⋙ [PDF] The Bookseller A Novel Cynthia Swanson 9780062333001 Books

The Bookseller A Novel Cynthia Swanson 9780062333001 Books

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The Bookseller A Novel Cynthia Swanson 9780062333001 Books

The Bookseller by Cynthia Swansen
1960's Denver and Kitty Miller runs a bookstore. She has dreams at night that make her think her choices should've been different.
She was to meet Lauris and they talked on the phone but he never showed up and died of a heart attack.
Book starts out with Katherine and she's awoken from her husband to take care of the sick child Missy.
She is able to travel between the two lives and she strives to help others with books and reading.
Katherine tries to figure out what year she goes back in time and forward, the intervals etc as she quizzes the children.
She recalls her life with her best girlfriend and they own the book store. She is in a marriage with Lauris and 3 kids but her parents have died. She goes back and forth into her old life and can't put the pieces together.
She gets down to the exact minute her whole life changed and she talks to Freida about it all. We find out all the missing pieces of what happened as the book goes on..
Confusing at times til you realize what's going on.
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).


Tags : The Bookseller: A Novel [Cynthia Swanson] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. A provocative and hauntingly powerful debut novel reminiscent of <em>Sliding Doors, The Bookseller </em>follows a woman in the 1960s who must reconcile her reality with the tantalizing alternate world of her dreams. <em>Nothing is as permanent as it appears . . .</em> Denver,Cynthia Swanson,The Bookseller: A Novel,Harper,0062333003,Denver (Colo.),Dreams,FICTION Contemporary Women,FICTION Psychological.,Nineteen sixties,Psychological fiction,Psychological fiction.,Single women,Women booksellers,Women booksellers;Fiction.,AMERICAN NOVEL AND SHORT STORY,Colorado,Contemporary Women,FICTION Contemporary Women.,FICTION General,FICTION Psychological,FICTION Women,Fiction,Fiction - Psychological Suspense,Fiction-Psychological,FictionLiterary,FictionWomen,GENERAL,General Adult,Literary,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945),Psychological,United States,bisacsh

The Bookseller A Novel Cynthia Swanson 9780062333001 Books Reviews

Kitty Miller has two lives...one of them is her real one. The question becomes which one is the real one? Which one is actually better? And can you go back and fix the consequences of your mistakes, and would it be worth it if you did? A well-constructed, compelling exploration of "What if I had chosen differently?" I purchased the version of this book when it was offered on Book Bub, then added the Whispersync option when I realized that I didn't want to leave it for normal breaks like driving, doing housework, etc.

My only issue with the book was that some of the dialogue felt stilted and unnatural. Swanson's characters' speech was peppered with slang that felt archaic for the time. It's the early sixties, yet, Kitty/Katharyn and other characters are using 1930s/1940s expressions like "Jeepers!" and "swell."
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.
There's no way for me to explain the one star without spoiling the book. I normally wouldn't bother, but I waited a week and I'm still angry at this author, so I'm going to try to explain.

This book starts nicely. It's not earth shattering, but seems like a good mysterious fantasy for the reader to invest in, and it continues that way for 90% of the book. We don't know if these are dual lives or how those dual lives would work out, and if they aren't dual lives which one is real? How will they merge if they do? We're led to believe at first that the bookseller is one helluva dreamer, though it quickly becomes clear that's not the case. I was interested to see how this would all shake itself out, and I had high hopes for realistic fantasy based in a time not that far gone where we could understand the cultural norms without a lot of work on anyone's part author or reader. I didn't think it would be Pulitzer great, but a nice diversion.

Unfortunately none of my questions were answered because the author uses an unrealistic cop-out to get herself out of the hard work of writing a novel's ending. It's very much akin to "then we all woke up and learned it was a dream" except it's less realistic and does a disservice to the devices she does use. This is nearly impossible to explain without spoilers, but I at least I've exorcised my own demons.
The Bookseller by Cynthia Swansen
1960's Denver and Kitty Miller runs a bookstore. She has dreams at night that make her think her choices should've been different.
She was to meet Lauris and they talked on the phone but he never showed up and died of a heart attack.
Book starts out with Katherine and she's awoken from her husband to take care of the sick child Missy.
She is able to travel between the two lives and she strives to help others with books and reading.
Katherine tries to figure out what year she goes back in time and forward, the intervals etc as she quizzes the children.
She recalls her life with her best girlfriend and they own the book store. She is in a marriage with Lauris and 3 kids but her parents have died. She goes back and forth into her old life and can't put the pieces together.
She gets down to the exact minute her whole life changed and she talks to Freida about it all. We find out all the missing pieces of what happened as the book goes on..
Confusing at times til you realize what's going on.
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).