The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

This wonderfully expressive novel charmed me from the first page onward. Actually it's not a conventional bookshop but a book barge moored along the Seine. It's owner is our hero and central figure. He named his barge/boat/bookshop Apothecaire Literaire. And means it. He believes that books can alleviate the distresses of life. George gives him the improbably name of Jean Perdu (John Lost). When we meet him, he is fifty years old and still mourning the loss of a love twenty years ago.