Letter Writers Alliance Book Club discussion

Hi everyone! Welcome to our very first book for this group. Post any comments or questions you have about '84, Charing Cross Road' here.

I love this book! It was gifted to me by a very special teacher over a decade ago. I'll have to go back and look at everything I underlined when I was only 22, now that I'm 32.

A reread 10 years later is going to be interesting!

Got this in the mail today (thanks to thriftbooks.com) and read it in one sitting at the cafe. It was beautiful. It made me laugh out loud and come very close to crying. When I first got it I was a little disappointed due to how thin it was and that it was a series of letters - books framed that way usually don't 'do it' for me but this book was a delight!

A friend recommended this book to me many years ago and then I watched the movie which I thought was a wonderful rendering of the book. Got so caught up in the book that I started to acquire the books she referred to. In fact, I got so into the author that I wrote to her and she responded. Then she had a book signing in NYC when her book Letter from New York came out. She was delightful in person as she is in print. She wrote a lovely inscription in the book and she was just as I expected. It all started with 84, Charing Cross Road and I will always be a devoted fan!

I too loved the movie and after reading this book I placed the rest of her books on my Amazon wishlist and will try and get them 1 at a time.

Try to get The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street which is the sequel. She was just such a warm person and when I saw her in person I thought what a good job Anne Bancroft did in the movie. One of the many things I loved was how she encouraged people to write in the margins of books (ones you own) to make them yours and keep notes of what you found interesting. I only wish I could have sat for hours with her over a bottle of wine!

A darling little book.
I checked out a copy from the library and have given it to my sister to read. I'll come back later and share a favorite letter.

Love the manner in which the book was written. Helene's encouragement to make book you own personal by writing in them was good advice. Love it!

Thanks for recommending this book, I never would have found it otherwise! Very sweet book, which I could only get my mitts on through interlibrary loan. I'll have to look for the movie now! .

I'm not as big a fan of the movie. Anne Bancroft is a wonderful actress but in reading the book, I had envisioned the author and the characters at Charing Cross Road a certain way and having actual actors portray them set who they were supposed to be too firmly in my mind. I wish I could erase the film from my memory to keep the book versions forever in my mind.

I really enjoyed this darling book. It inspired me to write letters with more character, that's for sure! I had to read The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street and loved it, too.

I was hoping to have time to watch the movie before the book club meeting, but I fear I won't be able to fit it in!

This was my mother's favourite book. She was a big reader and had 84 Charing Cross Road in various editions. When she died we all got one of her copies.