“Loving requires so much courage and so little expectation.”
The Little Paris Bookshop is a 2013 bestselling novel by Nina George, and still one of the best books about books available on the shelves. The story follows Monsieur Perdu, a literary apothecary who has a bookstore in his barge on the River Seine. He has developed a keen sense for prescribing the exact sort of book his customers need in their lives but is still haunted by the disappearance of his first love. But, when he is finally tempted to open a letter she left him, he embarks on an adventure to the south of France alongside a blocked author and lovelorn Italian chef, dishing out his books and wisdom along the way. If you loved Nina George’s tale and are on the hunt for other reads brimming with big hearts and adventure, join us today at What We Reading for the best books like The Little Paris Bookshop!
The Storied Life Of A.J. Fikry – Gabrielle Zevin
Kicking off our list of books like The Little Paris Bookshop is Gabrielle Zevin’s Goodreads Choice Award-nominated novel, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. A.J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he expected it to be. His wife has died, his bookshop is experiencing a sales slump and his most prized possession, a collection of Poe poems has been stolen. He is slowly isolating himself, lost in a world that he feels is changing far too rapidly. Then a mysterious package appears in his shop.
Small in size but heavy in weight, the unexpected arrival gives A.J. Fikry the opportunity to make his life anew. It doesn’t take long for the locals of Alice Island to begin seeing the changes in A.J. as he sets out twisting into a version of life he never saw coming.
The Reading List – Sara Nisha Adams
Widower Mukesh lives a quiet life in the London Borough of Ealing after losing his beloved wife. Every Wednesday, he shops, goes to the temple and worries about his granddaughter, Priya, who hides in her room reading while he watches nature documentaries downstairs.
Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library over the summer. One day, she stumbles upon a list of books on the back of a piece of crumpled paper, none of which she has ever heard of. Intrigued, she reads each of the books on the list, transporting her from the painful realities back home. When Mukesh arrives at the library to rekindle the pair’s relationship, Aleisha shares the books with him. Similar to The Little Paris Bookshop, the shared connection through the world of fiction helps them both escape their grief and start to find joy again.
The Ice Cream Queen Of Orchard Street – Susan Jane Gilman
In 1913, Malka Treynovsky flees Russia with her family. Captivated by the tales of gold and movie stardom, she tricks them into buying tickets for the United States. But, upon arriving in Manhatten’s Lower East Side, Malka is crippled and abandoned in the street. A tough-loving Italian ices peddler takes her in, she learns to survive through cunning and inventiveness. As she learns more about her trade, she meets and falls in love with a gorgeous radical named Albert, soon setting off with him on a tour across the country in an ice cream van and being dubbed the ‘Ice Cream Queen’ – owner of a successful ice cream franchise and a celebrated television personality.
Lillian’s rise to fame and fortune spans seven decades and mirrors the course of American history across the twentieth century. Yet there is more to Lillian than what meets the eye; as her past begins to catch up with her, everything she has spent her life building threatens to shatter in Susan Jane Gilman’s The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street.
The Readers Of Broken Wheel Recommend – Katarina Bivald
Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara before. Travelling all the way from her native Sweden to meet her pen pal, Amy, Sara is stunned to find when she arrives that Amy’s funeral has just ended. Fortunately, the locals are happy looking after their bewildered visitor for the time being, even if they don’t quite understand her strange need for books. Stranded in a rural farm town, Sara instead decides to start a bookshop of her own in memory of her friend.
Her only mission is to share her love for books with the residents of Broken Wheel and to convince them that reading is one of the greatest joys in life. But, she soon makes some unconventional decisions that could soon force secrets out into the open and change things for everyone in town. Like The Little Paris Bookshop, Katarina Bivald’s The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend is a story about the transformative power of books.
The Elegance Of The Hedgehog – Muriel Barbery
Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog whisks readers to the centre of Paris and an elegant apartment building filled with affluent members of society. Renee is the concierge and witnesses the lavish lives of her employers firsthand. On the surface she looks like the stereotypical concierge; but, inwardly, she is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy and Japanese culture. With cut-throat humour and intelligence, she scrutinises the lives of the building’s tenants.
Paloma is a twelve-year-old genius also living in the building. She has decided she is going to end her life on her thirteenth birthday but is committed to behaving as everyone expects her to until then. Together, Renee and Paloma both hide their true talents from a world they suspect have no interest in them. That is until the arrival of an enigmatic Japanese man named Ozu, who is able to see through Renee’s ruse and gain Paloma’s trust. Featuring a stunning Parisian backdrop and plenty of philosophical and literary themes, Barbery’s acclaimed novel is the perfect follow-up for anyone who loved The Little Paris Bookshop.
Check Out The Best Books Set In Paris
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
Eleanor Oliphant struggles with social skills and tends to say exactly what she is thinking. She keeps herself to herself, but everything soon changes when she meets Raymond, the bumbling IT guy at her office. When the two of them help an elderly gentleman named Sammy after he falls on the sidewalk, the three become the sorts of friends that save one another from their isolated existences. It is Raymond’s big heart that soon convinces Eleanor to find a way of mending her own profoundly damaged one.
Similar to The Little Paris Bookshop, Gail Honeyman’s bestselling novel, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is a story about emotional healing and personal growth featuring a cast of quirky characters whose unexpected friendships help them all break out of their emotional shells and realise they don’t need to face life alone.
The Bookshop – Penelope Fitzgerald
In 1959 Florence Green, a kindhearted widow with a small inheritance, risks everything to open the first bookshop in her sleepy seaside town of Hardborough. By making the success of a business seemingly so impractical, she soon draws the ire of the town’s less prosperous shopkeepers.
In enlarging the lives of her neighbours, she soon crosses Mrs. Gamart, the local arts doyenne. Florence’s warehouse leaks, her cellar seeps and the bookshop is rumoured to be haunted. But it is far too late that Florence begins to realise that the truth behind her misfortunes is that this town that lacks a bookshop might not want one. Another one of the best books like The Little Paris Bookshop about the power of reading, The Bookshop is a classic piece of historical fiction by Penelope Fitzgerald.
The Bookish Life Of Nina Hill – Abbi Waxman
Another Goodreads Choice Award-nominated read that fans of The Little Paris Bookshop are sure to love, Abbi Waxman’s The Bookish Life of Nina Hill introduces readers to Nina. Nina is the only child of a single mother, whose only goals in life are to read, get a job in a bookshop and have a cat named Phil. However, when her absent father suddenly dies, she is shocked to learn there are innumerable brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews now close by, and all of them are keen to meet her.
What’s more, her trivia nemesis, Tom, has revealed himself to be cute, funny and extremely interested in getting to know her more closely. Like Monsieur Perdu in Nina George’s novel, it’s time for Nina to step out of her comfort zone and discover that the real world is capable of comparing to the fictional ones she’s always reading about.
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
