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Wednesday 1st October 7:00pm
WW1: Why Did It Happen?
To mark this important centenary year, we're thrilled to present world-acclaimed historians Margaret Macmillan (The War That Ended Peace) and Paul Ham (1914: The Year the World Ended) for a fascinating discussion on what drove the world to war in 1914.
The First World War followed a period of sustained peace in Europe during which people talked with confidence of prosperity, progress, and hope. But in 1914, Europe walked into a catastrophic conflict that killed millions, bled its economies dry, shook empires and societies to pieces, and fatally undermined Europe's dominance of the world. It was a war that could have been avoided up to the last moment—so why did it happen? Beginning in the early nineteenth century and ending with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, The War That Ended Peace uncovers the huge political and technological changes, national decisions, and just as important, the small moments of human muddle and weakness that led Europe from peace to disaster. This masterful exploration of how Europe chose its path towards war will change and enrich how we see this defining moment in history.
In 1914: The Year the World Ended, award-winning historian Paul Ham tells the story of the outbreak of the Great War from German, British, French, Austria-Hungarian, Russian, and Serbian perspectives. Along the way, he debunks several stubborn myths. European leaders, for example, did not stumble or 'sleepwalk' into war, as many suppose. They fully understood that a small conflict in the Balkans—the tinderbox at the heart of the continent—could spark a European war. They well knew what their weapons could do. Yet they carried on. 1914: The Year the World Ended seeks to answer the most vexing question of the 20th century: Why did European governments decide to condemn the best part of a generation of young men to the trenches and four years of slaughter, during which 8.5 million would die?
Margaret MacMillan is the Warden of St Antony's College and a Professor of International History at the University of Oxford. Her books include Women of the Raj (1988, 2007); Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World (2001) for which she was the first woman to win the Samuel Johnson Prize; Nixon in China: Six Days that Changed the World; The Uses and Abuses of History (2008); and Extraordinary Canadians: Stephen Leacock (2009). The War that Ended Peace was awarded the International Affairs Book of the Year at the Political Book Awards 2014
Paul Ham is the author of Hiroshima Nagasaki (2011), Vietnam: The Australian War (2007) and Kokoda (2004). Vietnam won the New South Wales Premier's Prize for Australian History and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Prize for Non-Fiction (2008). Kokoda was shortlisted for the Walkley Award for Non-Fiction and the New South Wales Premier's Prize for Non-Fiction. Sandakan: The Untold Story of the Sandakan Death Marches was published in 2012 and was shortlisted for the 2013 Prime Minister's Literary Award for History. Read more...
Friday 26th September 12:30pm
Following the Booker-shortlisted Umbrella, Shark is a mind-bending novel of the intersection of pathology and war, set in the 1970s but pivoting around the dropping of "Little Boy" on Hiroshima.
"A truly wonderful novel … an exciting, mesmerising, wonderfully disturbing book. Go with it and it'll suck you under"—The Telegraph
"Umbrella was about how humanity brilliantly innovates; Shark is about how it constantly devastates … I have every expectation that when this trilogy does conclude, it will be recognised as the most remorseless vivisection and plangent evocation of our sad, silly, solemn and strange last century"—The Guardian
Will Self is the author of many novels and books of non-fiction, including Great Apes, The Book of Dave, How the Dead Live, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year 2002, The Butt, winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction 2008, and Umbrella, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2012. He lives in South London.
Will Self interviews Will Self: http://www.theguardian.com/books/video/2014/sep/03/will-self-interviews-will-self-video Read more...
Wednesday 24th September 3:00pm
Children's Hour—music, rhythm, and stories for kids. Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs, and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event has become an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated.
Due to space restrictions, we ask that you try and email Kate at email@example.com to confirm your place, and also that each child is accompanied by only one adult where possible. Thanks, all! Read more...
Monday 22nd September 7:00pm
We're very excited to announce Andrew Miller will be joining us to discuss his brilliant, Paris-based novel, Pure.
* The 2011 Costa Book of the Year *
Deep in the heart of Paris, its oldest cemetery is, by 1785, overflowing, tainting the very breath of those who live nearby. Into their midst comes Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a young, provincial engineer charged by the king with demolishing it.
At first Baratte sees this as a chance to clear the burden of history, a fitting task for a modern man of reason. But before long, he begins to suspect that the destruction of the cemetery might be a prelude to his own.
"Pure is a near-faultless thing: detailed, symbolic and richly evocative of a time, place and man in dangerous flux. It is brilliance distilled, with very few impurities."—The Telegraph
Andrew Miller was born in Bristol in 1960. He has lived in Spain, Japan, Ireland and France, and currently lives in Somerset. His first novel, Ingenious Pain, was published by Sceptre in 1997 and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and the Grinzane Cavour prize in Italy. He has since written five novels: Casanova, Oxygen, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Booker Prize in 2001, The Optimists, One Morning Like a Bird, and Pure.
In collaboration with Piranha editions. Read more...
Thursday 18th September 6:00pm
The Bard-en-Seine Readings
Throughout 2014, in honour of the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, we're hosting the Bard-en-Seine Readings. The goal is simple: to revisit and celebrate some of Shakespeare's most loved plays. So, once a month, we will be hosting informal read-throughs in the library, which will be recorded and sent out as podcasts in this very newsletter.
For September, the play will be The Merchant of Venice and the reading will take place on Thursday 18th at 6pm, in the library.
If you'd like to take part, please email Milly Unwin at email@example.com, and tell her whether you'd prefer a larger or a smaller role. Parts will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis, and we'll let you know a week in advance of the reading whether you have a role. No preparation necessary, and we'll provide the scripts. Please note that, due to space restrictions, the Bard-en-Seine Readings will only be open to those taking part.
The allocated plays for each remaining month of 2014 are as follows:
October – Hamlet
November – Twelfth Night
December – Anthony and Cleopatra
Please check the newsletter and website each month for dates and times, and details of how to apply. Read more...
Sunday 14th September 11:00am
Festival America is a three-day extravaganza of a literary festival (12-14 September), celebrating the interchange between French and American literature and featuring a plethora of acclaimed American writers from all over the continent. The festival takes place in Vincennes, on the eastern edge of Paris, and most events are in English, translated into French. For a full line-up and practical information, click here: http://www.festival-america.org/.
We'll be hosting a number of author signings at the Shakespeare and Company pop-up stand in the Salon du Livre, Esplanade de l'Hôtel de Ville de Vincennes, Place du Général Leclerc, 94300 Vincennes. Access to the Salon is FREE.
Shakespeare and Company signings, Sunday 14th September:
11am: Joyce Maynard
2pm: Ivy Pochoda
4pm: Claire Messud Read more...
Saturday 13th September 1:00pm
Festival America is a three-day extravaganza of a literary festival (12-14 September), celebrating the interchange between French and American literature and featuring a plethora of acclaimed American writers from all over the continent. The festival takes place in Vincennes, on the eastern edge of Paris, and most events are in English, translated into French. For a full line-up and practical information, click here: http://www.festival-america.org/.
We'll be hosting a number of author signings at the Shakespeare and Company pop-up stand in the Salon du Livre, Esplanade de l'Hôtel de Ville de Vincennes, Place du Général Leclerc, 94300 Vincennes. Access to the Salon is FREE.
Shakespeare and Company signings, Saturday 13th September:
1pm: Steven Sampson
4pm: Richard Ford
7pm: Tao Lin
7pm: Adelle Waldman Read more...
Friday 12th September 4:00pm
Festival America is a three-day extravaganza of a literary festival (12-14 September), celebrating the interchange between French and American literature and featuring a plethora of acclaimed American writers from all over the continent. The festival takes place in Vincennes, on the eastern edge of Paris, and most events are in English, translated into French. For a full line-up and practical information, click here: http://www.festival-america.org/.
We'll be hosting a number of author signings at the Shakespeare and Company pop-up stand in the Salon du Livre, Esplanade de l'Hôtel de Ville de Vincennes, Place du Général Leclerc, 94300 Vincennes. Access to the Salon is FREE.
Shakespeare and Company signings, Friday 12th September:
4pm: Craig Davidson
5pm: Margaret Atwood
Wednesday 10th September 3:00pm
Children's Hour—music, rhythm, and stories for kids. Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs, and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event has become an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated.
Due to space restrictions, we ask that you try and email Kate at firstname.lastname@example.com to confirm your place, and also that each child is accompanied by only one adult where possible. Thanks, all! Read more...
Monday 8th September 7:00pm
In partnership with the international literature festival Berlin, Shakespeare and Company is proud to be hosting the Paris edition of the Worldwide Reading in Support of Liberty and Recognition for Edward Snowden, taking place internationally on Monday 8th September.
On 6th June 2013, the Guardian published the first of a long series of articles exposing the extent of mass surveillance being conducted by states and corporations worldwide, in particular the American National Security Agency (NSA) and British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).
Edward Snowden alone was responsible for disclosing these shocking violations to the public. A former employee of the NSA, Snowden had become increasingly disillusioned and alarmed by the scope of surveillance and the illegal methods being used. Unsuccessful attempts to influence the system from within pushed Snowden to take the only other route available to call attention to these infractions: whistleblowing. Knowing he might never again see his friends, family, or country, Edward Snowden left his life and all comforts behind in the United States, carrying with him nothing except for four laptops containing some of the National Security Agency's most highly classified secrets.
These leaks were shared with the world through careful collaboration with responsible newspapers. They have sparked a long overdue global debate about democracy and human rights in the digital age. As a result, governments around the world are increasingly being forced to review their own surveillance systems and, in some cases, acknowledge their complicity with the NSA.
Edward Snowden disclosed his identity soon after the first leaks were published because he wanted to protect anyone else from being implicated. He said: "I have no intention of hiding who I am, because I know I have done nothing wrong."
This worldwide reading calls on the United States Government to recognize that Edward Snowden's revelations are of essential importance for the safeguarding of democracy in the digital age, and thus that his actions must be seen to be covered by the Universal Unwritten Rule of the Ethical Right. Washington should therefore immediately lift all legal charges and complaints against Snowden, so that he can return home safely as a free man. It also demands that the Member States of the European Union, in recognition of the importance of his revelations, immediately grant Edward Snowden asylum in the EU, for as long as he may need it and at least until the US Government has lifted all charges against him. Finally, it asks that the Nobel Committee consider Edward Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his amazing, selfless service towards democracy, freedom, and peace for all of us.
The Paris reading will be performed by writer and scholar Marina Warner.
The international literature festival Berlin website: http://www.literaturfestival.com/ Read more...
Wednesday 3rd September 7:00pm
We're delighted to kick off our autumn season of events with the wonderful Amy Bloom, who will be discussing her dazzling new novel, Lucky Us.
When Eva's mother abandons her on Iris's front porch, the girls don't seem to have much in common – except, they soon discover, a father. Thrown together with no mothers to care for them and a father who could not be considered a parent, Iris and Eva become one another's family. Iris wants to be a movie star; Eva is her sidekick. Together, they journey across 1940s America from scandal in Hollywood to the jazz clubs and golden mansions of Long Island, stumbling, cheating and loving their way through a landscape of war, betrayals and big dreams.
Amy Bloom is the author of three collections of stories, Come to Me, A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, and Where the God of Love Hangs Out, and two novels, Away and Love Invents Us. She teaches creative writing at Wesleyan University. Read more...
Thursday 28th August 6:00pm
The Bard-en-Seine Readings
Throughout 2014, in honour of the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, we're hosting the Bard-en-Seine Readings. The goal is simple: to revisit and celebrate some of Shakespeare's most loved plays. So, once a month, we will be hosting informal read-throughs in the library, which will be recorded and sent out as podcasts in this very newsletter.
For August, the play will be Othello and the reading will take place on Thursday 28th at 6pm, in the library.
If you'd like to take part, please email Milly Unwin at firstname.lastname@example.com, and tell her whether you'd prefer a larger or a smaller role. Parts will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis, and we'll let you know a week in advance of the reading whether you have a role. No preparation necessary, and we'll provide the scripts. Please note that, due to space restrictions, the Bard-en-Seine Readings will only be open to those taking part.
The allocated plays for each remaining month of 2014 are as follows:
August – Othello
September – The Merchant of Venice
October – Hamlet
November – Twelfth Night
December – Anthony and Cleopatra
Please check the newsletter and website each month for dates and times, and details of how to apply. Read more...
Thursday 31st July 6:00pm
The Bard-en-Seine Readings
Throughout 2014, in honour of the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, we're hosting the Bard-en-Seine Readings. The goal is simple: to revisit and celebrate some of Shakespeare's most loved plays. So, once a month, we will be hosting informal read-throughs in the library, which will be recorded and sent out as podcasts in this very newsletter.
For July, the play will be A Midsummer Night's Dream and the reading will take place on Thursday 31st at 6pm, in the library.
If you'd like to take part, please email Milly Unwin at email@example.com, and tell her whether you'd prefer a larger or a smaller role. Parts will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis, and we'll let you know a week in advance of the reading whether you have a role. No preparation necessary, and we'll provide the scripts. Please note that, due to space restrictions, the Bard-en-Seine Readings will only be open to those taking part.
The allocated plays for each remaining month of 2014 are as follows:
August – Othello
September – The Merchant of Venice
October – Hamlet
November – Twelfth Night
December – Anthony and Cleopatra
Please check the newsletter and website each month for dates and times, and details of how to apply. Read more...
Sunday 27th July 6:30pm
Shakespeare and Company welcomes you warmly to
Celebrating 450 Years of Shakespeare
Shakespeare unites us across cultures and borders, ages and eras. On the 450th anniversary of his birth, here in the heart of old Paris, we're delighted to bring the beloved work of the bard to all of you, for free, in the open-air.
The centrepiece of our five-day Shakespearean extravaganza is a site-specific production of Macbeth, one of the most devastating and profound tragedies of all time. This year, to honour the centenary of the First World War, our production will investigate a war fought by teenage soldiers, where the men in power decide what is worth dying for. Director Cressida Brown's interpretation will challenge the play's basic assumptions—for example, the identity of the true dictator—and conjure a cold and calculating world where brutal uprisings are merely a political game.
To complement our performance in the park, we're also hosting four Shakespearean events, ranging from a summer's evening of sonnet-reading to a lecture by Stanley Wells, one of the world's most acclaimed Shakespeare writers.
