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BOOK REVIEW: The Reader on the 6.27

Jean-Paul Didierlaurent's fable of love - both of literature and romance - is set against a backdrop that is quintessentially French.

A slender and surprise bestseller set mainly on a train which, at 6.27 each morning, takes gloomy Frenchman Guylain to a job he hates at a book pulping factory.

On the way, he reads aloud to fellow commuters fragments of pages he has managed to rescue from the jaws of the book shredder. The journey takes 20 minutes, his captive audience applaud. It is the golden moment in Guylain’s day, which invariably concludes with a quiet chat with his best friend, Rouget de Lisle – a goldfish.

One day, Guylain discovers a USB stick containing the diary of a dreamy, book-loving cleaner of lavatories, Julie, living somewhere in the same large city, which the smitten Guylain must scour to find her.

A delightful, quintessentially French tale.

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