I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages some one long gone has called my attention to.

There are four aspects I want to mention after reading the book. First of all, I need to admit that the book is quite easy to read. Though you may get lost in some contents, or some letters exactly if you lack some backgrounds of common literature knowledge. But you will still have an enjoyable reading experience from it, letters by letters, words by words.

Secondly, I may category the book as documentary genre because all the contents are from the correspondence between a woman, the writer of the book, also a book buyer and a reader in America, and some staff, mainly a bookseller named Frank, in a book store, locates the title of the book, in England.

There are many virtuals of mankind conveyed from the book or the whole story. After reading it, a happy feeling about friendship or some other feelings will rise from your heart.

More than that, different people may have different points of view of the book. For me, the truth hidden in the story is the most fascinating thing. After reading it, I am eager to know more about the history at that time, especially age 1950’s. As for me, I find that I have shallow knowledge about the history of Europe or England precisely. And it is always blurred in my mind that the western countries or the people in there live a better life than the people in my motherland in early modern times. I am shocked that the ordinary people there have the same bitter lives as well. For example, I never imagine that they once experienced a rationing system. No wonder, that may be why George Orwell wrote 1984?

On the other hand, I also knew that though having learned English as a second language for so many years, I am still illiteracy in the spoken countries if I didn’t have the basis of common literature knowledge there.

Last but not least, I want to take a reflection of the development of human society nowadays. It is so speedy that it may be lost in its mind. We should keep our mind clear and always steer in the right direction. Maybe it is time to slow our pace and look around.

First book review in English. Talk about the experience of reading the book, some descriptions of the contents, the most fascinating thing of the book and some reflections after reading it. Still, need more practice in writing.

• 2019/06/23：Fix some typos via Grammarly and don’t change the update time due to its irrelevance to the content