267. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Recommended by:
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Genre: Fiction
260 pages, published April 1, 2014
Reading Format: Audio Book
Summary
At the beginning of The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, we meet A.J. Fikry, a 39 year old bookstore owner on Alice Island whose wife has just died and whose one very valuable asset, a first edition of the Edgar Allan Poe book of poems, Tamerlane, has been stolen after A.J. went on a bender and left his shop unlocked. At this low point, A.J.’s life is about to take a major turn. A young woman at the end of her rope leaves her two year old baby, Maya, in A.J.’s store with a note asking him to care for her. What follows this event makes up the storied life of A.J. Fikry.
Quotes
“You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?”
The words you can’t find, you borrow.
We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone.
My life is in these books, he wants to tell her. Read these and know my heart.
We are not quite novels.
The analogy he is looking for is almost there.
We are not quite short stories. At this point, his life is seeming closest to that.
In the end, we are collected works.”
“We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on.”
“It is the secret fear that we are unlovable that isolates us,” the passage goes, “but it is only because we are isolated that we think we are unlovable. Someday, you do not know when, you will be driving down a road. And someday, you do not know when, he, or indeed she, will be there. You will be loved because for the first time in your life, you will truly not be alone. You will have chosen to not be alone.”
“Someday, you may think of marrying. Pick someone who thinks you’re the only person in the room.”
“They had only ever discussed books but what, in this life, is more personal than books?”
“I can promise you books and conversation and all my heart.”
“No Man Is An Island; Every Book Is A World.”
“Every word the right one and exactly where it should be. That’s basically the highest compliment I can give.”
“Why is any one book different from any other book? They are different, A.J. decides, because they are. We have to look inside many. We have to believe. We agree to be disappointed sometimes so that we can be exhilarated every now and again.”
“The words you can’t find, you borrow. We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone.”
“A question I’ve thought about a great deal is why it is so much easier to write about the things we dislike/hate/acknowledge to be flawed than the things we love.”
“You tell a kid he doesn’t like to read, and he’ll believe you.”
“I don’t want to die,” A.J. says after a bit. “I just find it difficult to be here all the time.”
“What is the point of bad dates if not to have amusing anecdotes for your friends?”
“I worry for you. If you love everyone, you’ll end up having hurt feelings most of the time. I suppose, relative to the length of your life, you feel as if you’ve known me a rather long time. Your perspective of time is really very warped, Maya. But I am old and soon, you’ll forget you even knew me.”
“Teachers assign it, and parents are happy because their kids are reading something of ‘quality.’ But it’s forcing kids to read books like that that make them think they hate reading.”
My Take
As with Young Jane Young, the other book that I read this year by Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry is primarily a character study. But it is the kind of character study that really works. You enjoy getting to know these characters, like living in their world and are moved by their choices and stories. For me there was also an added bonus that this book is a love letter to books and to reading, things that are (obviously) dear to my heart. Highly recommended.
