The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street

Reading this book makes me feel optimistic, especially when I'm reading it at a sunny table outside a cafe on a lovely lazy day. Add this book to my list of “10 books I'd want want with me if I was marooned on a desert island.” Although in all fairness it should be allowed to share its slot with “84, Charing Cross Road” since they really do make up two halves of a whole. (Also I'm greedy.)

Helene Hanff kept up a correspondence
with a book friend in London for twenty
years. Finally, after publishing a
book composed of letters between the
two, Hanff gets an opportunity to
travel to London.

Of course, she will never get to
meet her friend, who died before
her letters were published.
Nevertheless, she makes the trip and
meets many fans of her book.