Editor's note:  This is an airy book of fiction about a bookstore on a barge on the Seine in Paris whose owner sets sail one day after 20 years of habits borne of a lost love.  It is recreational reading to be sure with very lively, if somewhat far-fetched characters but by the end you realize it has a wonderful point to it all.  That point is expressed in the  favorite excerpt below which appears about mid-book.

Favorite Excerpt:  "Habit is a vain and treacherous goddess.  She lets nothing disrupt her rule.  She smothers one desire after another; the desire to travel, the desire for a better job or a new love.  She stops us from loving as we would like, because habit prevents us from asking ourselves whether we continue to enjoy doing what we do".