The Haunted Bookshop

Part love story, part thriller, part booklover's fantasy—and entirely charming—Christopher Morley's The Haunted Bookshop has something for every reader. Set in a lovingly evoked Brooklyn just after the end of World War I, the story cleverly juxtaposes a pair of middle-aged bookshop owners and two young lovers with a nest of German saboteurs, complete with mysterious clues, red herrings, blushing romance, derring-do, a desperate race to the rescue, and an explosion. More important, the novel is an eloquent hymn to the bookseller's trade and a fervent plea for the revivifying and redemptive power of literature. The unifying thread of this book, and indeed of the life and work of its author, is its passionate avowal that all the world and everybody in it needs is a good book.