Bard-en-Seine: The Full Schedule
Wednesday 23rd July
Thursday 24th July
16h30: Alan Riding (author of the Essential Shakespeare Handbook) on Shakespeare: The Person & The Playwright
17h30: Jazz interlude
18h30: Macbeth (Square René Viviani)
Friday 25th July
16h30: Summertime Shakespearean Sonnets, with Lola Peploe
17h30: Jazz interlude
18h30: Macbeth (Square René Viviani)
Saturday 26th July
16h30: Stanley Wells on Shakespeare, Sex & Love
17h30: Jazz interlude
18h30: Macbeth (Square René Viviani)
Sunday 27th July
16h30: The Merry Wanderer of the Night (feat. Alice Selwyn-Brace, Zorro Maplestone, Haxie Meyers-Belkin, Connor Mew, Milly Unwin, Will Kitson and Emma Phillips)
17h30: Jazz interlude
18h30: Macbeth (Square René Viviani) Read more...
Wednesday 23rd July 6:30pm
Bard-en-Seine: Celebrating 450 Years of Shakespeare
Shakespeare means something to everyone, and the parameters for appreciating his work expand as we move through our lives. On the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, we thought it made sense—here in the old heart of Paris—to bring the work of the bard to as many people as possible, for free, in the open-air.
The centrepiece of our five-day Shakespearean extravaganza is a site-specific production of Macbeth, one the most devastating and profound tragedies ever written, first performed in 1611. This year, to honour the centenary of the First World War, our production will investigate a war where teenage soldiers pervade and men in power decide what is worth dying for. This interpretation will challenge the play's basic assumptions—for example, the identity of the true dictator—and conjure a cold and calculating world where brutal uprisings are merely a political game.
To complement our production in the park, we're also hosting four Shakespearean events, ranging from a summer's evening of sonnet reading to a lecture from Stanley Wells, one of the world's most acclaimed Shakespeare writers.
Bard-en-Seine: The Full Schedule
Wednesday 23rd July
Thursday 24th July
16h30: Alan Riding (author of the Essential Shakespeare Handbook) on Shakespeare: The Person & The Playwright
17h30: Jazz interlude
18h30: Macbeth (Square René Viviani)
Friday 25th July
16h30: Summertime Shakespearean Sonnets, with Lola Peploe
17h30: Jazz interlude
18h30: Macbeth (Square René Viviani)
Saturday 26th July
16h30: Stanley Wells on Shakespeare, Sex & Love
17h30: Jazz interlude
18h30: Macbeth (Square René Viviani)
Sunday 27th July
16h30: The Merry Wanderer of the Night (feat. Alice Selwyn-Brace, Zorro Maplestone, Haxie Meyers-Belkin, Connor Mew, Milly Unwin, Will Kitson and Emma Phillips)
17h30: Jazz interlude
18h30: Macbeth (Square René Viviani) Read more...
Friday 18th July 6:00pm
A musical interlude for a summer's evening with The New Thoreaus…
An indie-folk band with a bluegrass bent, The New Thoreaus provide a "modern spin on old-timey folk and bluegrass," according to the East Bay Express. "The New Thoreaus are one of the few bands that can appeal to a crowd full of traditionalists AND folks who like a little something different," says Mike Bond of Mutiny Radio's The Bottleneck Cafe Radio Show. "Think Tom Waits meets NOLA's Preservation Hall Jazz Band."
The New Thoreaus' name pays homage to the group's literary and philosophical interests, referencing American naturalist writer, Henry David Thoreau. Formed originally in 2007 as a group of Special Education teachers in Oakland, banging out stress on drums and dulcimer, The New Thoreaus have maintained their original style while broadening their appeal through more traditional bluegrass and jazz instruments. "The Cello, upright bass, and trumpet lend the songs a baroque feel that's similar to Beirut, while the harmonica and finger-picked banjo keep it firmly in Americana…When they blend in rich vocal harmonies, it's akin to an alt-country Broken Social Scene." (EBX) The New Thoreaus' range of styles and singers lends their music a hard to define quality that defies easy classification.
http://www.thenewthoreaus.com/ Read more...
Wednesday 16th July 3:00pm
Children's Hour—music, rhythm, and stories for kids. Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs, and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event has become an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated.
Due to space restrictions, we ask that you try and email Kate at email@example.com to confirm your place, and also that each child is accompanied by only one adult where possible. Thanks, all! Read more...
Sunday 13th July 7:00pm
We're very excited to announce an event with the dazzling Zadie Smith.
Zadie Smith was born in north-west London in 1975. Her first novel, White Teeth, was the winner of The Whitbread First Novel Award, The Guardian First Book Award, The James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, and The Commonwealth Writers' First Book Award. Her second novel, The Autograph Man, won The Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize. Zadie Smith's third novel, On Beauty, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and won The Commonwealth Writers' Best Book Award (Eurasia Section) and the Orange Prize for Fiction. She is the editor of an anthology of short stories entitled The Book Of Other People. Her collection of essays Changing My Mind was published in November 2009, and she is currently the New Books columnist for Harper's Magazine. Zadie Smith is a graduate of Cambridge University and has taught at Harvard and Columbia universities. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
In collaboration with NYU. Read more...
Friday 11th July 7:00pm
Poetry lovers, gather round! We're delighted to welcome three major American poets—Robert Polito, Olena Kalytiak Davis, and Charles Simic.
Poet and scholar Robert Polito was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He earned his PhD from Harvard and has served as director of Creative Writing at The New School for two decades. Polito became the second president of the Poetry Foundation in July 2013. Polito's collections of poetry include Hollywood & God (2009) and Doubles (1995). His poetry blends narrative and lyric impulses, drawing on both American pop culture and literary tradition. Polito's scholarly works include A Reader's Guide to James Merrill's The Changing Light at Sandover (1995), and Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson (1996), for which he received the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is the recipient of numerous honours and awards including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Ingram Merrill Foundation. A contributing editor to both BOMB and the Boston Review, Polito's poetry and criticism have been published widely. He is at work on a new book titled Detours: Seven Noir Lives.
A first-generation Ukrainian-American, Olena Kalytiak Davis was born in Detroit, Michigan. Her first collection of poetry, And Her Soul Out of Nothing, was selected by Rita Dove for the 1997 Brittingham Prize. She is also the author of Shattered Sonnets, Love Cards, And Other Off and Backhanded Importunities (2003) and On the Kitchen Table From Which Everything Has Been Hastily Removed (2009). Davis is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rasumon Fellowship, the 1996 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, a Pushcart Prize, and several grants from the Alaska and Juneau Arts Councils.
Charles Simic has published more than sixty books in the U.S. and abroad, among them Jackstraws, which was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times; Walking the Black Cat, which was a finalist for the National Book Award in poetry; A Wedding in Hell, Hotel Insomnia, The World Doesn't End: Prose Poems, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, Selected Poems: 1963-1983 and Unending Blues. He has also published many translations of French, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovenian poetry, and four books of essays including Orphan Factory. Elected a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets in 2000, his many awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is Professor of English at the University of New Hampshire.
In collaboration with NYU. Read more...
Monday 7th July 7:00pm
We're delighted to announce the sublime Lydia Davis.
Lydia Davis is the acclaimed author of six collections of short fiction, including Varieties of Disturbance (a 2007 National Book Award finalist), The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, and most recently Can't and Won't: Stories. Her short fictions are often remarkably succinct, and frequently poetic or philosophical in aspect. Lydia Davis is also renowned for translating from the French Proust's Swann's Way and Flaubert's Madame Bovary, among many other works.
In 2013, Lydia Davis was awarded the Man Booker International Prize. She is described in The New Yorker as "one of the most original minds in American fiction today".
In collaboration with NYU. Read more...
Thursday 3rd July 7:00pm
Dish the Dirt: Your First Literary Love
We're kicking off the red hot month of July with an evening of literary dirt-dishing. Five members of the acclaimed NYU creative writing faculty will talk for ten minutes each about the first book they truly loved…
Meghan O'Rourke is the author of The Long Goodbye, a memoir about grief, and the poetry collections Once and Halflife. A former poetry editor for The Paris Review, she is also a culture critic for Slate magazine and a founding editor of the web site Double X. She is the recipient of the 2008 May Sarton Poetry Prize. Her essays and poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Best American Poetry, 32 Poems, and more. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, where she grew up.
Matthew Rohrer is the author of A Hummock in the Malookas, Satellite, A Green Light, Rise Up, A Plate of Chicken, and Destroyer and Preserver. With Joshua Beckman he wrote Nice Hat. Thanks. and recorded the audio CD Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. Octopus Books published his action/adventure chapbook-length poem They All Seemed Asleep in 2008. His poems have been widely anthologized and have appeared in many journals. He's received the Hopwood Award for poetry and a Pushcart prize, and was selected as a National Poetry Series winner, and was shortlisted for the Griffin International Poetry Prize. Recently he has participated in residencies/ performances at the Museum of Modern Art (New York City) and the Henry Art Gallery (Seattle). He lives in Brooklyn.
Helen Schulman is the author of the novels This Beautiful Life, a New York Times Notable Book of 2011, A Day At The Beach, P.S., The Revisionist and Out Of Time, and the short story collection Not A Free Show. P.S. was also made into a feature film starring Laura Linney and was written by Helen Schulman and Dylan Kidd. She co-edited, along with Jill Bialosky, the anthology Wanting A Child. Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in such places as Vanity Fair, Time, Vogue, GQ, The New York Times Book Review, and The Paris Review. She is presently the Fiction Coordinator at The Writing Program at The New School where she is a tenured Associate Professor.
Darin Strauss is the author of the international bestseller Chang and Eng, and the New York Times Notable Book The Real McCoy, one of the New York Public Library's "25 Books to Remember of 2002," the novel More Than it Hurts You, and most recently a memoir Half a Life, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. His work has been translated into fourteen languages, and he teaches writing at New York University, for which he won a 2005 "Outstanding Dozen" teaching award. Also a screenwriter, Darin sold the rights to Chang and Eng to Disney, and is currently adapting the novel for the screen with the actor Gary Oldman. Another screenplay on which he collaborated is in pre-production at Paramount Studios. Darin was awarded a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction writing.
Monday 30th June 7:00pm
"When good Americans die, they go to Paris"–Oscar Wilde
Writing in Paris/Writing on Paris: Your Favourite Book from the French Capital
Come along to hear four faculty members from the brilliant NYU creative writing programme discuss their most treasured piece of Parisian literature. Each participant will speak for ten minutes, with time for questions at the end. Not to be missed!
Chris Adrian is the author of a short story collection, A Better Angel, and three novels ,Gob's Grief, The Children's Hospital, and The Great Night. He has received an NEA grant for fiction writing and a Guggenheim Fellowship, was selected as one of The New Yorker's 20 writers under 40, and recently completed training as a Fellow in Pediatric Hematology Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco.
Catherine Barnett is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, the Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers, and a Pushcart Prize. Her first book, Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced, won the 2003 Beatrice Hawley Award and was published in spring 2004 by Alice James Books. Her second, The Game of Boxes (Graywolf Press), was the winner of the 2012 James Laughlin Award. Barnett has taught at Barnard, the New School, and NYU, where she was honored with an Outstanding Service Award.
Nathan Englander is the author of the internationally bestselling story collection For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, the novel The Ministry of Special Cases, and the collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank. His short fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Washington Post, as well as The O. Henry Prize Stories and numerous editions of The Best American Short Stories. Translated into more than a dozen languages, Englander was selected as one of "20 Writers for the 21st Century" by The New Yorker, received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a PEN/Malamud Award, the Bard Fiction Prize, and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. He's been a fellow at the Dorothy & Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, and at The American Academy of Berlin.
Myla Goldberg is the bestselling author of The False Friend, Wickett's Remedy, and Bee Season, which was adapted to film, was a New York Times Notable Book for 2000, winner of the Borders New Voices Prize, and a finalist for the Hemingway Foundation/PEN award, the NYPL Young Lions award, and the Barnes & Noble Discover award. She is also the author of the essay collection Time's Magpie and the children's book, Catching the Moon. Myla's short stories have appeared in Harper's. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence and Brooklyn College. Read more...
Thursday 26th June 6:00pm
The Bard-en-Seine Readings: Henry IV (Part 1)
Throughout 2014, in honour of the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, we're hosting the Bard-en-Seine Readings. The goal is simple: to revisit and celebrate some of Shakespeare's most loved plays. So, once a month, we will be hosting informal read-throughs in the library, which will be recorded and sent out as podcasts in our newsletter.
For June, the play will be Henry IV (Part 1) and the reading will take place on Thursday 26th at 6pm, in the library.
If you'd like to take part, please email Milly Unwin at firstname.lastname@example.com, and tell her whether you'd prefer a larger or a smaller role. Parts will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis, and we'll let you know a week in advance of the reading whether you have a role. No preparation necessary, and we'll provide the scripts. Please note that, due to space restrictions, the Bard-en-Seine Readings will only be open to those taking part.
The allocated plays for each remaining month of 2014 are as follows:
July – A Midsummer Night's Dream
August – Othello
September – The Merchant of Venice
October – Hamlet
November – Twelfth Night
December – Anthony and Cleopatra Read more...
Wednesday 25th June 7:00pm
The Art & Carpentry of Fiction
The making of fiction requires the mysterious vision of art and the practical carpentry of craft. In this seminar for emerging fiction writers, acclaimed novelist Kathryn Heyman will lead you through the crucial elements for creating great fiction.
Kathryn Heyman is the award-winning author of five novels. She has taught fiction for the University of Oxford and now directs the fiction program for Faber Academy in Australia. www.kathrynheyman.com
"The structure of the Curious Incident owes a great deal to Kathryn Heyman, with whom I was teaching a course some years ago. She was talking to the students about structure.. as she spoke, the heavens opened, angels sang…"
Mark Haddon, author of Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
"Kathryn is an inspirational and charismatic teacher. With her trademark energy and humour, she encouraged me to ask the hard questions."
Monday 23rd June 7:00pm
Join us for a fascinating panel discussion with the five judges of the Man Booker International Prize 2015. Bearing in mind the tradition of Shakespeare and Company as a haven for literary expats, the judges will discuss displacement and exile in the work of writers who adopt another language and/or another country.
The judging panel for the Man Booker International Prize 2015 is chaired by Marina Warner CBE, the writer and academic, and consists of novelist Nadeem Aslam; novelist, critic, and Professor of World Literature in English at Oxford University Elleke Boehmer; Editorial Director of the New York Review Classics series, Edwin Frank; and Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at SOAS, University of London, Wen-chin Ouyang. As novelists, both Nadeem and Elleke live in the UK but set their work in their places of birth, Nadeem in Pakistan and Elleke in South Africa.
