The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted

Hannah enjoyed watching as he read; she barely cared what it was she'd given him. Or maybe that wasn't true. She did care. But the way he held a book in his hands, and the frown of concentration on his brow, kindled love in her heart. She wanteed to stroke him as he read. The altering expressions on his face were like cloud shadows passing over a landscape.

Hannah was full of admiration for Tom's knowledge...He'd come to understand, though, that it wasn't really flattery; instead it was a sort of delight that was roused in Hannah for anything she didn't know; anything new to her. She could never come to the end of all that pleased her.

On the right, the highway paddock, where Stubby and Jo (horses) lived in what amounted to a boutique hospice, since both were dyingat a lazy pace from being to old to go on living.

He was a man who approved of happy endings. In life itself, you didn't get the chance to choose an ending; but of a writer could give Bob Cratchit a Merry Christmas, then that's what the writer should do.

Each book, to Eilam Babel, held its place in the worldwide narrative, a single story told by thousands of voices. He had favorites - Moses Mendelssohn, Tolstoy, Aristotle - but he never spoke of them as giants among the less accomplished, rather as leaders.