The writing is excellent but I remained, as a reader, a bit distant from the story. I don't know, but I didn't quite 'get' this book. Now, maybe its the difference between a French author and an American or British one. Things eventually work out.īut what was the reader given? A rich plot premise that doesn't really seem to develop and rich characters who remain somewhat ambiguous in their presentation.

Someone - or somebodies - open competing bookstores in the same block, just drawing business away from 'The Good Bookstore'. Incidents against the bookstore begin and someone, somehow, discovers the names of the eight hidden selectors and they are targeted for 'mischief', not death or serious injury, 'mischief'. What makes one novel 'good' and worthy of selection for the stock, and another novel 'not good' (i.e. However, criticism begins almost immediately mostly aimed at the 'elitist' nature of the bookstore. The bookstore opens to much fanfare and is successful from the start.

I must question whether writers or whether readers should select the stock after all, writers may be excellent writers but might not know what readers want. No one must know who selected which books. Both the selectors and their actual selections will/must remain secret from the public. And who will decide the stock carried by the bookstore? Why, a specially selected group of eight French novelists will submit lists of their choices of the 600 greatest novels in print. 'The Good Novel' bookstore is opened by two book lovers, who want a store devoted solely to the novel and solely to the best novels ever written. The play-on-words can only go so far before it becomes a touch tedious, though. 'Novel' because it's a bookstore that only sells novels - and the very best novels - and 'novel' because it is a new idea to sell only good novels. French author Laurence Cosse has invented a 'novel' - in two ways - bookstore in her new book.

A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cossé