The prize is sponsored by Man Group plc, which also sponsors the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. The Man Booker International Prize is significantly different from the annual Man Booker Prize for Fiction in that it highlights one writer's overall contribution to fiction on the world stage. In seeking out literary excellence the judges consider a writer's body of work rather than a single novel.
The winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2014 was Lydia Davis.
The Man Booker International Prize 2015 website: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/man-booker-international-prize-2015 Read more...
Saturday 21st June 4:00pm
We're delighted to present our own contribution to the Fête de la Musique festivities… Lail Arad.
After spending two years touring her first album, Someone New, across Europe and being hand-picked to perform with the likes of Devendra Banhart, Moriarty, and Herman Dune, rock'n'roll songstress Lail Arad is now working on her next record. She's very excited to share her new songs with her old friends in Paris and to start the new chapter amongst the books of Shakespeare and Company.
"Imaginez un peu un croisement entre Lily Allen, pour la pétulance british et Carrie Bradshaw l'héroïne de Sex and The City"—Clémentine Goldszal, Elle
"Sparky melodies and lyrics full of warm wit and wry domesticity"—TimeOut
Connect with Lail on Facebook: www.facebook.com/lailaradmusic
Follow Lail on Twitetr: @lailarad Read more...
Thursday 19th June 7:00pm
"Arguably the best American book thus far this century"—The Bookseller
"Masterly…exhilarating"—The New York Times
We're thrilled to present Philipp Meyer, one of the finest contemporary American writers, on his majestic new novel, The Son.
Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching portrait of the bloody price of power, The Son is an utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American West through the lives of the McCulloughs, an ambitious family as resilient and dangerous as the land they claim. Love, honour, children are sacrificed in the name of ambition, as the family becomes one of the richest powers in Texas, a dynasty of unsurpassed wealth and privilege. Yet, like all empires, the McCulloughs must eventually face the consequences of their choices.
Philipp Meyer grew up in Baltimore, dropped out of high school and attended Cornell, where he studied English. Since graduating, Philipp Meyer has worked as a derivatives trader and a construction worker. His writing has been published in McSweeney's, The Iowa Review, Salon, and New Stories from the South. From 2005-2008, Philipp Meyer was a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, Texas. In 2009, he published his hugely-acclaimed first novel, American Rust. He lives near Ithaca in New York State.
In collaboration with Albin Michel. Read more...
Wednesday 18th June 6:00pm
This month in the Art of Criticism we're talking to Alex Preston, the author of three novels, all published by Faber: This Bleeding City (winner of the Spear's and Edinburgh Festival first book prizes and one of Waterstones' New Voices 2010), The Revelations (shortlisted for the Guardian's Not the Booker Prize), and the about-to-be-published In Love and War. In addition to his fiction, Alex regularly reviews books for The Observer and contributes to the New Statesman and GQ. We'll be discussing, among other things, the state of British fiction, what novels can do (and what they can't), and the delicate art of reviewing fiction as a novelist. Read more...
Wednesday 18th June 3:00pm
Children's Hour—music, rhythm, and stories for kids. Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs, and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event has become an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated.
Due to space restrictions, we ask that you try and email Kate at firstname.lastname@example.com to confirm your place, and also that each child is accompanied by only one adult where possible. Thanks, all! Read more...
Friday 13th June 7:00pm
"Night Train to Shanghai is more than poetic memories of China—it's history." –Lawrence Ferlinghetti, founder of City Lights Bookstore, author of Pictures of the Gone World and A Coney Island of the Mind
Born and educated in Chicago (University of Illinois, Highest Distinction in English, 1971 and 1973), Gerald Nicosia has for decades been best known as the author of Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac and a critic and historian of the Beats, the Sixties, and the Vietnam War. But even before his undergraduate years ended, he was publishing poetry as well, mentored by Chicago poets he loved such as Carl Sandburg and some he knew personally such as Paul Carroll, founder of Big Table Books and Magazine. And while his poetry quickly absorbed the influence of the Beat writers in its insistence on clarity, narrative coherence, and incorporation of common speech, it also drew heavily upon the down and dirty blues voice and sometimes black humor of Chicago writers like Nelson Algren, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Richard Wright.
Nicosia is the author of three previous books of poetry, Lunatics, Lovers, Poets, Vets & Bargirls; Love, California Style, which was a Small Press Review poetry selection for 2002; and Embrace of the Lepers. Several of his poems have received Pushcart nominations as well. Since the early 1980's, he has read his poetry extensively in public throughout the United States, and has read it in other countries, including England, France, Italy, and China. He read his poetry at the international Beat festival at NYU in May 1994, on the same stage with Allen Ginsberg, and he has also given featured readings of his poetry at such notable venues as the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, Wales, and the Three Horseshoes Pub in Hampstead, London, at a reading organized by Michael Horowitz, the same man who had organized the first Beat reading in England in 1965 at the Royal Albert Hall. Nicosia himself has organized many marathon poetry readings, sometimes with more than twenty performers and for audiences of 500 or more, at such venues as the Koret Auditorium in San Francisco, the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, and Bob Weir's Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley, California.
The poems in Night Train to Shanghai grew out of Nicosia's several trips to modern China, beginning with his trip to Hefei in 1995 to adopt his six-month-old daughter Wu Ji (now Amy). He later traveled to Chengdu to guest-teach Beat poetry and other subjects to graduate students at Sichuan University, and took his daughter Amy to many cities in China, including her birth-place of Wuhu, when she was ten and had already learned to speak Mandarin. In the "Author's Preface," Nicosia explains the origins of these poems in "the richness that has come to me by digging a hole in myself that inadvertently let in the other side of the world." Read more...
Monday 2nd June 7:00pm
It's 12 October 1984. An IRA bomb blows apart the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Miraculously, Margaret Thatcher survives. In small-town Scotland, eight-year-old Damian Barr watches in horror as his mum rips her wedding ring off and packs their bags. He knows he, too, must survive.
Damian Barr has been a journalist for over ten years writing mostly for The Times but also the Independent, Telegraph, Financial Times, Guardian, Evening Standard and Granta. He is the author of Get It Together: A Guide to Surviving Your Quarterlife Crisis, featured on Richard & Judy, and has co-written two plays for BBC Radio 4. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Faculty at the School of Life and host of the infamous Literary Salon at Shoreditch House. Damian Barr was named Writer of the Year at the 2013 Stonewall Awards. He lives in Brighton.
Thursday 22nd May 6:00pm
The Bard-en-Seine Readings
Throughout 2014, in honour of the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, we're hosting the Bard-en-Seine Readings. The goal is simple: to revisit and celebrate some of Shakespeare's most loved plays. So, once a month, we will be hosting informal read-throughs in the library, which will be recorded and sent out as podcasts in this very newsletter.
For May, the play will be As You Like It and the reading will take place on Thursday 22nd at 6pm, in the library.
If you'd like to take part, please email Milly Unwin at firstname.lastname@example.com, and tell her whether you'd prefer a larger or a smaller role. Parts will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis, and we'll let you know a week in advance of the reading whether you have a role. No preparation necessary, and we'll provide the scripts. Please note that, due to space restrictions, the Bard-en-Seine Readings will only be open to those taking part. Read more...
Monday 19th May 7:00pm
We're delighted to announce an evening with Lisa Appignanesi, who will, appropriately, be discussing her latest novel, Paris Requiem.
Paris, 1899. Capital of the crime passionel. Paris is electric with excitement. Everywhere preparations are underway for the universal exhibition and the new century—an age of speed and modernity. But the sensuous spectacle of the belle époque is shadowed by racial and social tensions. Street demos are rampant. Anti-Semites vie with the defenders of justice and the rights of man. Scientists propose hereditary explanations for the rise and rise of murder, madness, and nervous disorders. The police force is embattled, exposed in a scandal-mongering press. In the midst of all this, the body of a beautiful woman is found in the Seine. She is the performer Olympe Fabre. She is also Rachel Arnhem, a young Jewish woman, whom gossip, back in Boston, has linked to one of its favourite prodigals, Rafael Norton. James Norton, his elder brother, is charged with the task of bringing Raf and their high-spirited, though ailing, sister, Ellie, home from the hotbed of vice and murderous entanglements. It is a mission he confronts reluctantly. He and Paris have a history—not altogether unlinked to the turbulent present that now confronts him.
Lisa Appignanesi OBE is a prize-winning writer, novelist, broadcaster, and cultural commentator. She is past president of English PEN, served as deputy director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and is chair of the Freud Museum. She appears regularly on Radio 3's Night Waves and Radio 4's Saturday Review. Her many books include Trials of Passion, Losing the Dead, Mad, Bad and Sad, All About Love, and The Memory Man. She lives in North London.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/25/lisa-appignanesi-top-books-paris — Discover Lisa Appignanesi's top ten books about Paris Read more...
Thursday 15th May 7:00pm
We're thrilled to announce that the magnificent John Berger will be joining us to discuss his book-length essay, Cataract (Notting Hill Editions/Temps des Cerises), and corresponding themes in his work as a whole.
John Berger is a storyteller, essayist, novelist, screenwriter, dramatist, and critic, whose body of work embodies his concern for, in Geoff Dyer's words, "the enduring mystery of great art and the lived experience of the oppressed". He is one of the most internationally influential writers of the last fifty years, who has explored the relationships between the individual and society, culture and politics and experience and expression in a series of novels, bookworks, essays, plays, films, photographic collaborations, and performances, unmatched in their diversity, ambition, and reach. His television series and book Ways of Seeing revolutionised the way that Fine Art is read and understood, while his engagement with European peasantry and migration in the fiction trilogy Into Their Labours and A Seventh Man stand as models of empathy and insight.
Central to Berger's creative identity is the idea of collaboration, with people, places, and communities as much as with other writers and thinkers. Democratic and open exchange is embedded into his project, and among those artists with whom he has worked are some of the most imaginative in their fields—theatre director Simon McBurney of Complicite, the late artist Juan Munoz, photographer Jean Mohr, composer Gavin Bryars and film-makers Mike Dibb, Alain Tanner, and Timothy Neat.
In Cataract, John Berger works in collaboration with acclaimed Turkish illustrator Selçuk Demirel. In this book-length essay, he explores what happens when cataracts rob an art critic of his sight, and reflects upon his own experience of loss of vision. Read more...
Wednesday 14th May 3:00pm
Children's Hour – music, rhythm, and stories for kids. Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs, and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event has become an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated.
Due to space restrictions, we ask that you try and email Kate at firstname.lastname@example.com to confirm your place, and also that each child is accompanied by only one adult where possible. Thanks, all! Read more...
Monday 12th May 7:00pm
"A singular, and almost recklessly gifted, young writer" – Time
We're hugely excited about hearing Ned Beauman speak about his dazzling new novel, Glow.
A hostage exchange outside a police station in Pakistan. A botched defection in an airport hotel in New Jersey. A test of loyalty at an abandoned resort in the Burmese jungle. A boy and a girl locking eyes at a rave in a South London laundrette …
For the first time, one of Britain's hottest young novelists turns his attention to the present day, as a conspiracy with global repercussions converges on one small flat above a dentist's office in Camberwell.
Ned Beauman was born in 1985 in London. His debut novel, Boxer, Beetle, was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Desmond Elliot Prize and won the Writers' Guild Award for Best Fiction Book and the Goldberg Prize for Outstanding Debut Fiction. His second novel, The Teleportation Accident, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Encore Award and a Somerset Maugham Award. He has been chosen by the Culture Show as one of the twelve best new British novelists and by Granta as one of the 20 best British novelists under 40. His work has been translated into more than ten languages.
Ned has a very cool and interesting website here: www.nedbeauman.co.uk Read more...
Friday 9th May 7:00pm
For the next installment of The Art of Criticism series, we are delighted to welcome Brian Dillon, to discuss reviewing books, writing essays, eclectic interests, and tackling literary theory. We will be discussing his new collection of essays, Objects in this Mirror (Sternberg Press), of which Wayne Koestenbaum has written, "Like Roland Barthes and Virginia Woolf, Brian Dillon pays lavish attention to curious byways that usually go without saying. In sentences at once playful and majestic, he plumbs the intellectual depths of his subjects, and reveals a perverse, nearly dandyish love for odd facts and iconoclastic vistas. There is more than a touch of W. G. Sebald—the Wordsworthian wanderer, the romantic itinerant—in Dillon's melancholy yet mood-spiked attitude toward the material objects that greet his sober, ever-evaluating eye. Reading Objects in This Mirror, we participate in Dillon's restless perambulations, and we are delighted to be thus transported."
Brian Dillon is a writer and critic based in Canterbury. His books include Objects in This Mirror: Essays (Sternberg Press, 2014), I Am Sitting in a Room (Cabinet, 2012), Sanctuary (Sternberg Press, 2011), Ruins (MIT Press/Whitechapel Gallery, 2011), Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives (Penguin, 2009) and In the Dark Room (Penguin 2005). His writing appears regularly in the Guardian, the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, Artforum and frieze. He is UK editor of Cabinet magazine, and teaches critical writing at the Royal College of Art. Dillon is curator of Curiosity: Art and the Pleasures of Knowing — a Hayward Touring exhibition which is at De Appel, Amsterdam, 27 June -14 September 2014 — and Ruin Lust, at Tate Britain from 4 March -18 May 2014. He is working on a book about the Great Explosion at Faversham, Kent, in 1916. Read more...
Wednesday 7th May 3:00pm
How Henry Miller Can Change Your Life (Again)
We all know why we love Henry Miller (or even hate him), but do we know the real reasons why we should love him? Join us for an insightful discussion with Dr. Katy Masuga, author of The Secret Violence of Henry Miller (2011) and Henry Miller and How He Got That Way (2011) and Mary Duncan, Director of the Paris Writers Group and author of "Henry Miller is Under My Bed: People and Place on the Way to Paris" (2008).
Full Aller Retour line-up here: http://henrymillerlibraryparis.wordpress.com/schedule/ Read more...
Tuesday 6th May 4:00pm
In collaboration with the Henry Miller Library Aller Retour festival.
Join us for a talk in the library, followed by a literary stroll around the City of Lights, with Thirza Vallois, whose "Around and About" Paris books have been universally acclaimed as the best travel books ever written on the city. The talk will run from 4-5pm, followed by the walk, which should wrap up around 7:30 pm.
To learn more about Thirza and her books, visit http://www.thirzavallois.com/
Full Aller Retour schedule here: http://henrymillerlibraryparis.wordpress.com/schedule/ Read more...
