Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop

I feel it is no coincidence that often our worst leaders declare that they read the least.

She knew about falling in love with people; she’d never realized you could also fall in love with a place.

However tricky things were, there was something like a promise kept: Every year, there will be a festival. There will be tiny lights. There will be joy, and hope. In the very center of the dark, when things seem at their bleakest, there will be firelight and candles and joy.

And it sounds strange, but more people, I believe, live in peace and harmony than at any time in human history, even if it doesn’t always feel that way. And a lot of that has to do with increased mutual understanding of one another. Which we find, often, between the covers of a book. I feel it is no coincidence that often our worst

This feels . . . like happy times come to life again. Like stepping back into that life. And now I shall read it to my own great-grandchildren. Because that’s what books are, aren’t they? A coming home.

This darkness will not defeat us. Not now, not ever. We will celebrate being halfway out of the dark.

There will be tiny lights. There will be joy

Yes,” said Carmen. “It’s a bookshop. It’s where people come to step into other lives

That’s books for you,” said Carmen. “Done right

This was where his real interests lay: in esoteric areas of knowledge

It’s just . . . it’s a huge time for buying books as gifts

He looked at it longingly. “Let me put it on my Christmas list.” He patted his bag. “I do have a direct line to the North Pole.

Make all your choices as well as you can; that is all you can do. The universe is bigger and stranger than anything he or anyone else could comprehend. Even in this tiny corner of it—the glory of one of the greatest

tiny corner of it—the glory of one of the greatest, oldest living things on earth—there was still so much they didn’t know. Never would. And that was all right.

too: Make all your choices as well as you can; that is all you can do. The universe is bigger and stranger than anything he or anyone else could comprehend. Even in this

The classics had a copy of Was Jane Eyre a Murderer?, a book that tried to detect real literary crimes, and a copy of Thursday Next, about an imaginary literary detective,

We learn from bad things, too.

It's history, of course. And art. Look at how we change the way we talk about the world. Look how something can be so dangerous and beautiful at the same time.

Oh, for goodness sake!" said Carmen. "It's just a book! You are all just going to have to toughen up!

...someone asking for the Roald Dahls - the ones before they had made the giant average-size, and Augustus Gloop suffering from a glandular disorder...

It’s a bookshop. It’s where people come to step into other lives, other places, for a while.

now, in mid-December, it was almost always dark. It was lovely.

She supposed it didn’t matter that spider’s webs stretched over every doorframe. Carmen did not like being mean to spiders, which included breaking their homes,

And now we are down to one. One sole reminder of a day when to read books was considered to be the greatest of all achievements; to write and to read the way to a better, more peaceful world.