Books like The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street

A week ago I read 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. I found the concept of writing to the same pen pal over a twenty year period to be a refreshing and charming idea for a book. That the book has endured for nearly fifty years shows that many share my views of this slim memoir. In the comments of the review it was brought to my attention that Hanff had written a follow up to Charing Cross Road. Twenty years after she began correspondence, Hanff finally made it to London. A friend encouraged her to keep a diary. The result was The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street.Following the positive reception of 84 Charing Cross Road, Deutsch Publications in London invited Helene Hanff to promote the book. After twenty years of invitations from the staff of Marks and Company Bookstore and their families, Hanff was finally able to take her trip. Her primary contact and friend Frank Doel had tragically died of a heart attack three years earlier but his widow Nora and her daughter Sheila maintained correspondence with Hanff, inviting her to stay with them. Hanff decided on a quaint hotel in the heart of London, close to Charing Cross Road, and immediately won over the hotel staff and became an instant friend to all the people she met in London. In her five week stay in the city, in addition to seeing Buckingham Palace, The Tower, and Windsor Castle, Hanff became known as the duchess of Bloomsbury Street. Writing down all her experiences in a journal, one can only feel empathy for Hanff who would have loved to make her trip to London while Doel was still alive and Marks and Company still open for business. She reveled in every moment of her vacation and was sad to return to New York, preferring her time in her newly adopted city.Hanff writes in a witty, humorous style as she invites readers into her life once again. If I found 84 Charing Cross Road to be a humorous, intelligent blend, I found The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street to be even more so as I finally experienced Hanff's encounters with the people she only knew through letters during a twenty year period. The experience of seeing the sites that she only learned about through literature became a humbling one for Hanff. She breathed in the same air once lived by Shakespeare, Donne, Henry, and others, and admitted to not being as well read as some of her acquaintances because she would rather read one book fifty times and memorize it than fifty books one time. Yet, Hanff was a natural for London, reveling in its sites, its food, and her new friends and acquaintances. If it wasn't for the lack of funding, I could see her remaining in the city indefinitely and becoming an ex-patriot. Thus, being in London, seeing 84 Charing Cross Road almost felt anticlimactic because the book store was no longer open, and Hanff knew that after her experience came to an end, that she most likely would never return to London.Another review for this book encouraged readers of 84 Charing Cross Road to have a copy of The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street on hand upon finishing the first book. Readers would be eager to know if Hanff ever made it to London and what her experiences would be in the city of her dreams. For a sequel, Bloomsbury is full of Hanff's now familiar brand of humor and wit that makes it easy to see why she became an instant friend to all who met her in any encounter in her life. Usually a writer for not so successful television show, Charing Cross Road and Duchess of Bloomsbury Street were Hanff's only forays into books, leaving me upset because I know I do not have any more of her intimate writing to look forward to. The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street left me with a happy taste in my mouth, and I am glad I heeded another reviewer's advice to have it on hand upon completing Charing Cross Road.4 stars