Helen MacFarquhar, the divorced 42-year-old proprietor of Horatio Street Books, finds a torrid love note in a stack of mail. Creased oddly, without an accompanying envelope, addressed to "Goat" and signed "Ram," at first the letter only momentarily disrupts her routine. But Helen, usually in total control of her thoughts, can't seem to get it out of her head. Was it simply a postal error, or was it meant for her? Everyone who enters her store becomes...

"From the author compared to Norah Ephron and Nancy Mitford, not to mention Jane Austen, comes a new novel celebrating the beauty, mischief, and occasional treachery of language. The Grammarians are Laurel and Daphne Wolfe, identical, inseparable redheaded twins who share an obsession with words. They speak a secret "twin" tongue of their own as toddlers; as adults making their way in 1980s Manhattan, their verbal infatuation continues, but this love,...