Monday 5th May 7:00pm
Aller Retour Paris—The Henry Miller Library Goes to Paris!
Join us for the Aller Retour Paris opening night party hosted by Ping-Pong, the official literary magazine of the Henry Miller Library (all the way from Big Sur, California)! Expect poetry, wine, music by Al Rose, and Henry Miller-inspired revelry all round. Speakers include New York City's J Hope Stein, Paris-based artist Jean-Noël Chazelle, and editor Maria Garcia Teutsch, who will be reading from the new bilingual (French and English) edition of Pussy/Chatte.
Maria Garcia Teutsch will be reading from the new bilingual (French and English) edition of Pussy, as well as from her new manuscript:Whore-son, poems written in response to the underlined sections of Jean Genet's The Balcony. She has or will be published in: Otoliths, The South Carolina Review, Prairie Schooner, The Lullwater Review, The Cold Mountain Review, The Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, The Sierra Nevada Review, Women's Arts Quarterly, and Whole Beast Rag.
J Hope Stein is the author of the chapbooks: Talking Doll (Dancing Girl Press), Mary (Hyacinth Girl Press), and Corner Office (H_ngm_n). Her poems are published or forthcoming in Verse, HTML Giant, Tarpaulin Sky, Everyday Genius, Ping-Pong, Talisman, and Poetry International.She is also the editor of poetrycrush.com and the author of the poetry/humor site eecattings.com.
Jean-Noël Chazelle is a Paris-based painter who will read French poems published in Ping-Pong, including the works of Jean Arp and Guy Jean, as well as some of his own work.
The full Aller Retour Paris line-up can be found here: http://henrymillerlibraryparis.wordpress.com/schedule/ Read more...
Friday 2nd May 7:00pm
The mindful translator: Toward a praxis of literary translation
Practicing literary translators have long been at odds with translation theory. At best, such theory fails to capture the complexity of literary translation; at worst, it seriously misrepresents the processes and products of translation, both simplifying and distorting to the point where translators no longer recognize their part in the endeavor. Part of the problem lies in a misconception of what theory is for—there is a widespread assumption among translators and the general public that theory precedes practice, and is intended to be "applied." Another approach, though, is possible—to theorize practice, as one finds, for example, in the work of Donald Schön and others. This talk, by an experienced practicing translator, will consider the possible uses of theory for the practice of literary translation.
Bill Johnston has translated about thirty books from the Polish, including both poetry and prose. He has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities; his prizes include the inaugural Found in Translation Award for Tadeusz Różewicz's new poems (2008) and the AATSEEL Translation Prize for Magdalena Tulli's Dreams and Stones (2004), both published by Archipelago Books. In 2012 his translation of Wiesław Myśliwski's novel Stone Upon Stone (Archipelago Books, 2010) won the PEN Translation Prize, the Best Translated Book Award, and the AATSEEL Translation Prize. He is currently a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and is working on a new translation of the Polish national epic Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz (1798 – 1855). He teaches in the Department of Comparative Literature at Indiana University. Read more...
Wednesday 30th April 7:00pm
Join us in the library for an evening of theatrical playreading entertainment…
What connects a group of frustrated underground activists, a team of screenwriters searching for inspiration for a TV series, and an unseen government fighting a threat to their national security? One name: George Kaplan.
This play in three movements spans politics, myth, and conspiracy theory as it examines the influence of Hollywood on our global geopolitics and how Hitchcock might have been implicated in an international plot. It touches on digital warfare and the manipulation of the common consciousness, the role of coffee (and beer) in meetings, and a chicken that may have the power to save the human race.
George Kaplan is a thrilling comedy by prize-winning French writer Frédéric Sonntag, translated into English by Vanessa Ackerman and Stephanie Street thanks to a grant by the Société Beaumarchais and with support from HighTide Festival. Read more...
Monday 28th April 7:00pm
The Best Translated Book Award is the largest prize for literature in translation in the United States. Selected from all original translations published last year, the author and translator of each winning title–there is one for fiction and another for poetry–will receive a $5,000 cash prize. This year's awardees will be announced in simultaneous ceremonies: one in New York and the other at Shakespeare and Company. Join Belgian novelist Amélie Nothomb, BTBA judge Daniel Medin and a passel of writers and translators from the UK (Siân Melangell Dafydd, Joanna Walsh), USA (Peter Wortsman, Lauren Elkin) and France (Joëlle Defeuilly, Céline Leroy) as we celebrate all of the prize's finalists, along with the art of literary translation, with readings from the shortlist. Read more...
Thursday 24th April 7:00pm
What should Lolita look like? Why did Dmitri Nabokov, the writer's only child and sole surviving heir, contravene his father's wishes that the last unfinished novel, The Original of Laura, be destroyed? Join the conversation on Nabokov's legacy with participants Yuri Leving (Editor of the Nabokov Online Journal), Lara Delage-Toriel (President of the French Vladimir Nabokov Society), and Samuel Schuman (Past President of the International Vladimir Nabokov Society, the author of Nabokov's Shakespeare (Bloomsbury, 2014)), during the European book launch of Lolita – The Story of a Cover Girl: Vladimir Nabokov's Novel in Art and Design. Eds. John Bertram and Yuri Leving (New York: Print, 2013), and Shades of Laura: Vladimir Nabokov's Last Novel, The Original of Laura. Ed. Yuri Leving (McGill Queens University Press, 2013). The winner of the 2013 Nabokov Online Journal Best Book Award will be announced during this event.
Promotional video: http://www.nabokovonline.com/news.html Read more...
Wednesday 23rd April 7:00pm
On the 450th anniversary of his birth, please join us for a fun and poetry-filled birthday celebration for the Bard! We have all sorts of treats lined up—performances of Shakespeare-inspired songs and speeches, music, and merriment, performed by a cast of Tumbleweeds, staff, and friends of the shop. The evening will culminate in a performance of Tom Stoppard's adaptation of Hamlet, which condenses the whole five-act play into a mere fifteen minutes. Come along and raise a glass to William Shakespeare!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-CSb3Xe06s – Brush Up Your Shakespeare Read more...
Thursday 17th April 7:00pm
This April we're excited to be launching a new reading and discussion series called The Art of Criticism, hosted by the critic and writer Lauren Elkin. These events will feature working literary critics sharing their philosophies, methods, and complaints, and to further the conversation about what criticism is and what it is for.
Monday 14th April 7:00pm
As part of a series of events marking the centenary of the outbreak of WW1, we're delighted to welcome John Baxter on his latest book, Paris at the End of the World.
This is an unconventional book about the Great War. It concentrates on what happened behind the lines in Paris—the city's social life between1914 and 1918; the show business, crime, drugs, and the sex life of both soldiers and civilians. In particular, it draws attention to those millions of soldiers who never fired a shot. Among them was John Baxter's paternal grandfather, an astonished and sometimes scandalized stranger in a Europe nothing like his native Australia.
"The most original and unexpectedly beguiling account of the Great War I have ever read. John Baxter is one of the master storytellers of our age [and] he has been able to re-create not only the all-to-familiar Hell of the trenches but also the Heaven of sex and food and hedonism that was Paris at the twilight of its golden age. A revelation, an adventure, a joy to read." —Kevin Jackson, author of Constellation of Genius: 1922; Modernism Year One
John Baxter has lived in Paris for more than twenty years. An acclaimed film biographer and critic, he is the author of four bestselling memoirs about life in France: The Perfect Meal, The Most Beautiful Walk in the World, Immovable Feast: A Paris Christmas, and We'll Always have Paris. Read more...
Thursday 10th April 6:00pm
Throughout 2014, in honour of the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, we're hosting the Bard-en-Seine Readings. The goal is simple: to revisit and celebrate some of Shakespeare's most loved plays. So, once a month, we will be hosting informal read-throughs in the library, which will be recorded and sent out as podcasts in this newsletter (see below for February's reading of Romeo and Juliet), so you'll all be able to share in the theatrical fun.
For March, the play will be King Lear and the reading will take place on Thursday 10th at 6pm, in the library.
If you'd like to take part, please email Milly Unwin at firstname.lastname@example.com, and tell her whether you'd prefer a larger or a smaller role. Parts will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis, and we'll let you know a week in advance of the reading whether you have a role. No preparation necessary, and we'll provide the scripts. Please note that, due to space restrictions, the Bard-en-Seine Readings will only be open to those taking part. Read more...
Wednesday 9th April 3:00pm
Children's Hour – music, rhythm, and stories for kids. Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs, and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event has become an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated.
Due to space restrictions, we ask that you try and email Kate at email@example.com to confirm your place, and also that each child is accompanied by only one adult where possible. Thanks, all! Read more...
Friday 4th April 4:30pm
Join us in the library for beautiful music amid the books…
"Lily's a real talent. The voice sticks out…and those lyrics are ambitious and evocative." – Dave Ruby Howe, Triple J Unearthed Radio review
Lily Louise is a singer/songwriter from the south coast of New South Wales, Australia. Drawing inspiration from artists ranging from Joni Mitchell to Jake Bugg, Lily delivers catchy, often haunting melodies and deceptively simple philosophies by way of her whimsical voice and guitar. Her debut album 'Falling and the Leaves that Followed', recorded and released in late 2011 when she was just 15, was named number 1 on the Top Ten EPs of 2011 by online independent music magazine Tomatrax. She has supported Australian greats such as Deborah Conway and Pete Murray, is a Talent Development Project Graduate, has gained airplay on Australian radio stations and has 5-star reviews on Triple J Unearthed Independent music charts. Get ready for "breath-takingly beautiful indie folk"!
https://www.triplejunearthed.com/artist/lily-louise Read more...
Monday 31st March 7:00pm
We're very happy to present Naomi Wood on Mrs. Hemingway – the story of the most famous writer of his generation and the four extraordinary women who married him.
In the dazzling summer of 1926, Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley travel from their home in Paris to a villa in the south of France. They swim, play bridge, and drink gin. But wherever they go they are accompanied by the glamorous and irrepressible Fife. Fife is Hadley's best friend. She is also Ernest's lover.
Hadley is the first Mrs. Hemingway, but neither she nor Fife will be the last. Over the ensuing decades, Ernest's literary career will blaze a trail, but his marriages will be ignited by passion and deceit. Four extraordinary women will learn what it means to love the most famous writer of his generation, and each will be forced to ask herself how far she will go to remain his wife. Luminous and intoxicating, Mrs. Hemingway portrays real lives with rare intimacy and plumbs the depths of the human heart.
Naomi Wood was born in 1983 and lives in London. She studied at Cambridge and at UEA for her MA in Creative Writing. Originally from York, she has gone on to live in Hong Kong, Paris and Washington DC. Her first novel was The Godless Boys. Read more...
Sunday 23rd March 7:00pm
We're delighted to present Hanif Kureishi on his witty, brilliant new novel, The Last Word.
The Last Word is an outrageous, clever, and funny story of sex, lies, art, and what defines a life.
Mamoon is an eminent Indian-born writer who has made a career in England – but now, in his early 70s, his reputation is fading, sales have dried up, and his new wife has expensive taste.
Harry, a young writer, is commissioned to write a biography to revitalise both Mamoon's career and his bank balance. Harry greatly admires Mamoon's work and wants to uncover the truth of the artist's life. Harry's publisher seeks a more naked truth, a salacious tale of sex and scandal that will generate headlines. Meanwhile Mamoon himself is mining a different vein of truth altogether. Harry and Mamoon find themselves in a battle of wills, but which of them will have the last word?
Hanif Kureishi was born in Kent and read philosophy at King's College, London.
His 1984 screenplay for the film My Beautiful Laundrette was nominated for an Oscar. He also wrote the screenplays of Sammy and Rosie Get Laid and London Kills Me. His short story 'My Son the Fanatic' was adapted as a film in 1998.
The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) won the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel and was produced as a four-part drama for the BBC in 1993. His second novel was The Black Album (1995). The next, Intimacy (1998), was adapted as a film in 2001, winning the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film festival. Gabriel's Gift was published in 2001 and his most recent novel, Something to Tell You, in 2008.
A short story collection, Collected Stories, was published in 2010. Hanif Kureishi has also written non-fiction, including the essay collections Dreaming and Scheming: Reflections on Writing and Politics (2002) and The Word and the Bomb (2005). The memoir My Ear at his Heart: Reading my Father appeared in 2004.
Hanif Kureishi was awarded the C.B.E. for his services to literature, and the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts des Lettres in France. His works have been translated into 36 languages.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/19/hanif-kureishi-interview-last-word — Guardian interview with Hanif Kureishi Read more...
Friday 21st March 7:00pm
Spoken Word London host (and ex-Tumbleweed extraordinaire) Pat Cash presents a short selection of the 'Fag Ash' monologues, three ten-minute windows into the worlds of disparate characters in modern Britain, including Patricia Primarché, the cheap drag queen, $harkface $ally, the venomous PR woman and Vinnie, the boring boyfriend. Performed by Pat Cash, Milly Unwin and Tom Hodges.
Photo by George Sydney http://www.georgesydney.com/ Read more...
Thursday 20th March 6:00pm
Throughout 2014, in honour of the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, we're hosting the Bard-en-Seine Readings. The goal is simple: to revisit and celebrate some of Shakespeare's most loved plays. So, once a month, we will be hosting informal read-throughs in the library, which will be recorded and sent out as podcasts in this newsletter (see below for February's reading of Romeo and Juliet), so you'll all be able to share in the theatrical fun.
For March, the play will be The Tempest and the reading will take place on Thursday 20th at 6pm, in the library.
If you'd like to take part, please email Milly Unwin at email@example.com, and tell her whether you'd prefer a larger or a smaller role. Parts will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis, and we'll let you know a week in advance of the reading whether you have a role. No preparation necessary, and we'll provide the scripts. Please note that, due to space restrictions, the Bard-en-Seine Readings will only be open to those taking part. Read more...
Monday 17th March 7:00pm
"In my work, as a writer, I only photograph, in words, what I see. If I write of 'sadism' it is because it exists, I didn't invent it, and if some terrible act occurs in my work it is because such things happen in our lives. I am not on the side of evil, if such a thing as evil abounds. In my writing I do not always agree with what occurs, nor do I linger in the mud for the sheer sake of it. Also, it is curious that the people who rail against my work seem to overlook the sections of it which entail joy and love and hope, and there are such sections. My days, my years, my life has seen up and downs, lights and darknesses. If I wrote only and continually of the 'light' and never mentioned the other, then as an artist I would be a liar." – Charles Bukowski
March 2014 marks the twentieth anniversary of Charles Bukowski's death. What a perfect excuse to praise one of the greatest, most honest, most controversial American poets and novelists who ever lived. Everybody's invited to come on stage and share with us your favorite poem or lines. We will also be lucky enough to have with us French writers and Bukowski fans Christophe Donner and Pierre Mikaïloff.
