I first heard of this book 20 years ago, in a letter to the editor in Seventeen Magazine. The letterwriter was distantly related to Helene Hanff and was recommending the book. At the time, I was deeply involved in my high school drama program and the title of the book appealed to me. I tried for years to find the book, but it was out of print for a time. When I did finally find it, it was worth the wait. It is laugh-out-loud funny and touching to anyone who has ever been bitten by the drama bug. I was sold on the book the minute I read the preface, which reads in part, "Each year hundreds of of stage-struck kids arrive in New York determined to crash the theatre...one in a thousand turns out to be Noel Coward. This book is about life among the other 999, by one of them." This book turned me on to all of Helene Hanff's other books, each of which is worthwhile in its own right. However, the best of the bunch is right here. This book should be on every booklover's must have list!

I once had to read a bit of this book out to some strangers on a plane who wanted to know why I was laughing out loud and then we had champagne and it was a great flight and Miss Hanff had even more fans. The tears were running down our faces. [ For those of you who have read it already it was the bit about the funeral parlour].

This book, like all of Miss Hanff's works, makes you feel great to be alive.

I've come to love my native city more and more by seeing it through Miss Hanff's eyes.

Like most other readers, "84 Charing Cross Road" was my introduction to the works of Helene Hanff, but "Underfoot in Showbusiness" is my favorite book by this author. It is truly the funniest book I have ever read, and it should be made into a movie one day! But this one! You won't regret it!

When writting about New York City, many authors try to be as chic and cosmopolitan as New York is perceived to be. But Helene Hanff's writing is interesting, witty and fun and there is not a bit of pretentiousness in it. This is a great collection of "talks" which describe the real New York.

I could never understand people who read the same book several times until I began to read Helene Hanff.I find myself trying to work out just how big,or small is her apartment?I was so pleased to find the book about Q. It aswered such a lot of questions.I'm a real cult follower of her work.

Helene Hanff takes every day slices of life in New York City and shows us the people behind the skyscrapers. I highly recommend reading this book along with "Apple of My Eye", her book about New York City sites and history. Having had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Hanff in 1990, i can tell you she wrote as she talked, so when you read her words, it is actually HER voice speaking to you with no pretense. This lady called them as she saw them! I have read and re-read her books many hundreds of times and hope others will continue to discover them!

I was surprised at how much this book added to my understanding of Helene. She was a great writer and Pastore has helped her fans out with this book.

It is an excellent resaerch tool for all of Miss Hanff's fans. Mr Stephen Pastore's book opens the door and allows to see a part of Helene Hanff that, before this book, I only could have only guessed at what books she had in her collection. Now with this valuable reference, I can see some of the books she ordered from "84 Charing Cross Road".

March 8, 1999

This is a true story--that's always a plus for me--about correspondence between a New York booklover/writer and the staff of a used and antiquarian book shop in London. These business correspondents evolve over the years into members of a kind of extended family.

The book is rather amazing because it is a quick read yet packs a powerful emotional wallop. To enjoy this book, you have to be open to books that explore compassion, emotions, and human relationships in a non-glossy, realistic manner.

Normally, I'm a one-read guy. I read a book and pass it on. Yet, I've read 84 Charing Cross Road three times -- so far -- in spite of seeing the movie version three times as well.

I'd place 84 Charing Cross Road among my top five favorite books.

Rodney

This charming little book is a collection of letters between New York author Helene Hanff and London bookseller Frank Doel. In the course of 20 years from Hanff's first book order from Marks & Co,, till Doel's death in 1969 they connected through the mail they exchanged and built a wonderful relationship. While Hanff became friends with Doel's family and his co-workers at the bookstore, what the two had was something special, revolving around their love of literature. Despite plans to do so, the two never met as Hanff didn't make it to London until after Doel's death and the publication of the letters. This book beautifully demonstrates the power of correspondence and how two people can connect, solely by the written word.

Heartwarming, funny, sad, all rolled in one. I went on to read other books by Hanff where she describes her trips to London. After reading her books, I too went on a pilgrimage to 84, Charing Cross Road.

