New friends in store

To mark Bookshop Day, a verse in praise of bookshops - and the 21st characters you'll find there. Can you identify all these character references?

So you reckon a bookshop’s a dusty old place

Full of Shakespeare and Dickens and such

And the old and the classic are all that there is.

Heavens, are you out of touch.

Of course I know Will and Charles, Emily, Jane,

They’ve lived in bookshops forever

And I love them all still but what gives me more thrill

Is meeting new friends I can treasure.

Since the millennium, say, at my local bookstore

When I've wandered its floors, browsed its texts

I’ve joyfully found new characters abound

And I never know who I’ll meet next.

For instance: Autua’s all at sea on cloud nine

For surviving at all’s unexpected.

Recalling family names is one of holy John’s aims

As Alfred and Enid stand corrected.

Archie lives too, dragged out of his slumber

And while Samal helps him make a new start,

Kathy, Tommy and Ruth all learn a new truth –

That they’re more than the sum of their parts.

Up the stairs comes Ursula, living her best life,

As Marianne and Connell, they cross paths

Kya lives in the bog and killed more than a dog.

Christopher, you do the maths.

Downstairs Lyra’s befriending a bear

And the punks, they make Bennie’s day

And meanwhile Thomas, he wanders among us

Ensuring the king gets his way.

And far down the road, a man leads a boy,

The good guys stumbling in fear

Some tales don’t end well, but at least they’re on the shelf

(Julian’s books aren’t even here).

There, in the darkest of corners, Liesel hides Max

As Death watches them all every day,

With the harrowing dramas of lads in pyjamas,

While Marie blindly shows us the way.

So they don’t all get happy ever afters

(Although here’s Ursula again having fun)

But if your ending’s too bleak, Briony will tweak

Still making up for what she has done.

So these, then, are my friends, and I found them all

In a shop. I just walked through the door.

Sure online is quick, and I could stay home and click.

But the REAL adventure’s in store.

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