The event will be chaired by Alexandre Guégan, who just translated More Notes of a Dirty Old Man into French with Grasset. There are even rumours of the presence of the author himself…
Tony O'Neill on Bukowski in the Guardian Read more...
Monday 10th March 7:00pm
We're delighted to present Andrew Hussey, author of Paris: The Secret History, on his timely and provocative new book, The French Intifada: The Long War Between France and its Arabs.
Andrew Hussey is Dean of the University of London Institute in Paris, a regular contributor to The Guardian and the New Statesman, and the writer/presenter of several BBC documentaries on French food and art. He is the author of The Game of War: The Life and Death of Guy Debord (2001), and Paris: The Secret History (2006). He was awarded an OBE in the 2011 New Year's Honours list for services to cultural relations between the United Kingdom and France. Read more...
Thursday 6th March 8:00pm
"Many writers, having written a first best-seller, might see it as a nice way to start a career. He started a movement instead." – Time
We're delighted to announce a book signing with the outstanding Dave Eggers.
Dave Eggers's most recent novel is the critically acclaimed critique of the internet age, The Circle. He is the author of six previous books, including A Hologram for the King, a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award, and Zeitoun, winner of the American Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. His novel What Is the What was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award and won France's Prix Medici. That book, about Valentino Achak Deng, a survivor of the civil war in Sudan, gave birth to the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, which operates a secondary school in South Sudan run by Mr. Deng. Eggers is the founder and editor of McSweeney's, an independent publishing house based in San Francisco that produces a quarterly journal, a monthly magazine, The Believer:, a quarterly DVD of short films and documentaries, Wholphin, and an oral history series, Voice of Witness. In 2002, with Nínive Calegari he cofounded 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center for youth in the Mission District of San Francisco. Local communities have since opened sister 826 centers in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Ann Arbor, Seattle, Boston, and Washington, DC. A native of Chicago, Eggers now lives in Northern California with his wife and two children.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/nov/21/eggers-circle-when-privacy-is-theft/?pagination=false – Margaret Atwood's review of The Circle
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a-brief-q-a-with-dave-eggers-about-his-new-novel-the-circle – A short Q&A with Dave Eggers about The Circle Read more...
Wednesday 5th March 7:00pm
Defining the Problem of Tomorrow's Memory: Cultural Heritage in the Digital Age
The concept of collective memory is now well-established within the contemporary cultural heritage sector. It is in the name of memory, and the future of memory, that a case for the preservation of heritage collections is being stated with increasing urgency, and digital technologies are perceived as presenting new opportunities for sharing and providing access to cultural resources. However, these technologies also disrupt that sense of historical continuity integral to collective memory by recoding the historical timeline as a relational database and making chronologies subsidiary to search terms.
This presentation touches on philosophical debates about collective memory and the discourse of history in the context of the cultural heritage sector, tracing the influence of digital technologies and reflecting on the broader societal and political and implications for memory in the digital age.
Liz Stainforth is a PhD student in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies (University of Leeds). Her research considers the ideological significance attributed to memory, understood as a form of national or transnational inheritance, in relation to cultural heritage digitisation projects. Previous roles at the University of Leeds Library have involved project work with the Digital Content and Repositories Team, Special Collections, and the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery. Read more...
Wednesday 5th March 3:00pm
Children's Hour – music, rhythm, and stories for kids. Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs, and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event has become an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated.
Due to space restrictions, we ask that you try and email Kate at firstname.lastname@example.com to confirm your place, and also that each child is accompanied by only one adult where possible. Thanks, all! Read more...
Monday 24th February 7:00pm
Stories of the City: join us for the Paris launch of Joanna Walsh's Fractals (3:AM Press http://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/book-store/3am-press/fractals-by-joanna-walsh-a-3am-press-paperback/), a collection of playful, sharp-edged, and perceptive stories, in which everyday situations and relationships flip over into the absurd. A lover of algorithms, games, and the play of languages, Walsh's stories trace the haunting patterns of wanderers through the streets, cafes, stations, and bookshelves of Paris, and other cities.
Paris is a particular kind of story – glamorous, lonely, life-changing – for natives and visitors alike. Joanna Walsh will talk with the critic, Lauren Elkin, author of the forthcoming Flâneuse (Chatto & Windus, 2015), a genre-blending work of non-fiction mapping the liberating power of the city for women writers and artists, about the eternal allure of Paris in fiction. An evening of the labyrinthine and fascinating enchantments of the city streets. Read more...
Thursday 20th February 7:00pm
Philosophers in the Library: The First Feminist Art Shows
Why did feminist exhibitions emerge in the avant-garde scenes of contemporary art in the late 60s?
Two major figures will be presented: writer, art critic, activist, and feminist curator Lucy Lippard, and the materialistic philosopher, biologist, and feminist Donna Haraway. We will be using some Harawaian concepts such as location, embodiment, and partial perspective (she developed these concepts in Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective, in 1988) to analyse three exhibitions curated by Lucy Lippard, "Eccentric Abstraction" (1966), "955,000″ (1970), and "c.7,500″ (1973-74).
Charlotte Potot is a PhD candidate at Paris 8 in Art and Political Science (Gender Studies). She received her Masters degree in Contemporary Philosophy, Art and Creation under the direction of Elsa Dorlin at Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris 1, after spending one year at Utrecht University in the Masters program Gender and Ethnicity. Read more...
Monday 17th February 7:00pm
We're very happy to announce the welcome return of Louise Doughty, who will be talking about her latest novel, the brilliant literary thriller Apple Tree Yard.
"There can't be a woman alive who hasn't once realised, in a moment of panic, that she's in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong man. Louise Doughty, more sure-footed with each novel, leads her unnerved reader into dark territory. A compelling and bravely-written book." –
Yvonne Carmichael has worked hard to achieve the life she always wanted: a high-flying career in genetics, a beautiful home, a good relationship with her husband and their two grown-up children. Then one day she meets a stranger at the Houses of Parliament and, on impulse, begins a passionate affair with him – a decision that will put everything she values at risk.
At first she believes she can keep the relationship separate from the rest of her life, but she can't control what happens next. All of her careful plans spiral into greater deceit and, eventually, a life-changing act of violence…
Louise Doughty is the author of seven novels. Her first novel, Crazy Paving (1995), was shortlisted for four awards including the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Her sixth novel, Whatever You Love (2010) was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. She has also won awards for radio drama and short stories, along with publishing one work of non-fiction, A Novel in a Year, based on her hugely popular newspaper column. She is a critic and cultural commentator for UK and international newspapers and broadcasts regularly for the BBC. She was a judge for the Man Booker Prize in 2008 and is currently Chair of Judges for this year's Fiction Uncovered promotion.
In collaboration with Belfond. Read more...
Thursday 13th February 7:00pm
We're thrilled to present Dame Margaret Drabble, who will be discussing her acclaimed new novel, The Pure Gold Baby.
Both personal and political, The Pure Gold Baby is a remarkable portrait of a family, a friendship, and a neighbourhood. It is a novel of great beauty, wisdom and stealthy power by one of Britain's foremost writers.
Anna is a child of special, unknowable qualities. She is a happy child, always willing to smile at the world around her. But she also presents profound challenges. For her mother Jess, still in her early twenties, living alone in North London and hoping to embark on an adventurous career, her arrival will prove life-transforming.
Over the course of decades, in ways large and small, Anna will affect the lives and loves of those around her. While Anna herself will remain largely unaltered by the passing years, she will live through a period of dramatic change, her journey illuminating our shifting attitudes towards motherhood, responsibility and the way we care for one another.
Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield in 1939 and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She is the author of seventeen highly acclaimed novels including A Summer Bird-Cage, The Millstone, The Peppered Moth, The Red Queen and The Sea Lady. She has also written biographies, screenplays and was the editor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature. She was appointed CBE in 1980, and made DBE in the 2000 Honours list. She is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd.
"Moving and meditative" – The New Yorker
"Superb" – The Independent
In collaboration with Editions Christian Bourgois.
This event will be chaired by writer and Paris editor of Tin House, Heather Hartley. Read more...
Monday 10th February 10:00am
A Cabinet with Monsieur Moon **ALL DAY**
Independent filmmaker and sound explorer Vincent Moon will be in residence in our library from opening to closing, screening films and talking about his work.
Vincent Moon is an independent filmmaker from Paris who came to be known for his field work music videos of indie rock-related musicians, as well as some notable mainstream artists like Tom Jones, R.E.M., and Arcade Fire. For the past three years, he has been making experimental films and documentaries. His 2009 film, La Faute Des Fleurs, about Japanese singer Kazuki Tomokawa, won the Sound & Vision Award at the film's world premiere at CPH:DOX – the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival – in November 2009. He has been living on the road since December 2008, exploring and recording traditional music, religious rituals, and relationships between music and trance in five continents. These 'experimental ethnography' films, released through his 'nomadic label' Collection Petites Planètes, mark a departure from his earlier line of work on alternative and indie music scenes. He now works alone or with people he finds on the road, and most of the time without money involved in the projects, trying to produce and distribute films without following the established industry standards.
http://www.vincentmoon.com/ – Vincent Moon's website Read more...
Wednesday 5th February 3:00pm
Children's Hour – music, rhythm, and stories for kids. Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs, and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event has become an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated.
Due to space restrictions, we ask that you try and email Kate Stables at email@example.com to confirm your place, and also that each child is accompanied by only one adult where possible. Thanks, all! Read more...
Monday 3rd February 7:00pm
In collaboration with Belfond, we're delighted to welcome award-winning novelist Maggie O'Farrell on her stunning new Costa-shortlisted book, Instructions for a Heatwave.
Maggie O'Farrell was born in Northern Ireland in 1972, and grew up in Wales and Scotland. Her debut novel, After You'd Gone, was published to international acclaim, and won a Betty Trask Award, while her third, The Distance Between Us, won the 2005 Somerset Maugham Award. In 2010 she won the Costa Novel Award for The Hand That First Held Mine.
Instructions for a Heatwave is a gripping and tender portrait of an Irish family in crisis in the legendary heatwave of 1976.
It's July, 1976. In London, it hasn't rained for months, gardens are filled with aphids, water comes from a standpipe, and Robert Riordan tells his wife Gretta that he's going round the corner to buy a newspaper. He doesn't come back. The search for Robert brings Gretta's children – two estranged sisters and a brother on the brink of divorce – back home, each with different ideas about where their father might have gone. None of them suspects that their mother might have an explanation that even now she cannot share.
"Big-hearted, psychologically complex and utterly gripping" – Maria Semple
"Unputdownable" – the Guardian Read more...
Monday 13th January 7:00pm
In collaboration with our friends at NYU, we're delighted to welcome the wonderful Jonathan Lethem to Shakespeare and Company, where he will be reading from and discussing his latest novel, Dissident Gardens.
Jonathan Lethem is the author of nine novels, including Motherless Brooklyn (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award), The Fortress of Solitude, You Don't Love Me Yet, Chronic City, and most recently, Dissident Gardens. He is also the author of numerous collections, including Men and Cartoons, The Disappointment Artist, and The Wall of the Sky, Wall of the Eye. A New York Times bestselling author and recipient of a MacArthur fellowship, Lethem has published his stories and essays in The New Yorker, Harper's, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and The New York Times, among others. He lives in California. Visit Lethem's website at jonathanlethem.com. Read more...
Thursday 9th January 5:30pm
Please join us for a book signing with acclaimed novelist Alexander Maksik.
Alexander Maksik is the author of the novels You Deserve Nothing(Europa, 2011) and A Marker to Measure Drift (Knopf, 2013). His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Best American Nonrequired Reading, Harper's, Tin House, Harvard Review, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Condé Nast Traveler, Salon and Narrative Magazine, among other publications and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he is the recipient of fellowships from the Truman Capote Literary Trust and The Corporation of Yaddo.
In collaboration with Belfond. Read more...
Monday 16th December 7:00pm
Join us for a Christmas evening of Edwardian tales of mystery and imagination, presented by The Cats Meet.
This series of short stories was specifically written for live performance, accompanied by specially commissioned violin music. The idea was to create Edwardian ghost stories in the gothic tradition, with women the dominant figures, as wives, servants, villains, and victims. The tales use the domestic setting, seemingly a place of safety and calm, but invaded here by insidious terror and harm.
The stories will be narrated by Paris-based actor Lola Peploe, accompanied by music from violinist Daniel Pioro, leader of The London Contemporary Orchestra. Read more...
Friday 13th December 6:30pm
Join us in the library for a book signing party for artist Rosy Lamb's exquisite first picture book, Paul Meets Bernadette, a tale of love and lunacy between two goldfish.
Paul is a fish who used to go around in circles. He made big circles and little circles. He circled from left to right and from right to left. He circled from top to bottom and from bottom to top. What else was there to do? Until one day Bernadette drops in and shows Paul that there is a whole world out there, right outside his bowl, with so many things to see. A banana-shaped boat! A blue elephant with a spoutlike trunk (be quiet when she's feeding her babies)! A lovely lunetta butterfly, with tortoise-shell rims! Simple saturated paintings play off this charming ode to an active imagination – and the way that life changes when a bewitching creature opens your eyes.
Rosy Lamb was born on top of a remote hill overlooking mountains and surrounded by woods in the state of New Hampshire (USA). Her parents are artists who like to stay at home and draw and write, and so unwittingly encouraged their numerous children to do the same. Lamb works mostly as a painter and sculptor and has had her studio in Paris since 2001. In the winter of 2011, Rosy Lamb made a portrait of George and Sylvia Whitman that was exhibited in the BP portrait exhibit in London.
Website and book trailer for Paul Meets Bernadette: http://paulmeetsbernadette.com/#intro Read more...
Wednesday 11th December 3:00pm
Children's Hour – music, rhythm, and stories for kids. Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs, and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event has become an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated.
Due to space restrictions, we ask that you try and email Kate Stables at email@example.com to confirm your place, and also that each child is accompanied by only one adult where possible. Thanks, all! Read more...
Monday 9th December 7:00pm
We're delighted to welcome Helene Cixous, one of the world's leading writers and thinkers.
