The Bookshop on the Corner

This is a cozy mystery by Jenny Colgan (originally published in Britain under the title The Little Shop of Happy-Ever-After) set in Birmingham and the Highlands of Scotland. Anyone who has ever mourned the digitization of libraries to the exclusion of books will identify with Nina Redmond, librarian and literary matchmaker extraordinaire, who has recently had to re-apply for her job at the Birmingham public library--and failed. But she has taken a stash of the books that were destined for the recylcing and, when added to all those she has accumulated at her flat, feels she could start her own mobile library. Responding to an advertisement in the paper, she makes the long trek to the Highlands of Scotland to check out a big (really big) van for sale. Although the crotchety owner won't sell it to her, the friends she makes at the local pub (where she recommends books for them to read) decide to buy it from the recalcitrant owner and sell it to Nina. They also help her get it fixed up and running and she makes the enormous leap of faith to leave home and friends and everything she has known until now to move to Scotland. Former landlord/ flat-mate/ best friend, Surinder, takes a leave of absence to join Nina for a few weeks to help her get settled. Nina quickly realizes she loves the wide open spaces and the wonderful people (most of them) and cannot imagine moving back to the crowds and crime of Birmingham.

Nina has never been particularly good at matchmaking for herself and engages in yet another dead-end attachment, this time with a refugee train engineer, who leaves books and poems for her at the railroad crossing near her village. Eventually she learns he already has a son and long-time girlfriend back home, so Nina subsequenly--and predictably-- gets involved with her rude landlord. This is the least interesting part of the book, but Nina's explorations of Scotland, her growing involvement with her tiny village community, and her finding her own life and ways to express it are really enjoyable.