84 Charing Cross Road - Audio CD - Unabridged Author:Helene Hanff, Juliet Stevenson (Narrator), John Nettles (Narrator) 'Your ad in the Saturday Review of Literature says that you specialise in out-of-print books. The phrase "antiquarian book-sellers" scares me somewhat, as I equate "antique" with expensive. I am a poor writer with an antiquarian taste in books and all the things I want are impossible to get over here except in... more » very expensive rare editions, or Barnes & Noble's grimy, marked-up schoolboy copies.'
So begins the delightfully reticent love affair between Miss Helene Hanff of New York and Messrs Marks and Co. sellers of rare and secondhand books, at 84 Charing Cross Road, London. For twenty years, this outspoken New York writer and a rather more restrained London bookseller carry on an increasingly touching correspondence to the point where, in December 1949, Helene is worried that the ham she's sent off to augment British rations will arrive in a kosher office.
Soon they are sharing more personal news about Frank's family and Hanff's career. No doubt their letters would have continued, but in 1969 the firm's secretary informed Helene that Frank Doel had died. In the collection's penultimate entry, Helene Hanff urges a tourist friend, 'If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me. I owe it so much.'
Unabridged: 2 CDs - 2 hours - narrated by Juliet Stevenson and John Nettles - includes interview with narrators.« less