Rating: 
Summary: For Bibliophiles Only
Review: "A man who's fond of books need never starve." So reckons Roger Mifflin, the last of the truly independent booksellers, who loads a horse-drawn wagon with books and brings literature home to the plain man. Roger calls his wagon Parnassus on Wheels after the mountain sacred to the Muses. He believes all people need a book and that he is just the man to recommend the perfect book for each person. Roger may be the first book discounter because he thinks every book should be sold for its worth and not for the price the publisher has marked. Roger deems himself to be just the man to make that determination."Parnassus on Wheels" is also a sweet romance story between Roger and Helen McGill, a lonely woman who lives on a farm and whose life comes to life when Parnassus and Roger come swaying up her path. Roger sells her Parnassus on Wheels and teaches her how to promote books. Their adventures on the way to Brooklyn fill this book with contemporary color about a time during the beginning of the 20th century, when books were a rare and perfect mystery for the few. If you are a bibliophile, and you must be if you are reading this review of this obscure novel about bookselling, then you'll enjoy reading about Helen and Roger's adventures roaming the countryside to bring books to the masses.
Rating:
Summary: For Bibliophiles Only
Review: "A man who's fond of books need never starve." So reckons Roger Mifflin, the last of the truly independent booksellers, who loads a horse-drawn wagon with books and brings literature home to the plain man. Roger calls his wagon Parnassus on Wheels after the mountain sacred to the Muses. He believes all people need a book and that he is just the man to recommend the perfect book for each person. Roger may be the first book discounter because he thinks every book should be sold for its worth and not for the price the publisher has marked. Roger deems himself to be just the man to make that determination. "Parnassus on Wheels" is also a sweet romance story between Roger and Helen McGill, a lonely woman who lives on a farm and whose life comes to life when Parnassus and Roger come swaying up her path. Roger sells her Parnassus on Wheels and teaches her how to promote books. Their adventures on the way to Brooklyn fill this book with contemporary color about a time during the beginning of the 20th century, when books were a rare and perfect mystery for the few. If you are a bibliophile, and you must be if you are reading this review of this obscure novel about bookselling, then you'll enjoy reading about Helen and Roger's adventures roaming the countryside to bring books to the masses.
Rating: 
Summary: For booklovers and romantics
Review: A touching and romantic story that takes us back to the days long before there were [mainstream] bookstores in every mid-sized city and the majority of the population had access to amazon.com. A comic romance, yes, but without all the physical and emotional doldrums associated with it (isn't that nice?) Clever and witty.
Rating:
Summary: A Truly Enjoyable Book - Deserves Great Praise
Review: Christopher Morley on Christopher Morley: "His early writing, which was (though not intentionally) imitative and immature, was received with absurd overpraise." Morley's self evaluation was overly critical. Now, nearly 90 years later, Morley's early works, especially Parnassus on Wheels (1917) and its sequel, The Haunted Bookshop (1919), are still widely praised.
Roger Mifflin, the exuberant, irrepressible, itinerant book seller, is one of the most beloved characters of twentieth century fiction. But the central character in Parnassus on Wheels is really Helen McGill, the pragmatic and hardworking sister of the much admired writer, Andrew McGill. Having baked some 6,000 loaves of bread for her brother in the last fifteen years, Helen was primed for change. When Roger Mifflin placed his horse-drawn library, Parnassus, for sale at $400, Helen, age 39, withdrew her savings and began the adventure of her life. As a neighbor exclaimed, "Think of Parnassus turned suffrage!"
Parnassus on Wheels, like its marvelous sequel, The Haunted Bookshop, is a delightful mix of engaging characters, lively plot, and thought provoking, common sense philosophy. Christopher Morley, later founder and editor of the Saturday Review, cleverly employed his remarkable traveling bookseller to expound on Morley's own deep commitment to good literature. Here is one of Roger Mifflin's most quoted statements: "Lord!" he said, "when you sell a man a book you don't sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life."
Whatever you do, don't stop with Parnassus on Wheels. Immediately find a copy of its splendid sequel, The Haunted Bookshop. Cheers.
Rating:
Summary: A charming (and quick) read
Review: Christopher Morley's protagonist and narrator, a self-described forty-ish fat New England housewife, finds passion and adventure when Roger Mifflin, an itinerant bookseller, enters her life. Originally published in 1917, the book reads quickly and leaves one satisfied. It is a charming portrait of a bygone era, and yet it captures those things which are eternal -- the love of learning, the power of human feeling, and the irresistible bond of kindred spirits.
Rating:
Summary: For booklovers and romantics
Review: Do you love books and learning? Do you delight in spending the afternoon browsing the stacks at the library? Are you in the mood for something light, amusing, captivating, and utterly delightful? Do you believe in true love, somehow, someway? If you said yes to most of these questions, then read Parnassus on Wheels. This is the most delightful and charming book I've come across in years. It brought tears to my eyes and made me laugh, and that doesn't happen often when I'm reading a book. In fact, I wish I had my own Parnassus and that I could travel the countryside selling books. By the way, it's a page turner too! A great gift idea for a friend that loves to read. Enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: A bibliophile's delight
Review: Gutenberg made the printed word available to the masses, but that doesn't mean that everybody bothered. That problem fuels "Parnassus on Wheels," a sweet little story about books and an unlikely romance, between a quirky bookseller and a stodgy spinster.