Helene Cixous is a professor, feminist writer, poet, playwright, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist. She is the founder and former director of the Centre de Recherches en Études Féminines at Paris VIII University and the author of numerous notable works, including The Laugh of the Medusa, Stigmata, Reveries of the Wild Woman, and Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint.
For this event, Helene Cixous will be focusing on her new novel, Twists and Turns in the Heart's Antarctic, a compelling new volume in her search for lost time. Twists and Turns, like all Helene Cixous's books, is a many-faceted text, whose narrative spins its webs in corners familiar to her readers: corners with books and writers – Montaigne, Proust, Kafka, Derrida; a theatre and plays; friendship, and love. It is a tale on the scale of Greek myth, about the inescapable entanglements of family relationships that can lead one, in hyperbolic mode, to envision murder and suicide, for, as Cixous writes, "with love's force one hates". And yet, "everything twists and turns": this is a tale with profoundly touching reversals.
Helene Cixous will be joined by her translator, Beverley Bie Brahic. Beverley Bie Brahic is a translator and poet whose work has appeared in Field, Literary Imagination, Notre Dame Review, The Southern Review, The TLS, and elsewhere. White Sheets was published in 2012. Beverley Bie Brahic's translations include Guillaume Apollinaire, The Little Auto and Francis Ponge, Unfinished Ode to Mud. Her translations of Hélène Cixous include Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint, Hyperdream and, most recently, Twists and Turns in the Heart's Antarctic.
This event will be chaired by literary journalist Gladys Marivat. Read more...
Friday 6th December 6:30pm
'Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Metaphysics'
This edition of Philosophers in the Library will provide an accessible introduction to one of the most important works of modern philosophy, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Along the way, the talk will aim to locate Kant's book in relation to the big questions of metaphysics with which he is ultimately wrestling: the nature of human experience, the possibility of freedom, the beginning, end, and extent of the universe, and the existence of God.
Steve Howard is a PhD candidate working on Kant at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University, London, and is spending this semester at Université Paris 8. Read more...
Monday 2nd December 7:00pm
To celebrate the launch of The White Review No. 9 at Shakespeare & Company, editors Benjamin Eastham and Jacques Testard have invited four of Britain's best young poets to read some of their latest work.
Sam Riviere: co-edits the anthology series Stop Sharpening Your Knives with (among others) Jack Underwood. Awarded the Eric Gregory Award (2009), his debut collection, 81 Austerities, was published by Faber & Faber in 2012 and won the Forward Prize in the same year. He is currently working on his second collection.
Rachael Allen: co-editor of poetry anthology series Clinic and online journal Tender. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in the Sunday Times, The Best British Poetry 2013 (Salt) and Poetry London. She is also the online editor of Granta.
Kit Buchan: poet and songwriter living in London, where he is working on his first musical. He is a general freelancer at the Guardian and took part in The White Review's presentation for Lit Crawl London 2013.
Jack Underwood: received an Eric Gregory Award in 2007 and was named a Faber New Poet in 2009. His debut collection is forthcoming with Faber. He is lecturer at Goldsmiths College and reviews new poetry for Poetry London and Poetry Review.
The White Review No. 9 features, among other things, interviews with veteran artist and political activist GUSTAV METZGER, writer and cultural historian REBECCA SOLNIT and the brilliant, avant-garde Russian novelist VLADIMIR SOROKIN. We also have fiction by the British artist ED ATKINS, the Italian writer FRANCESCO PACIFICO and emerging talent ZOE PILGER, plus an essay by ENRIQUE VILA-MATAS on the anachronism or otherwise of literary theories. Art is provided by one of our favourite contemporary artists, MARCEL DZAMA (also the only of our contributors to have ever, to our knowledge, designed the costumes for a Bob Dylan music video), the legendary British filmmaker, painter and poet JEFF KEEN, MARK MULRONEY (whose work features above) and RAPHAEL GARNIER, who supplies our limited-edition, fold out cover. Read more...
And just because we love literary magazines, we're pleased to announce that the launch of The White Review no.9 will be preceded by a short presentation from new Paris based lit mag, Paris Lit Up. Three of the editors will present the first edition of the magazine and read work from its international contributors. For more details please see parislitup.com
Monday 25th November 7:00pm
We're thrilled to welcome best-selling historian Simon Sebag Montefiore to speak about his new novel, One Night in Winter.
If your children were forced to testify against you, what terrible secrets would they reveal?
Moscow 1945
As Stalin and his courtiers celebrate victory over Hitler, shots ring out. On a nearby bridge, a teenage boy and girl lie dead.
But this is no ordinary tragedy and these are no ordinary teenagers, but the children of Russia's most important leaders who attend the most exclusive school in Moscow.
Is it murder? A suicide pact? Or a conspiracy against the state?
Directed by Stalin himself, an investigation begins as children are arrested and forced to testify against their friends – and their parents. This terrifying witch-hunt soon unveils illicit love affairs and family secrets in a world where the smallest mistakes can be punished with death.
"A master storyteller when writing as a historian, Sebag Montefiore's fiction is just as compelling in this thriller set in Stalin's Moscow"— GQ
"Uniquely terrifying. Heartrending" — The Scotsman
Simon Sebag Montefiore's history books are world-wide bestsellers, and are published in over 40 languages. Catherine the Great & Potemkin was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson, Duff Cooper, and Marsh Biography Prizes. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar won the History Book of the Year Prize at the British Book Awards. Young Stalin won the Costa Biography Award (UK), the LA Times Book Prize for Biography (USA), Le Grand Prix de la Biographie Politique (France) and the Kreisky Prize for Political Literature (Austria), and is currently being developed as a TV mini-series. Jerusalem: The Biography won the Jewish Book of the Year Prize (USA) and was number one bestseller in the UK. He is the presenter of the BBC TV series Jerusalem, Making of a Holy City 2011 and Rome, History of the Eternal City. Read more...
Friday 22nd November 7:00pm
Born and raised in Brattleboro, Vermont, Sam Amidon released his 4th album of radically re-worked folk songs this year on Nonesuch Records. "Bright Sunny South" has been called "an interior, wandering journey through your own soul," by none other than Sam Amidon himself. The album was produced by Amidon in collaboration with Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman) and legendary engineer Jerry Boys (Buena Vista Social Club, Vashti Bunyan, R.E.M.) and recorded in London. Amidon himself not only sings but also plays banjo, fiddle, acoustic guitar, and piano on the album.
Bright Sunny South follows 2010's critically acclaimed I See the Sign, which earned Amidon praise from SPIN which noted his "quirky alchemy…contrasting pretty sounds with violent lyrical undercurrents" and Pitchfork, which said, "[Amidon's] interpretations are so singular that it stops mattering how (or if) they existed before."
Prior to I See the Sign, which was released on the Iceland-based label Bedroom Community, Amidon released But This Chicken Proved Falsehearted (Plug Research, 2007) and All Is Well (Bedroom Community, 2008). In addition to his solo albums, Amidon has collaborated on performances pieces with musical polymath Nico Muhly, toured as part of Thomas Bartlett's group Doveman and the Brooklyn band Stars Like Fleas, collaborated with Beth Orton, and embarked on a series of live shows with the guitarist Bill Frisell.
As I Roved Out by Sam Amidon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCHcH2xCBlE Read more...
Monday 18th November 7:00pm
The Cahiers Series was launched in 2007 as an initiative linking the American University of Paris with London's Sylph Editions. Its goal has been "to make available new explorations in writing, in translating, and in the areas linking these two activities". To date 22 cahiers have been published, by authors as varied as Muriel Spark, Paul Muldoon, Simon Leys, Gao Xingjian, László Krasznahorkai, and Elfriede Jelinek.
Join us this evening to celebrate the series, in the company of translator Richard Pevear (author of cahier no.1), architect Vincen Cornu (no.11), translator into French Bernard Turle (no.19) and poet Jeffrey Greene and artist Ralph Petty (co-authors of no.20), as well as of the directors of the series Dan Gunn and Daniel Medin. Read more...
Thursday 14th November 7:00pm
We're very excited to be hosting the Paris launch for a book and an author very close to our hearts. Rosa Rankin-Gee won the inaugural Paris Literary Prize in 2011 for The Last Kings of Sark, published this November by Virago.
Jude is twenty-one when she flies in a private plane to Sark, a tiny carless Channel Island, the last place in Europe to abolish feudalism. She has been hired for the summer to give tuition to a rich local boy called Pip. But when she arrives, the family is unsettling- Pip is awkward, over-literal, and adamant he doesn't need a tutor, and upstairs, his enigmatic mother Esmé casts a shadow over the house.
Enter Sofi: the family's holiday cook, a magnetic, mercurial Polish girl with appalling kitchen hygiene, who sings to herself and sleeps naked. When the father of the family goes away on business, surprising relationships begin to form…
The Last Kings of Sark is a bewitching ode to youth, summer's strange haze, the idea of an island, scallop smuggling, and rosé in the morning. A luminous debut from a compelling new voice in literary fiction.
"Funny, vivid, bittersweet" – Ned Beauman
"Full of adventure and love" – Monique Roffey
Rosa Rankin-Gee grew up in Kensal Rise, London, but now lives by the Parc de Belleville in Paris. In 2010, she was one of Esquire magazine's '75 Brilliant Young Brits'. Rosa runs a night-bird version of a Book Club, where up to 300 people come to swap books and drink cocktails in the former home of George Bizet. This is her first novel. Read more...
Friday 8th November 6:00pm
This month's Philosophers in the Library will focus on the influence of Buddhism in American literature. With an emphasis on writers of the Beat Generation, Ben McConnell will discuss the transmission of Buddhism from east to west through the vein of poetry and literature. Read more...
Thursday 7th November 7:00pm
"One of the best and most original guitarists in America… a modern guitar miracle" – Rolling Stone
"The Thinking Man's Guitar Hero" – The New Yorker
We're delighted to welcome world-class guitarist and Grammy-nominated songwriter Gary Lucas back to the bookshop to celebrate his new book, Touched By Grace: My Time with Jeff Buckley. He will perform a solo set featuring songs from his musical collaborations with the likes of Jeff Buckley, Captain Beefheart, and Beyond.
Gary Lucas has released over 20 acclaimed albums, and his credits include co-writing and playing on his late musical partner Jeff Buckley's anthems 'Grace' and 'Mojo Pin', from the double platinum Grace album, and performing as featured soloist with Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band.
Gary has collaborated with many of the musical greats of his generation, including Leonard Bernstein, Jeff Buckley, Captain Beefheart, Lou Reed, Nick Cave, John Cale, and Bryan Ferry. Gary recently performed two concerts with the 60 piece Metropole Orchestra at the Paradiso Amsterdam — The Music of Jeff Buckley and Gary Lucas, and The World of Captain Beefheartfeaturing vocalist Nona Hendryx. Read more...
Wednesday 6th November 3:00pm
Children's Hour – music, rhythm, and stories for kids. Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs, and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event has become an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated. Read more...
Monday 28th October 7:00pm
In homage to Halloween, please join us for a special themed evening celebrating that great gothic classic – Bram Stoker's Dracula. Jacques Sirgent, founder and director of Musée des Vampires and all-round vampire expert, will give a lecture on Dracula, exploring contemporary reaction, historical context, modern interpretation, and those many film adaptations… Read more...
Friday 25th October 6:30pm
This month's Philosophers in the Library will explore: 'The New American Cinema' in the 1960s – re-making a cinematic tradition.
Discussing some major figures and films of 'The New American Cinema' of the 1960s, we will explore the mindset that launched this extraordinary cinematic scene. We will discuss both the challenges of producing films without the influence of large studios and the emerging aesthetics and technologies of the era, all of which gave rise to such legendary films as Shadows (1959) by John Cassavetes, Pull My Daisy (1959) by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, and The Connection by Shirley Clarke (1961). The talk, by Cecile Tourneur, will give an introduction to this key episode in the history of American cinema. Read more...
Monday 21st October 7:00pm
We are hugely thrilled and honoured to welcome Antjie Krog to Shakespeare and Company for a poetry reading in English and Afrikaans.
Antjie Krog is a prominent poet, prose writer, and academic from South Africa. She published her first book of poetry at the age of seventeen and has since published many further volumes, including, most recently, Body Bereft and Skinned. Recurrent themes in her poetry are love, apartheid, the role of women, and the politics of gender.
Antjie Krog has also worked as a journalist – from 1995 to 2000 she worked for the SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) as a radio journalist, reporting on the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commision from 1996 to 1998 – and as a prose writer. Her much acclaimed Country of My Skull was published in 1998 and chronicles the TRC hearings.
Antjie Krog has won major awards in almost all the genres she has worked in, and her work has been translated into English, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, and Serbian.
Since 2004, she has been on the arts faculty of the University of the Western Cape. Read more...
Monday 14th October 7:00pm
"Beautifully and wittily written" – Literary Review
Join us for an informative and unorthodox discussion of all things (well, lots of things) breakfast-y with Seb Emina, author of the highly acclaimed The Breakfast Bible and creator of much-loved blog The London Review of Breakfasts, and legendary Paris-based cook, author, and blogger David Lebovitz.
When it comes to the most important meal of the day, The Breakfast Bible is the book to end all books, a delectable selection of recipes, advice, illustrations, and miscellany.
The recipes in the robust volume begin with the iconic full English – which can mean anything as long as there are eggs, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes, black pudding, bread, potatoes, and beans involved – before moving confidently on to more exotic fare such as kedgeree, omelette Arnold Bennett, waffles, American muffins, porridge, roast peaches, channa masala from India, borek from the Balkans, and pães de queijo from South America. There are also useful tips like the top songs for boiling an egg to, and how to store mushrooms.
Check out The London Review of Breakfasts:http://londonreviewofbreakfasts.blogspot.fr/
David Lebovitz began working in restaurants at the age of sixteen, ending up at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, where he worked with Alice Waters and co-owner, the Executive Pastry Chef Lindsey Shere, for nearly thirteen years. In 1999 he launched his cult website to coincide with the release of his first book, Room for Dessert. The site was intended as a place to share recipes and stories and, in 2004, to coincide with his move to Paris, he turned the site into an official blog.
David Lebovitz was named one of the Top Five Pastry Chefs in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Chronicle and has been featured in Bon Appétit, Chocolatier, Cooking Light, Food+Wine, Cook's Illustrated, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Travel and Leisure, The New York Times, People, Saveur, Sunset, and USA Today.
David Lebovitz's website: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/ Read more...
