girl etymologist

i had the privilege of seeing the delightful book "84, charing crossroad" performed in play form by local actors at cannon beach's "coastal theater" (www.coastertheater.com) this weekend.  imagine my surprise to see this obscure little tome (copyright 1970) show up on the play bill in 2013!  written by helene hanff, it is a charming literary chronicle of a witty and endearing 20-year correspondence between helene in new york and frank doel/the staff of marks & co. booksellers in london. my copy is yellowed and falling apart from both age and being well-loved.  some of my favorite lines, "do you mean to sit there and tell me you've been publishing these mammoth catalogues all these years and this is the first time you ever bothered to send me one?  thou VARLET?"  and "so break it to me gently:  how hard is it going to be to find me john donne's complete sermons and how much is it going to cost?  i am going to bed.  i will have hideous nightmares involving huge monsters in academic robes carrying long bloody butcher knives labelled Excerpt, Selection, Passage and Abridged.  yrs, h. hfffffffff". or " i enclose three bucks, it's a beautiful book and you can't even call it secondhand, the pages weren't cut.  did i tell you i finally found the perfect page-cutter?  it's a pearl-handled fruit knife.  my mother left me a dozen of them, i keep one in the pencil cup on my desk.  maybe i go with the wrong people, but i'm just not likely to have twelve guests all sitting around simultaneously eating fruit.  cheers, hh, girl entymologist".  the play ends as helen is finally arriving in london, too late to meet frank as he has passed away (carpe diem, no regrets!), and her adventures are outlined in the sequel "the duchess of bloomsbury street".