Is this synchronicity?  Finding two books about "bookmen" at one go?  But then, I am used to the mystic happening of books somehow being able to find me. Yes, I often felt books called to me when I am in the library, ha ha :D

I love A.J. Fikry and I could relate very well to him and I do hope someday it could be made into a movie. I wish the bookstore and Alice Island really so I could visit them both. Alas, it is all fictional.

On the other hand, The Bookman's Tale reminded me very much of a movie I liked - Anonymous. Both book and movie dwell into the mystery identity of William Shakespeare - someone who tortured me with his prose in my secondary school days.

Of the two, I think the bookseller A.J. is the one I preferred.