Join us the first Wednesday of each month at 7 p.m. to discuss compelling books of all genres. Books purchased for our book clubs are always 20% off. Please email Sally Chadbourn for more information and to join.

This month, we are reading The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce, a charming unconventional love story about the owner of a record shop and the mysterious young woman who steals his heart.

ABOUT THE BOOK

It is 1988. On a dead-end street in a down-at-the-heels suburb there is a music shop which stands small and brightly lit, jam-packed with records of every kind. Like a beacon, the shop attracts the lonely, the sleepless and the adrift; Frank, the shop’s owner, has a way of connecting his customers with the piece of music they need. Then into his shop one day comes a beautiful young woman, Ilse Brauchmann, who asks Frank to teach her about music. Terrified of real closeness, Frank’s instinct is to turn and run. And yet he is drawn to this strangely still, mysterious woman with her eyes as black as vinyl. But Ilse is not what she seems, and Frank has old wounds that threaten to re-open as well as a past it seems he will never leave behind. Can a man who is so in tune with other people’s needs be so incapable of connecting with the one person who might save him? The journey that these two quirky, wonderful characters make in order to overcome their emotional baggage speaks to the healing power of music—and love—in this poignant, ultimately joyful work of fiction.