The Last Bookshop in London: A Novel of World War II

Literature is an important motif throughout the novel. Literature is a symbol of escapism, inspiration, and comfort. Grace discovers the potency of this when she discovers the pleasures of reading. Literature helps Grace transcend her temporal space, and it builds more empathy around the nuances of human beings.

Grace shares this symbol and therefore makes literature not just an introverted symbol, but one around which community can be built. Literature is the building ground of shared ideas and feelings. People connect through literature, like Mr. Evans and his wife, who met because of a shared love of books. George and Grace’s relationship begins with books, too. Though George is away at war, his copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, gifted to Grace, provides an avenue into one another’s feelings. A shared book is like a shared heart.

Literature creates a community through the sharing, protecting, and disseminating of books. Grace brings customers into the bookshop not just through marketing tactics but through sharing her passion for literature and reading out loud in the bomb shelters. Books bring humor to lives that are filled with sadness and concern, hope to people who are afraid of the future, and comfort to people who are lonely. Literature is a great equalizer, a great escape, and a way of protecting what is most human.

Literature also represents the perseverance of free, diverse thought. Mr. Evans protects a box of bloodied books that have been rescued from the Nazi book burning campaign. That the Nazis would burn and ban books emphasizes their power: They are filled with ideas that can be perceived as dangerous to the social order. Grace, Mr. Evans, and those before them work hard to protect these salvaged books. The safe that contains them is undamaged when Primrose Hill Books is destroyed, which symbolizes that the ideas contained in books cannot be silenced through violence.