The Costco Connection - October 2016

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PENNIE’S PICK

READING IS AS essential to me as food, oxygen and shelter. Imagine my delight at reading this month’s book buyer’s pick, Nina George’s

The Little Paris Bookshop, about a man who knows just which book will cure what ails you.

Nursing a broken heart?

Need to feel more confident? Want to escape adult worries? Jean Perdu owns a floating bookstore on a barge on the Seine, which he calls a “literary apothecary.” But it seems he’s skilled at addressing everyone’s problems but his own.

In a life-changing moment, he sets off down the Seine, looking for answers that have eluded him for decades.

Need a book to remind you that it’s OK to take chances and really live life? Then The Little Paris Bookshop (Item #2016446, available now) is my recommendation for you.

For more book picks, see page 77.

—Pennie Clark Ianniciello, Costco book buyer

written under the name Jean Bagnol.

Inspiration for The Little Paris Bookshop, which was originally published in German as Das Lavendelzimmer in 2013, came from the unexpected death of George’s father.

“Before my father died I knew I wanted to write a book with a male as a lead character. Then my father died, and my whole world broke down. I thought, ‘I can’t write just about losing love; he was my life,’ ” George says from her home in France.

She explains that while artists sometimes have to suffer a lot to create something good, her suffering led to a breaking free of constraints she felt as a writer. She’d been told that books about bookstores and booksellers just weren’t that popular and didn’t sell. But, after her father’s death, George felt she could take a risk. Bad reviews or slow sales meant little in the face of the pain she had already experienced. Proving publishers wrong, the novel has sold more than 500,000 copies in 28 languages.

George reports, in accented but nearly perfect English, that she wrote the novel only after speaking with people who live and travel along the Seine, reading their travel journals and following Jean’s path on land.

“I’m a writer, so my job is to be exact,” In addition to her prolific writing, George teaches classes on various aspects of writing, from adding humor to a manuscript to visualizing written characters as people in a play to help flesh out their roles and traits.

As if all of that isn’t enough, George has also made a place for herself as an activist for authors’ rights in Germany. Her second home is in Berlin, which is where she soaks up the Argentinian tango culture thriving in Germany’s capital.

Perhaps Manon, from The Little Paris Bookshop,
says it best in her travel journal: “Tango is a truth
drug. It lays bare your problems and your com-
plexes, but also the strengths you hide from others
so as not to vex them.”
George adds, “So much can be explained
through dance.” C

Nina George

Bibliotherapy

Author explores the healing power of books

a
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STOCKPHOTOCD COSTCO HAS 50 copies of Nina George’s

The Little Paris Bookshop, with signed bookplates, to give away. To enter, go to costco connectionbookgiveaway.com.

NO PURCHASE, PAYMEN T OR OPT-IN OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES.

Purchase will not improve odds of winning. Sweepstakes is sponsored by Random House, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY

10019. Open to legal residents of the U.S. (except Puerto Rico) who are age 18 or older at the time of entry. One entry per household. Entries must be received before the November issue is available online, which will happen around October 26,

2016. Winners will be randomly selected and noti;ed by mail on or before December 1, 2016. The value of the prize is $16. Void where prohibited. Winners are responsible for all applicable federal, state and local taxes. Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received. Employees of Costco or Penguin Random House and their families are not eligible.

SIGNED BOOK GIVEAWAY

BY STEPHANIE E. PONDER

TALK WITH AUTHOR Nina George and you’ll soon learn that two different forces have shaped her writing and her personal life: breaking free of the bonds of inertia and her love of the tango.

Both play a part in this month’s book buyer’s pick, The Little Paris Bookshop. Jean Perdu, the owner of what he calls a literary apothecary—a bookstore on a barge—has the power to choose the right healing book for everyone but himself. After reading an unopened and long-forgotten letter from the tango-loving Manon, the woman who broke his heart, he unmoors the barge and sets sail down the Seine, accompanied by an author with writer’s block and a lovelorn chef.

“I’m repeating this message
when, in every human life, one
asks, ‘OK, should I stay in this [sit-
uation] or find out if there’s any-
thing waiting for me?’ ” says
George. “It’s a point I will repeat in
every novel: A character finds him-
self in his or her prison and then they
break out.”
It’s hard to imagine that George,
who was born and raised in Germany, has
any trouble battling inertia. She finished high
school and began writing for several newsmaga-
zines. Since her early 20s, she has written more than