The Moment of Everything by Shelly King

The Moment of Everything

Shelly King

Grand Central Publishing

Pub Date   Sep 2 2014    
9781455546794  (Adult 18+)

In the tradition of The Cookbook Collector comes a funny, romantic novel about a young woman finding her calling while saving a used bookstore.
         Maggie Duprès, recently "involuntarily separated from payroll" at a Silicon Valley startup, is whiling away her days in The Dragonfly's Used Books, a Mountain View institution, waiting for the Next Big Thing to come along.
        When the opportunity arises for her to network at a Bay Area book club, she jumps at the chance-even if it means having to read Lady Chatterley's Lover, a book she hasn't encountered since college, in an evening. But the edition she finds at the bookstore is no Penguin Classics Chatterley-it's an ancient hardcover with notes in the margins between two besotted lovers of long ago. What       Maggie finds in her search for the lovers and their fate, and what she learns about herself in the process, will surprise and move readers.
        Witty and sharp-eyed in its treatment of tech world excesses, but with real warmth at its core, The Moment of Everything is a wonderful read.  

 

   Fans of You've Got Mail will find this a similar romantic read. Full of romance, friends, humor and finding yourself. 

 Maggie is obsessed with romance novels, when she should be out looking for a job she can be found instead at the Dragonfly's book store, reading. With pressure from her mother to move back home and marry. Maggie looses herself in books instead, mostly avoiding the pressure of life as long as she can. Over time she has become very close with the owner and banters with the employee as a sibling would. 

When a job opportunity and her love for books collide together, she joins a book club to make acquaintance with a possible employer.  The old used and battered book of Lady Chatterly's Lover that she got for the club she finds it has writing in the margins. A slowly developing romance between Henry and Catherine. Beautiful poetic lines professing their love and admiration of things, the book and life itself. 

Maggie soon finds herself volunteering at the book store, building it a website and posting about the passages from Henry and Catherine to try to drive in more customers. When the big chain store begins advertising used books as well, Maggie finds that her push to get more profit for the store is very tightly bound to the website and the quotes. She also finds a romance with a handsome man whom she wants to take her time with, but soon finds she has fallen in love.

   All of these topics interweave together throughout the story, pressure from her mother and best friend to find a job. The bookstore, friends and community all play a roll in this romantic, light -hearted read.