I loved the premise of readers entering into the books or worlds of their desires and then faced with the dilemma of making a choice. Cynthia Swanson did not disappoint me. Our mAin character Kitty is unsure whether she is stuck between a make belief world or her real world and as the story progresses she not only battles competing was well as compelling story lines -the decision is not clear cut. I could not put this book down, I would write more about the story line but I just don't want to ruin the surprises that await you.

Reviewer: Melissa
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I didn't love the ending, but that is really the only part I didn't like (and it's a personal preference). Other than that, the book had me captivated the whole way.

Reviewer: Gail R
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This was a delightful story, I was guessing almost until the end just how and why this woman was living two lives in two very different worlds and the reason was quite unexpected! This is a cleverly woven tale that the author made it easy to follow the main character from one life to the other. I hope that Cynthia Swanson continues to bring us more of her talent for the avid readers like myself.

Reviewer: Angel
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Loved it! Thank you so much!