This is the story of a middle-aged woman who impulsively buys a mobile book store, similar to a tiny house or a vardo [1]. She leaves her domestic responsibilities to go adventuring on the road.
I downloaded the ebook from Project Gutenberg and i was not disappointed. The story begins as a fast paced first-person narrative. I could easily like and relate to the protagonist. It made for a lazy Sunday afternoon read.
This book has a sequel titled The Haunted Bookshop [2].
What follows are quotes and spoilers from the book that interested me.
It's all right for college presidents to draw up their five-foot shelves of great literature, and for the publishers to advertise sets of their Linoleum Classics, but what the people need is the good, homely, honest stuff--something that'll stick to their ribs--make them laugh and tremble and feel sick to think of the littleness of this popcorn ball spinning in space without ever even getting a hot-box! And something that'll spur 'em on to keep the hearth well swept and the wood pile split into kindling and the dishes washed and dried and put away. Any one who can get the country people to read something worth while is doing his nation a real service. And that's what this caravan of culture aspires to... You must be weary of this harangue! Does the Sage of Redfield ever run on like that?"
"Not to me," I said. "He's known me so long that he thinks of me as a kind of animated bread-baking and cake-mixing machine. I guess he doesn't put much stock in my judgment in literary matters. ...
The road from Shelby to Port Vigor runs across the broad hill slopes that trend toward the Sound; and below, on our left, the river lay glittering in the valley. It was a perfect landscape: the woods were all bronze and gold; the clouds were snowy white and seemed like heavenly washing hung out to air; the sun was warm and swam gloriously in an arch of superb blue. My heart was uplifted indeed. For the first time, I think, I knew how Andrew feels on those vagabond trips of his. Why had all this been hidden from me before? Why had the transcendent mystery of baking bread blinded me so long to the mysteries of sun and sky and wind in the trees? We passed a white farmhouse close to the road. By the gate sat the farmer on a log, whittling a stick and smoking his pipe. Through the kitchen window I could see a woman blacking the stove. I wanted to cry out: "Oh, silly woman! Leave your stove, your pots and pans and chores, even if only for one day! Come out and see the sun in the sky and the river in the distance!"
What absurd victims of contrary desires we are! If a [person] is settled in one place [one] yearns to wander; when [a person] wanders [one] yearns to have a home. And yet how bestial is content--all the great things in life are done by discontented people.
There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning, and yearning. A [person] should be learning as [one] goes; and [one] should be earning bread for [one's self] and others; and [one] should be yearning, too: yearning to know the unknowable.
author: Morley, Christopher, 1890-1957
detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Parnassus_on_Wheels
title: Parnassus On Wheels