The stoplight on the corner had been broken for weeks. Westway Avenue was yellow and green at the same time, while Cherry Lane was forever red. Mabel knew this. Mom and Dad called it "the Intersection ... [+]
Susan Lendroth has written children's picture books as well as essays and articles. She works for Los Angeles Public Library, a dream job for any booklover. "To An Unknown Booklover" is in Short Circuit #14, Short Édition's quarterly review.
I don't remember which I encountered first: Helene Hanff's book, 84 Charing Cross Road, or the Anne Bancroft / Anthony Hopkins movie of the same name. All I know is that decades later the title's blend of London, letters, and books still enchants me.
Published 50 years ago, 84 Charing Cross Road is a romance of the mail—a collection of letters between Helene, a feisty New York writer, and Frank Doel, the unfailingly polite manager of an antiquarian London bookshop. Individually, those letters speak of books and the correspondents' day-to-day lives. Collectively, they weave together a mee