The bookshop

New jacket re-issue of Penelope Fitzgerald's Booker Prize-shortlisted novel This, Penelope Fitzgerald's second novel, was her first to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

It is set in a small East Anglian coastal town, where Florence Green decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop. 'She had a kind heart, but that is not much use when it comes to the matter of self-preservation.' Hardborough becomes a battleground, as small towns so easily do.

Florence has tried to change the way things have always been done, and as a result, she has to take on not only the people who have made themselves important, but natural and even supernatural forces too.

This is a story for anyone who knows that life has treated them with less than justice.