Free-spirited widow Florence Green (Emily Mortimer) risks everything to open a bookshop in a conservative East Anglian coastal town in 1959. While bringing about a surprising local cultural awakening through works by such luminaries as Ray Bradbury and Vladimir Nabokov, she earns the polite but ruthless opposition of a local grand dame (Patricia Clarkson), the assistance (whether she wants it or not) of a precocious and erudite little moppet (Honor Kneafsey), and the support and affection of a reclusive book loving widower (Bill Nighy).