Sunday 13th October 7:00pm
Brought to you by Transeuropa Festival, you're warmly invited to come along to a very special evening with some living books…
A living library aims at providing an opportunity to question prejudices and stereotypes and let real stories emerge. It has been conceived for transcultural dialogue, where the 'living books' are individuals, ready to respond with the utmost sincerity to the questions of their readers.
Transeuropa Paris's living library will adapt the concept in an attempt to break prejudices on precarity as a result of the economic crisis and share perspectives on coping strategies. Our living books, imported from Paris, Amsterdam, and London, were all affected by the experience of precarity or even exclusion, but also developed resilient strategies and displayed resourcefulness, adaptation, and innovation, often challenging traditional employment models.
Transeuropa Festival website: http://transeuropafestival.eu/ Read more...
Thursday 10th October 7:00pm
"Spivack's portrait offers a window on a man, a city, and a method for anyone not lucky enough to have taken part in those times."— Boston Globe
In 1959 Kathleen Spivack won a fellowship to study at Boston University with Robert Lowell. Her fellow students were Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, among others. Thus began a relationship with the famous poet and his circle that would last to the end of his life in 1977 and beyond. Spivack presents a lovingly rendered story of her time among some of the most esteemed artists of a generation. Part memoir, part loose collection of anecdotes, artistic considerations, and soulful yet clear-eyed reminiscences of a lost time and place, hers is an intimate portrait of the often suffering Lowell, the great and near great artists he attracted, his teaching methods, his private world, and the significant legacy he left to his students. Through the story of a youthful artist finding her poetic voice among literary giants, Spivack thoughtfully considers how poets work. She looks at friendships, addiction, despair, perseverance and survival, and how social changes altered lives and circumstances. This is a beautifully written portrait of friends who loved and lived words, and made great beauty together.
A touching and deeply revealing look into the lives and thoughts of some of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, With Robert Lowell and His Circle will appeal to writers, students, and thoughtful literary readers, as well as to scholars. Read more...
Wednesday 9th October 3:00pm
Children's Hour – music, rhythm, and stories for kids. Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs, and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event has become an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated. Read more...
Monday 7th October 7:00pm
Book Swap for Global Literacy with Room to Read
International charity Room to Read is calling October "a month to change the story on global illiteracy" – and Shakespeare & Co is joining forces with them to host the first Paris public book swap evening!
All you have to do is turn up with a new, or nearly new, copy of your very favourite book. And, after a lot of good chatting, you leave with someone else's favourite under your arm in exchange!
These are the kind of happy discoveries that happen in the shop all the time, but tonight your new reads will help over 7 million children open a book of their own for the first time. Any funds raised by Room to Read this month will be matched by a generous corporate sponsor so donations of your choice will be very gratefully received. This event will run from 7-9.30pm.
To sign up for the Book Swap, please click here: https://docs.google.com/a/shakespeareandcompany.com/forms/d/1eLeMNSWKuWRpM269_TKlK7hi7zRcSW6b_IaVZbOdMmI/viewform
To find out more about Room to Read's story click here:
And more about the special events for 'Booktober' worldwide here:
http://www.roomtoread.org/Booktober#Host Read more...
Thursday 3rd October 6:00pm
Join us for a concert with the magical Natali Castillo, a new singer/songwriter from Madrid. Natali plays the guitar and the piano, and her songs are a mix of folk, jazz, country, contemporary acoustic and pop music. She's touring her award-winning debut album around Europe, and we're delighted she's able to join us for an intimate gig in our unique, book-filled venue.
Natali Castillo's website: http://www.natalicastillo.com/
Listen to a lovely song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPxBjlvMN7c Read more...
Thursday 26th September 7:00pm
We're delighted to present Piers Faccini, who will be playing his beautiful music among the books to celebrate the release of his new album, Between Dogs and Wolves.
Piers Faccini is a singer, painter, and songwriter, who has previously released four acclaimed albums. He has collaborated with many musicians, including Rokia Traore, Ben Harper, Vincent Segal, Francesca Beard, and Ibrahim Maalouf among others. Between Dogs and Wolves is out on 23 September.
Piers Faccini's website: http://www.piersfaccini.com/ Read more...
Monday 23rd September 7:00pm
"Perhaps when Orwell described sheer egoism as a necessary quality for a writer, he was not thinking about the sheer egoism of a female writer. Even the most arrogant female writer has to work over time to build an ego that is robust enough to get her through January, never mind all the way to December." – Deborah Levy
Join us for an evening with the brilliant Deborah Levy, who will be discussing her new book length essay, Things I Don't Want To Know, a powerful feminist rejoinder to George Orwell's classic, Why I Write.
Deborah Levy trained at Dartington College of Arts, leaving in 1981 to write a number of highly acclaimed plays. She wrote and published her first novel, Beautiful Mutants, when she was 27 years old. Her most recent novel, Swimming Home, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012. Black Vodka: Ten Stories was published by And Other Stories this year.
"Levy's strength is her originality of thought and expression." – Jeanette Winterson
New Statesman review of Things I Don't Want To Know: http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/07/things-i-dont-want-know-powerful-feminist-response-orwells-why-i-write Read more...
Thursday 19th September 6:00pm
Philosophers in the Library: The Riddle of the Social Bond
The social bond, the very way we connect to each other, shifts as the myths we use to describe everyday life become obsolete and are replaced. Modernity, an era of risk-calculation, the hold of rational thinking over unorganised Nature, the promise of the triumph of science, has transitioned throughout the XXth century into a world reinvested with magic, reenchanted — in which reason is not the capital value. Renewed attention to ecological values, to magical thinking, to fictions, and to epic, fiction and fantasy is the most fascinating riddle of our generation. The french school of "sociologie de l'imaginaire" tries, with the fewest false words possible, to achieve a better understanding of this contemporary moment that is ours to witness and to shape.
Speaker: Michaël C. Dandrieux est sociologue, il appartient à la tradition de la sociologie de l'imaginaire. Depuis 2003, il est chercheur au Ceaq (Centre d'Etude sur l'Actuel et le Quotidien), de l'Université Descartes à la Sorbonne, sous la direction du professeur Michel Maffesoli. Depuis 6 ans, Michaël est directeur éditorial des Cahiers Européens de l'Imaginaire (CNRS Editions). Read more...
Monday 16th September 7:00pm
We're delighted to be holding an event celebrating the work of the dazzling Marina Warner.
Marina Warner is an internationally renowned cultural historian whose ambitious works of popular scholarship, from Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary (1976) to Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights (2011), have been highly acclaimed and influential. Most recently, Stranger Magic was awarded the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, the 2013 Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism, and the 2013 Sheikh Zayed Book Award.
In Marina Warner's own eloquent words:
"My critical and historical books and essays explore different figures in myth and fairy-tale and the art and literature they have inspired, from my early studies of the Virgin Mary and Joan of Arc to more recent work on the Arabian Nights. My fiction runs parallel to this, as I often draw on mythic or other imaginary predecessors to translate them into contemporary significance – to re-vision them.
Stories come from the past but speak to the present (if you taste the dragon's blood and can hear what they say). I need to write stories as well as deconstruct and analyse them because I don't want to damage the mysterious flight of imagination at the core of storytelling, the part that escapes what is called rational understanding. I hope, I believe that literature can be 'strong enough to help', to borrow Seamus Heaney's wonderful comment about poetry." Read more...
Friday 13th September 3:00pm
"An awe-inspiring panorama of a mature poet and musician" — The Toronto Star
Join us in the piano room for a magical and intimate preview show from acclaimed Canadian musician Sarah Slean.
Sarah Slean is a mesmeric and multi-talented performer. Over fifteen years, she has made eight albums, starred in two short films and a movie musical, published two volumes of poetry, held exhibitions of her paintings, written two string quartets, and shared the stage with five of Canada's leading orchestras. Her latest album is the critically acclaimed Land & Sea.
Sarah Slean's website: http://www.sarahslean.com/music/solo Read more...
Wednesday 11th September 3:00pm
Children's Hour – music, rhythm, and stories for kids: Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs, and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event has become an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated. Read more...
Monday 9th September 7:00pm
Come and join us for an evening celebrating The Great Gatsby, one of the most resonant and enduring classics of 20th century literature. Featuring Sarah Churchwell, author of the critically acclaimed Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the invention of The Great Gatsby, the Alex Freiman Trio, and delicious Gatsby-esque cocktails!
Careless People tells the true story behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, exploring in newly rich detail the relation of Fitzgerald's classic to the chaotic world he in which he lived. Fitzgerald set his novel in 1922, and Careless People carefully reconstructs the crucial months during which Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald returned to New York in the autumn of 1922 – the parties, the drunken weekends at Great Neck, Long Island, the drives back into the city to the jazz clubs and speakeasies, the casual intersection of high society and organized crime, and the growth of celebrity culture of which the Fitzgeralds themselves were the epitome. And for the first time it returns to the story of Gatsby and the high-profile murder that provided a crucial inspiration for Fitzgerald's tale. With wit and insight, Sarah Churchwell traces the genesis of a masterpiece, discovering where fiction comes from, and how it takes shape in the mind of a genius. Blending biography and history with lost and forgotten newspaper accounts, letters, and newly discovered archival material, Careless People is the biography of a book, telling the extraordinary tale of how F. Scott Fitzgerald created a classic and in the process discovered modern America.
Sarah Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of East Anglia. She is the author of The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe, co-editor of Must Read: Rediscovering the Bestseller, and author of various articles. She is a regular broadcaster and contributor to the national press.
Telegraph review of Careless People: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/historybookreviews/10132404/Careless-People-by-Sarah-Churchwell-review.html Read more...
Monday 29th July 7:00pm
Join us to celebrate the publication of the stunning Grey Cats by Adam Biles, runner-up in the Paris Literary Prize 2011.
As an ash cloud impends over Paris, our English narrator wakes up alone and heads out in search of his French girlfriend, a habitual night-time wanderer. Passing through the unfamiliar landscape he recollects how they met and how their lives intertwined. But as his leads dry up and the ash falls heavier, he realises that even his most basic assumptions – about Paris, his girlfriend, and himself – are overturned once darkness falls.
Grey Cats is a picaresque descent into the belly of the Parisian night – a mischievously comic novel that explores the psychology and mythology of place, questions the fluid boundaries of consciousness, and ideas of identity, love, and lost direction.
Against a backdrop including the illusive Commissaire; a gang of roller-skating urban guerrillas; an army of demonic marionettes; an underground swingers' club and the blood-soaked Theatre-du-Grand-Guignol, unseen in Paris for half a century, we quickly come to understand the truth behind the old French expression: "At night, all cats are grey."
Available to buy at S&Co (of course!). More info here: http://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/book-store/3am-press/grey-cats-a-3am-press-ebook/ Read more...
Thursday 25th July 6:00pm
Thrilled to welcome the brilliant Bombazine Black back for another lovely library gig…
"Matt Davis is the still centre of the hypnotic world that is Bombazine Black, playing deceptively simple guitar riffs that build in layers and ripple dreamily outwards, meeting in loving intersection with here a vibraphone, there a cello, sometimes a harmonium or a glockenspiel. Out of the barest, purest elements and melodies, the band builds up, wave by imperceptible wave, dreamy sonic landscapes that are transportational in the very best musical sense. It is completely tight — Davis knows precisely what he is orchestrating around him — and yet the effect, for the listener, is to enter a vast kind of looseness, an aural trance in which images unspool like movies inside our heads, and the chaos of the outside world recedes." — Luke Davies, author of Candy, Totem, God of Speed Read more...
Monday 22nd July 7:00pm
Please join us for an evening with four extraordinary Irish poets – Aifric Mac Aodha, Ailbhe Darcy, Leeanne Quinn, and Maurice Riordan.
Aifric Mac Aodha is the editor of the Irish language magazine Comhar and Irish-language poetry editor of The Stinging Fly. She works as a translator for the New English-Irish Dictionary. Her first collection Gabháil Syrinx (An Sagart) was published in 2010.
Ailbhe Darcy's first book-length collection of poetry, Imaginary Menagerie, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2011 and shortlisted for the Strong Award. A poem from the collection was chosen as the Guardian newspaper's Poem of the Week. Born in Dublin, Ailbhe is a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Notre Dame, where she has also completed an MFA in creative writing. This year she won the ACIS Krause Fellowship to help support her research project on contemporary Irish poetry.
Leeanne Quinn was born in Drogheda in 1978. She studied at University College Dublin, University College Cork, and holds a PhD in American Literature from Trinity College Dublin. Her poems have been anthologised in The Forward Book of Poetry 2013, Airborne: Poetry from Ireland (2012) and The Bee-Loud Glade: A Living Anthology of Irish Poetry (2011). Her work has been published in a variety of magazines and journals including The Irish Times, The Stinging Fly, The SHOp and broadcast on RTÉ Radio One. Her debut collection, Before You, was published in 2012, a poem from which was highly commended in the Forward Prize for Poetry 2013. She lives in Dublin.
Maurice Riordan's new collection, The Water Stealer, is published by Faber this summer. His last book, The Holy Land, received the Michael Hartnett Award in 2007. Among his other books are Floods and A Word from the Loki, which was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. He has edited several anthologies, including A Quark for Mister Mark, and a selection of early Irish lyrics, The Finest Music, is due from Faber in 2014. Born in Lisgoold, Co. Cork, he lives in London and is editor of Poetry Review.
In collaboration with the department of Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Read more...
Monday 22nd July 11:30am
"Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
Monday 15th July 7:30pm
In collaboration with NYU, we are delighted to present Geoff Dyer and Timothy Donnelly.
Geoff Dyer is the author of four novels: Paris Trance, The Search, The Colour of Memory, and, most recently, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi; two collections of essays, Anglo-English Attitudes and Working the Room; and five genre-defying titles: But Beautiful,The Missing of the Somme, Out of Sheer Rage, Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It and The Ongoing Moment.
A collection of essays from the last twenty years entitled Otherwise Known as the Human Condition was published in the US in April 2011 and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.
Timothy Donnelly is the author of two books of poetry, Twenty-seven Props for a Production of Eine Lebenszeit, and The Cloud Corporation. He earned a BA from the Johns Hopkins University, an MFA from Columbia University, and a PhD from Princeton University.
Timothy Donnelly's poems have been published in anthologies such as Joyful Noise: An Anthology of American Spiritual Poetry, as well as magazines and journals including Harper's, jubilat, The Nation, The Paris Review, PEN America, Ploughshares, TriQuartely and various others. His work has also been translated in German and Italian.