...The book is comprised of letters exchanged by a New York-based American television script writer and various personnel at a small London bookshop where she prefers to buy all her books. The bookseller tolerates her insistance on paying in US currency and stoically endures her teasing and scolding when they send her a book that doesn't quite come up to her expectations. What comes across in this twenty year exchange of letters is the ease with which making and keeping friends is possible--if one only makes the effort. In the years immediately following World War II, Hanff saw that rationed food stuffs were sent to the shop so that they could be shared among the staff. The letters of thanks sent to Hanff and the enthusiasm with which the booksellers greeted friends of the author who happened to visit the shop when taking their vacations in England shows that their affection for their American friend was sincere and deep.

Don't read this collection with the expectation that you will get an in-depth view of the characters' lives. Read it as a way of discovering how simple it is for human beings to drop their defenses and treat one another with respect, civility, humor, and openness. Read it when your hope for humanity is at its lowest.

"84, Charing Cross Road" reminded me of Jan Struther's "Mrs. Miniver." I believe "Mrs. Miniver" was originally published as a series of newspaper articles. When collected into a book, it was rightly or wrongly perceived as a novel. Readers who see it as a novel usually have complaints about it's structure and seeming lack of plot (if this is what you desire, you can always rent the movie). Read as a collection of finely crafted observations of daily life in England during World War II, it's a moving tribute to the strength and durability of the human spirit. "Miniver" and "84, Charing Cross Road" make great back-to-back reads.

This is the true story of a writer's dream trip to London, when her decades-long correspondence with a London antiquarian book shop becomes an unexpected best-seller. Helen Hanff wrote television scripts and juvenile histories, but what she really was was a passionate and highly eclectic reader. Almost entirely self-taught, based on the writings of Quiller-Couch (which she wrote about in a book called "Q's Legacy), her unpretentious and ferociously curious mind and charming (if irasasible) personality are as delightfully engaging to the reader as they were to the staff at 84 Charing Cross Road. In this real-life Cinderella story, Hanff's dream of a trip to England finally comes true. She visits the places she has always dreamed of and finds friends and fans everywhere she goes. What a pleasure to be able to accompany her

Helene Hanff was a writer whose dream was to go to London and experienced the Englishness she read and saw on movies. She yearned to see it for herself,she was unable to do so in her 20 years letters correspondence with Frank. At last, her chance arrived when she was invited to go... This book is more like a sequel to "84 Charing Cross Road", Helene long overdue visit to London. Like her diary, this is a collection of her encounters, thoughts and emotions when she finally stepped foot on London,her feeling for the book store-Marks & Co. and her meeting with Frank's wife,Nora and daughter,Sheila.An enchanting book filled with Helene's passion for London. In this journal, Helene expressed her love for London and books. Accounted her sights and thoughts and answered a few doubts about "84 Charing Cross Road". It's full of brilliant,facetious comments and of course a page-turner!

I first read this book and 84, CHARING CROSS ROAD ten years before visiting London for the first time. Before I made my second trip (this time travelling with my mother), I reread them and all but forced my mother to do the same. So strong an effect did they have on both of us that when we walked past the Kenilworth Hotel and I mentioned to my mother that that was where Helene had stayed, she didn't even ask, "Helene who?" And we were both touched to see that, although Marks and Co. is long gone, there is now a plaque on Charing Cross Road indicating where it once stood, so that all who loved the books can feel a little closer to Helene and Frank.

Well, I hate to throw in a dissenting voice and vote when surrounded by such accolades, yet I must. Perhaps I expected too much after reading 84 Charing Cross Road. If you haven't read that book, I HIGHLY recommend you do so. In this, the sequel to that book, Helene Hannf talks about her experiences that resulted from the unexpected success of 84. Parts are indeed very interesting and do answer some questions that arise when reading the first book.
But on the down side I found some of her exploits long and trying on my patience. Her love of the theatre is evident in this and other books of hers that are about the theatre. I, however, do not share her enthusiasm and found these sections quite long. I would have been more interested in her reactions to the making of the movie 84 Charing Cross Road. Yes, I know, I know, this book came out longgg before the movie was made. Hey, it was just a wish.
Bottom line, if you enjoyed 84 Charing Cross Road, pick up a used copy of this as parts are worth reading.

