Recent Reads

The Book Shop : a novel, by Penelope Fitzgerald

A kindly, intelligent, book-loving woman in a decaying English town starts a small business. In the process she renovates a derelict building, helps revitalize the local economy, provides jobs for otherwise idle teenagers and self-proclaimed intellectuals, and makes the world of books and ideas accessible to an otherwise isolated population. Naturally, someone with money and political connections is offended, and takes legal and social action to halt this dreadful menace to their ego.

It's a story of hopeful idealism versus pigheaded selfishness backed up by money, social position, and sly legalisms, and it should be required reading for anyone in the US where the Supreme Court's ruling in Kelo v. New London makes such things the law of the land for anyone who is unlucky enough to own a house, business, or any other property coveted by the local government's golfing buddies, "campaign contributors", business partners, or corporate sponsors. (See here for more background on this egregrious sellout of citizens' Constitutional rights by the Court, and what Americans who believe in Constitutional rights are doing about it.)