Andrew McGill became an unexpected literary hit when he wrote a book called "Paradise Regained" about a farmer's rural life. For his second book, he went trudging around the countryside for more material, leaving his middle-aged sister Helen to stay home and keep house for him. But one day a strange little man arrives at Helen's home, in a bookshop on wheels. The odd Roger Mifflin wants to sell Andrew his Parnassus -- his portable bookshop -- and intends to wait until Andrew returns.
Desperate to keep her brother from vanishing into the sunset, Helen takes her savings and buys the Parnassus herself. Then, out of regret for the life she has never gotten to experience off the farm, Helen decides to spend some time driving the Parnassus around the countryside. And as Roger teaches her about books and their importance, she begins to see just how a book -- any book -- can change a person's life.
"Parnassus on Wheels" is not a really outstanding book, but it is charming and sometimes very funny. Christopher Morley gives a glimpse into an earlier era, when rural areas didn't have libraries, there was no Internet to show people what was for sale, and a lot of people read nothing but the Bible.
There really isn't much of a plot, since most of it consists of Roger and Helen puttering around the countryside in the Parnassus. If there is a plot at all, it's the sort-of-romance between the two of them. It's cute and slightly sentimental, but peppered with humor such as Andrew and Roger getting into a very undignified fistfight in the road.
Helen starts out as a rather annoying character -- she's prejudiced against people who read, and seems to think that people should simply stay on the farm. That makes it all the more enjoyable when she starts appreciating the written word, and decides that she's not going to be an unappreciated bread-making automaton anymore. Roger Mifflin is actually not as odd as he seems to Helen's eyes, although he does have some charming quirks.
"Parnassus on Wheels" isn't deep or detailed enough to really be a classic, but it is a charming little early-1900s novel. Not to mention a must-read for bibliophiles.
Rating:
Summary: "What absurd victims of contrary desires we are."
Review: Helen McGill is the narrator of the gently comic novel, "Parnassus On Wheels." The year is 1907, and middle-aged, overweight, Helen lives with her brother, Andrew. She was "slowly perishing as a conscientious governess" and Andrew was a businessman, when they decided to leave the city and buy Bog Hollow Farm with their joint savings. The first few years were spent toiling away happily, but then following the death of great-uncle Philip, they inherit a large quantity of books. Helen notes, sadly, that this "was the beginning of the end." Andrew begins toting a book along when he sets out on his farm work, and reading becomes a distraction. Then Andrew writes a book called "Paradise Regained" followed by the very successful "Happiness and Hayseed." Andrew becomes a literary success, and poor Helen is left with the labour of the farm whenever Andrew has "a literary fit" and leaves for "some vagabond jaunt" gathering material for his next book. Andrew is now a local celebrity known as "the Sage of Redfield," and Helen carries the burden of the farm.
Then one day, the peculiar, idealistic and opinionated Roger Mifflin stops at the farm with the intention of selling a contraption--a horse and foldout wagon--to Andrew. This contraption, Roger calls his "caravan of culture", and it's stuffed full with books. Helen is so appalled at the notion that Andrew will be seduced by the books and take to the road, that she buys the wagon in order to prevent Andrew from buying it. But then an "extraordinary impulse seized" Helen, and in spite of the fact she's "severely practical by nature" Helen takes to the road as a book-seller with Roger teaching her the fundamentals of providing books--"salvation" for "stunted little minds."
"Parnassus on Wheels" is a quaint, amusing slice of Americana. Helen's "revolt of womanhood" is told with an easy, natural style and a certain matter-of-factness. Helen feels that she is "a kind of animated bread-making and cake mixing machine" to her unappreciative brother, and so an impulsive escape attracts her long-dormant sense of adventure. While Helen professes not to be literary, her descriptions of the countryside she travels through are simple but stunning. "Parnassus on Wheels" provides a pleasant and droll afternoon's reading, and bibliophiles, in particular, should enjoy many a chuckle over these pages--displacedhuman
Rating:
Summary: Another book about books
Review: This is a cute little book. It can probably be read over a weekend. The main character in the story, Helen, has a brother who is a successful novelist who writes about farm life and its inhabitants. Helen has baked 6,000 loaves of bread in the past 15 years! When a salesman comes to their farm and wants to sell Parnassus (a traveling bookstore/van with a horse), Helen gets mad that her brother will go off yet again to have adventures which he will write a book about. Consequently, leaving her to tend the farm and all chores. Instead, Helen buys Parnassus off the man to spite her brother but then has an adventure of her own! The sequal is 'Haunted Bookshop.' I also recommend, Used and Rare, Slightly Chipped, and Warmly Insribed-- all 3 by Larry and Nancy Goldstone. Also 84 Charring Cross Road and the Dutchess of Bloomsberry Street.
Rating:
Summary: Another book about books
Review: This is a cute little book. It can probably be read over a weekend. The main character in the story, Helen, has a brother who is a successful novelist who writes about farm life and its inhabitants. Helen has baked 6,000 loaves of bread in the past 15 years! When a salesman comes to their farm and wants to sell Parnassus (a traveling bookstore/van with a horse), Helen gets mad that her brother will go off yet again to have adventures which he will write a book about. Consequently, leaving her to tend the farm and all chores. Instead, Helen buys Parnassus off the man to spite her brother but then has an adventure of her own! The sequal is 'Haunted Bookshop.' I also recommend, Used and Rare, Slightly Chipped, and Warmly Insribed-- all 3 by Larry and Nancy Goldstone. Also 84 Charring Cross Road and the Dutchess of Bloomsberry Street.
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