What an upbeat book!
This is the romance of life's unpredictability; of life's path. Helene Hanff the author and our heroine in this autobiography is a person we can all identify with: with a high school education, a survivor's tenacity, a bright mind and a bit of luck she turns what could have been a mediocre existence into an exciting if quietly successful life! One could not have a more prototypical American dream. But here, it appears represented without the scrubbed clean, sanitized methods of Holywood.
Her wonderfully charming narration, leads us through her struggles as a writer in New York, through the apparent lucky accident of her book "84, Charring Cross Road," and the mesmerizing consequences that a successful book brings to her life. It is her persona though, who is fascinating: a strong woman with few doubts about likes and dislikes, who fights doggedly for a living, with a good sense of humor, generosity towards others and an apparent humility. What a combination! But to top it off she is sharp, quick, loves books and what they can teach her.
This is a book to be read in one sitting, but only after you read "84 Charring Cross Road." It is fun, upbeat, a charmer and it also has an almost oldfashioned value: it celebrates life!

When Helene Hanff runs out of money and has to leave college, she takes her education into her own hands. In the public library she searches for books on English literature "the Best -- written in language I could understand." Beginning with the A's, taking down one volume after another, she works her way through the alphabet, arriving at the M's without finding what she wants.

Most of the books were of 19th and 20th century writers and she wanted the great works of England: Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, the Bible, etc.

"I went on through the N's, O's and P's," she writes, "fighting a suspicion that what I wanted didn't exist. There was only one book under Q."

And what a book. ON THE ART OF WRITING by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, M.A., King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge. Impressed with his credentials and the simplicity and clarity of his writing, she decides she can study with "Q," as she calls him, "without necessarily agreeing with everything he said." So she takes him home.

"In the first chapter," she writes, "he threw so many marvelous quotes at me...from Walton's ANGLER and Newman's IDEA OF THE UNIVERSITY and Milton's PARADISE LOST -- that I rushed back to the library and brought home all three, determined to read them before going on to Q's second lecture." And so it went. From PARADISE LOST to the New Testament to . . . ad infinitum.

Life and reality (the need to find a job) intrude; she gets involved in community theater, becomes publicity agent (sort of) for the Theater Guild of New York, works as a reader for the New York Story Department of Paramount Pictures, all the while reading her way through Q's list of classical English literature. Then, one morning, she sees an obituary in the Times: "Quiller-Couch dies at age 80."

She feels as though she's lost a friend. "I felt suddenly lost with Q gone. Till I looked at the books of his lectures ranged on the top bookshelf and thought, 'He's not gone, you nut, you have him in the house.'" So she sets out to buy the books he taught her to love.

Enter the Out-of-Print books column of the Saturday Review, where she finds an ad: "Marks & Co., Antiquarian Booksellers, 84 Charing Cross Road, London." She writes for books and thus begins the correspondence that will quicken her romantic imagination, break her heart, and make Hanff a celebrated writer in 30 years.

In Q's LEGACY, Hanff tells about writing the book, the play and the television production. She describes the trip to England that takes her to Q's study. There's a lot here about her fan mail and her fans, as well. It's a portrait of a bright and persistant woman in pursuit of knowledge and culture, a dance with destiny, and a fascinating picture of the rewards (and problems) of success.

Best of all, it's written in an easy, natural style. It's a love letter to life, books, learning and bibliphiles.

I read this book in hardback more than 20 years ago, when I was a wee tot (comparatively speaking). I had spent one day in New York, and I brought the book back as a souvenir. It immediately gave me ideas for what to see when I returned. The book is especially poignant after 9/11, but the city is as great as ever. A great way to taste the excitement of New York--and not just its big public spaces, but its smaller, more intimate ones too.

Great book about my favorite city! Makes you want to hop the next plane! A fun, non-traditional approach to a tour book to be read even if you're not on the walking tour. Makes you crave a...the "Big Apple"!

The paper back cover colours and of course authors name leapt out at me instantly and as it was on the bargain counter I had to have. It proved to be a great favourite of mine and many others in the few months of owning it. It was only a few months as the last borrower has never returned it ! This was four and a half years ago and I still greave for that book. That is the impact that one short but extreemly well written guide book has had on me . The wit and beautifully descriptive chapters giving an alternative side for the would- be tourist in New York shines through. She loved her city "warts an all". and the lovely 'asides' such as the characters that live around and/or frequent the Central Park region (whom we are never likely to meet) makes it all the more attractive and appealing to the readers. Helen wrote a tourist guide for the city hoping that her perception of this vibrant and often exotic Metropolis would attract and impress the visitor. It has in this readers 'eye' for I hope to spend a few days there shortly while holidaying in the States later this summer.