Josep Pla’s masterpiece, The Gray Notebook, is one of the most colorful and unusual works in modern literature. In 1918, when Pla was in Barcelona studying law, the Spanish flu broke out, the university shut down, and he went home to his parents in coastal Palafrugell. Aspiring to be a writer, not a lawyer, he resolved to hone his style by keeping a journal. In it he wrote about his family, local characters, visits to cafés; the quips, quarrels, ambitions, and amours of his friends; writers he liked and writers he didn’t; and the long contemplative walks he would take in the countryside under magnificent skies. Returning to Barcelona to complete his studies, Pla kept up his diary, scrutinizing life in the big city with the same unflagging zest and humor. Pla, one of the great Catalan writers, held on to this youthful journal for close to fifty years, reworking and adding to it, until he finally published The Gray Notebook as both the first volume and the capstone of his collected works. It is a beautiful, entrancing, delightful book—at once a distillation of the spirit of youth and the work of a lifetime.

Josep Pla’s masterpiece, The Gray Notebook, is one of the most colorful and unusual works in modern literature. In 1918, when Pla was in Barcelona studying law, the Spanish flu broke out, the university shut down, and he went home to his parents in coastal Palafrugell. Aspiring to be a writer, not a lawyer, he resolved to hone his style by keeping a journal. In it he wrote about his family, local characters, visits to cafés; the quips, quarrels, ambitions, and amours of his friends; writers he liked and writers he didn’t; and the long contemplative walks he would take in the countryside under magnificent skies. Returning to Barcelona to complete his studies, Pla kept up his diary, scrutinizing life in the big city with the same unflagging zest and humor. Pla, one of the great Catalan writers, held on to this youthful journal for close to fifty years, reworking and adding to it, until he finally published The Gray Notebook as both the first volume and the capstone of his collected works. It is a beautiful, entrancing, delightful book—at once a distillation of the spirit of youth and the work of a lifetime.

Campbell Harrison is obsessed with books. So, when she quits her day job, leaving behind her dysfunctional family, and decides to move to a small town where no one knows her and she knows no one, she breathes relief for the first time in years. With plans to open up a brick and mortar bookshop, she gives up most of her life's savings to sign a year-long lease on a space in an old building downtown. She doesn't think twice about it. It's been her dream for as long as she can remember and now is not the time to start second guessing her decision to move. But shortly after, Campbell realizes she may have bitten off more than she can chew, even with the town's support in her little, but big dream. When the charming Bishop Graham, a veteran-turned firefighter with a past he'd rather not talk about, shows up on the stoop of her bookshop late one night at closing, Campbell all but dismisses him as an annoying customer. But the more she sees him around the small town, the more curious she becomes about who he is, and why he too came to this middle-of-nowhere town to escape. With just a few months left on her lease and the holidays quickly appreaoching, Campbell has been dreading some big conversations. What is her next step? What is it exactly is it she's been running from? Where does the bookshop stand when her lease is over? With growing anxiety and anticipation over what is to come, Campbell finds herself longing for a sign that she is exactly where she is meant to be.