Donnelly is an assistant professor and director of undergraduate creative writing at Columbia University. He is also the poetry editor for Boston Review. Donnelly is originally from Rhode Island but now lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife and two daughters. Read more...
Thursday 11th July 7:30pm
In collaboration with NYU, we are thrilled to present their Distinguished Poet-in-Residence, Charles Simic.
Charles Simic has published more than sixty books in the U.S. and abroad, among them Jackstraws, which was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times; Walking the Black Cat, which was a finalist for the National Book Award in poetry; A Wedding in Hell, Hotel Insomnia, The World Doesn't End: Prose Poems, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, Selected Poems: 1963-1983 and Unending Blues. He has also published many translations of French, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovenian poetry, and four books of essays including Orphan Factory. Elected a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets in 2000, his many awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is Professor of English at the University of New Hampshire. Read more...
Wednesday 10th July 3:00pm
Children's Hour – music, rhythm and stories for kids: Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event is fast becoming an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated. Read more...
Monday 8th July 7:30pm
ZZ Packer is the author of the short story collection Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, a PEN/Faulkner finalist and a New York Times Notable Book. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, Story, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, and The Best American Short Stories 2000 and 2004. Her nonfiction has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine,The American Prospect, Essence, O, The Believer, and Salon. She was named one of America's Young Innovators by Smithsonian Magazine and one of America's Best Young Novelists by Granta. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, and a Whiting Writers' Award.
Brenda Shaughnessy is the author of two books of poems: Interior with Sudden Joy and Human Dark with Sugar, which won the 2007 James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets. Her poems have been published in Bomb, Conjunctions,McSweeney's, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from The Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study at Harvard University, The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, the Greenwall Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo. She is the Poetry Editor of Tin House Magazine and Tin House Books and currently teaches at Princeton University and NYU. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son. Read more...
Thursday 4th July 7:30pm
In collaboration with NYU, we are delighted to present Nathan Englander.
Nathan Englander is the author of the internationally bestselling story collection For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, the novel The Ministry of Special Cases, and What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank (Knopf, Spring 2012), which won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. His short fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Washington Post, as well as The O. Henry Prize Stories and numerous editions of The Best American Short Stories. Translated into more than a dozen languages, Englander was selected as one of "20 Writers for the 21st Century" by The New Yorker, received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a PEN/Malamud Award, the Bard Fiction Prize, and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. He's been a fellow at the Dorothy & Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, and at The American Academy of Berlin. In 2012, Englander's play The Twenty-Seventh Man premiered at The Public Theater, and his translation New American Haggadah (edited by Jonathan Safran Foer) was published by Little Brown. He also co-translated Etgar Keret's Suddenly A Knock at the Door. He lives in Brooklyn, New York and Madison, Wisconsin. Read more...
Monday 24th June 7:30pm
In collaboration with the NYU Creative Writing Program, we are delighted to present two brilliant American writers.
Meghan O'Rourke is the author of The Long Goodbye (Riverhead), a memoir about grief, and the poetry collections Once and Halflife (W.W. Norton). A former poetry editor for The Paris Review, she is also a culture critic for Slate magazine and a founding editor of the web site Double X. She is the recipient of the 2008 May Sarton Poetry Prize. Her essays and poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Best American Poetry, 32 Poems, and more. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, where she grew up.
Chris Adrian is the author of a short story collection A Better Angel, and three novels, Gob's Grief, The Children's Hospital, and The Great Night. He has received an NEA grant for fiction writing and a Guggenheim Fellowship, was selected as one of The New Yorker's 20 writers under 40, and recently completed training as a Fellow in Pediatric Hematology Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco. He is currently the Warren Adler Visiting Writer in the NYU Creative Writing Program.
http://www.cwp.fas.nyu.edu/page/home NYU Creative Writing Program website Read more...
Friday 21st June 6:00pm
Dr. Heidegger or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (with Darren Frey)
Both folk psychology and actual empirical research suggest that technology impacts our ways of thinking. Heidegger anticipates such speculation by reflecting on the essence of technology. Instead of merely positing correlations between technology's prominence and certain modes of thinking, he suggests that one's very posture toward the world is brought into question and sometimes framed by technology. The urgent questions, Heidegger argues, do not take the correlative form: eg., Does Facebook weaken one's actual social attachments? This talk will present the questions concerning technology that Heidegger thought were most important while outlining the general contours of his own thought. So it is open to anyone regardless of their background in philosophy. Read more...
Thursday 20th June 7:00pm
B.J. Novak is an actor, writer and comedian, best known for his contributions to Emmy Award-winning comedy 'The Office'. In addition to starring as Ryan, the temp-turned-boss-turned-temp, Novak also served as an executive producer for the series and scripted many of the show's most memorable episodes. Novak has also been featured in films such as Quentin Tarantino's acclaimed WWII epic, Inglourious Basterds.
First discovered as a stand-up comedian, Novak continues to perform live at theatres, clubs, and universities. For this event, he will be workshopping his first book, a work of comedic fiction, scheduled to be published by Knopf in 2014. Read more...
Monday 17th June 7:00pm
Join us for a summer's evening of verse with three wonderful poets – Chris Garrecht-Williams, Tino Villanueva, and Alejandro Murguía, the San Francisco Poet Laureate.
Chris Garrecht-Williams has a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University, where he was a 2010-2011 Teaching Fellow. He is a Senior Poetry Editor at Narrative Magazine, and his poems have appeared in Forklift: Ohio, The Chattahoochee Review, Beecher's Magazine, The Chiron Review and elsewhere. Chris Garrecht-Williams will be reading as part of our New Writers' Series.
Tino Villanueva writes and also paints. He is the author of seven volumes of poetry, including: Shaking Off the Dark (1984); Crónica de mis años peores (1987); Scene from the Movie GIANT (1993), which won a 1994 American Book Award; Primera causa / First Cause (1999); and So Spoke Penelope (2013). His poems appear in many high school and college textbooks, and his paintings on the covers and inside pages of U.S. and international cultural journals: Nexos (Mexico City), Green Mountains Review, TriQuarterly, Parnassus, MELUS, Sigila (Paris), and Connecticut Review. Six of his poems have been anthologized in The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature (2011). He teaches at Boston University.
Alejandro Murguía is the author of Southern Front and This War Called Love (both winners of the American Book Award). His non-fiction book, The Medicine of Memory, highlights the Mission District in the 1970s during the Nicaraguan Solidarity movement. He is a founding member and the first director of The Mission Cultural Center. He was a founder of The Roque Dalton Cultural Brigade, and co-editor of Volcán: Poetry From Central America. Currently he is a professor in Latina Latino Studies at San Francisco State University. He is the author of the short story "The Other Barrio" which first appeared in the anthology San Francisco Noir and recently filmed in the street of the Mission District. In poetry he has published Spare Poems, and this year a new collection called Native Tongue. He is the Sixth San Francisco Poet Laureate and the first Latino poet to hold the position. Read more...
Friday 14th June 7:30pm
We are very excited to present a bookshop production of one of Shakespeare's most loved comedies.
Our performance of Much Ado About Nothing is a Shakespeare and Company community event, and involves staff, volunteers, and Tumbleweeds alike. Taking place right outside the shop, the play is an energetic version of one of Shakespeare's most hilarious comedies, and is a labor of love for all involved. Read more...
Thursday 13th June 7:00pm
In Collateral Damage, three linked novellas explore the lasting effects of the Vietnam War on people living in its shadow – including both those who fought and those who didn't. These stories from one of American history's most divisive eras show us that Vietnam may not be as far behind us as we think. Who goes to war and why – and the consequences for them and the people who love them are issues that we still face today.
A Small Press Distribution summer bestseller in 2012, Collateral Damage received the Bronze Medal for Literary Fiction from the Independent Publisher Book Awards in May 2013. It was also a finalist for the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. For more information: www.collateraldamage.us
Alice K. Boatwright is the author of dozens of short stories that have appeared in journals such as the Mississippi Review, Paterson Literary Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Penumbra, America West, Storyglossia, and Stone Canoe, as well as anthologies of women's writing published by Crossing Press. Since 2004, she has worked as a freelance writer, dividing her time between Paris and the U.S. Read more...
Tuesday 11th June 6:30pm
We are very excited to announce that Barbara Kingsolver will be signing copies of her books from 6.30-7.30pm.
Barbara Kingsolver was born in 1955, and grew up in rural Kentucky.
Her books, in order of publication, are: The Bean Trees (1988), Homeland (1989),Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike (1989), Animal Dreams (1990),Another America (1992), Pigs in Heaven (1993), High Tide in Tucson (1995), The Poisonwood Bible (1998), Prodigal Summer (2000), Small Wonder (2002), Last Stand: America's Virgin Lands, with photographer Annie Griffiths Belt (2002), Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (2007), The Lacuna (2009), and Flight Behavior (available Nov. 6, 2012). She served as editor for Best American Short Stories 2001. Her books have been translated into more than two dozen languages, and have been adopted into the core literature curriculum in high schools and colleges throughout the nation. She has contributed to more than fifty literary anthologies, and her reviews and articles have appeared in most major U.S. newspapers and magazines.
Kingsolver was named one the most important writers of the 20th Century by Writers Digest. In 2000 she received the National Humanities Medal, our country's highest honor for service through the arts. Critical acclaim for her books includes multiple awards from the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association, among many others. The Poisonwood Bible was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Orange Prize, and won the national book award of South Africa, before being named an Oprah Book Club selection. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle won numerous prizes including the James Beard award. The Lacuna won Britain's prestigious Orange Prize for Fiction in 2010. In 2011, Kingsolver was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for the body of her work.
Kingsolver established the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, the nation's largest prize for an unpublished first novel, which since 1998 has helped to establish the careers of more than a half dozen new literary voices. Through a recent agreement, the prize has now become the PEN / Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Read more...
Sunday 9th June 6:00pm
We are thrilled to welcome one of the world's most mesmeric performers.
Saul Williams is an American poet, singer, musician, writer and actor. His work crosses boundaries and genres, but is united by his incredible talent for using words and beats in spell-binding performances. He started his career as an open-mic poet, winning the title of Grand Slam Champion at the Nuyorican Poets Café in 1996. Soon after, he featured in the film Slam (as both actor and writer), which won the Sundance Festival Grand Jury Prize and the Cannes Camera d'Or. Saul Williams has collaborated with Nas, the Fugees, Blackalicious, Erykah Badu, and Nine Inch Nails, among many others. He released his much acclaimed, self-titled debut album in 2004.
Saul Williams is the author of four collections of poetry and, most recently, editor of the anthology Chorus: A Literary Mixtape, described as an anthem for a new generation of poets. Williams's latest album, Volcanic Sunlight, was released in 2011. When asked about the purpose of poetry in a film that followed, he gave this response: "It is the window that opens, that allows some air in, some other insight, some other possibility so we can explore all that we feel, all that we think but with the space to see more than what we know, because there is so much more than we know. If I didn't open myself to the possibilities of the unknown, then I would be lost."
http://www.saulwilliams.com/ – Saul Williams's website
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp-KwrzwpJI – Saul Williams: 'DNA / Coded Language'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_vUmvAXaWc – Saul Williams: 'Explain My Heart' Read more...
Monday 3rd June 7:00pm
We are delighted to welcome Michelle de Kretser on her stunning new novel, Questions of Travel.
Laura travels the world before returning to Sydney, where she works for a publisher of travel guides. Ravi dreams of being a tourist until he is driven from Sri Lanka by devastating events.
An enthralling array of people, places and stories surround these superbly drawn characters – from Theo, whose life plays out in the long shadow of the past, to Hana, an Ethiopian woman determined to reinvent herself.
Michelle de Kretser illuminates travel, work and modern dreams in this brilliant evocation of the way we live now. Questions of Travel is infused with wit, imagination, uncanny common sense and a deep understanding of what makes us tick.
"Novel by novel, the Sri Lankan-born Australian has emerged as one of the most fiercely intelligent voices in fiction today. This new work, her most ambitious yet, makes globalisation and its discontents the focus of a multi-faceted story that unites grandeur and intimacy" Boyd Tonkin, The Independent Read more...
Wednesday 29th May 6:00pm
This edition of Philosophers in the Library will explore the shifting meanings of the concept of law.
"Law" is one of the words which we use every single day without stopping to think about it: "That's not fair." "I know my rights." "Isn't that against the law?" But different countries have radically different ways of understanding these general terms, shaped by the twists and turns of history, legal philosophy, and street-level culture. Does the French "loi" mean what English and Americans mean by "law", or is it more specific? What do the French mean by the word "droit", and how does this relate to the idea of fairness or rights used in the Anglo-Saxon world? Join a conversation led by Gregory Bligh, doctoral student in legal philosophy at Paris II and the French child of English parents, for an exploration of law, rights, and fairness in two very different languages. Read more...
Sunday 26th May 6:00pm
"In the world of British poetry Carol Ann Duffy is a superstar" The Guardian
"Duffy is magnificent, grounded, heartfelt, dedicated to the notion that poetry can give us the music of life itself" Scotsman
It is a huge honour to present Carol Ann Duffy, one of the most important and best-loved voices in contemporary British poetry.
Born in Glasgow in 1955, Duffy published her first full-length collection, Standing Female Nude, in 1985. This was followed by Selling Manhattan (1987), The Other Country (1990), and Mean Time (1993), which won an award from the Scottish Arts Council, the Forward Prize and the Whitbread Prize for Poetry. 'Prayer' from this volume, a sonnet that concludes with the mantra of the BBC shipping forecast, has become one of her most loved poems. Next came The World's Wife (1999), a brilliant series of dramatic monologues from the wives of famous men from history (there's Mrs. Midas, Mrs. Faust, Mrs. Darwin). Feminine Gospels followed in 2002, the same year Duffy became CBE (having received an OBE in 1995). In 2005, Picador published Rapture, 52 poems charting the rise and fall of a love affair, which won the T.S. Eliot Prize.
In 2009, Duffy was appointed Britain's Poet Laureate, the first woman and Scot to hold the position in the 400-year history of the award. Her laureateship has been marked by her generous creation of opportunities for other poets, and she notably donates her Laureate payment as a Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry.
Duffy's most recent collection, Bees, described as "swooningly glorious" by The Times and "indisputably her best volume" by The Sunday Times, was published in 2011.
Carol Ann Duffy lives in Manchester, where she is Professor and Creative Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. Read more...
Thursday 23rd May 2:00pm
"Spellbinding" Time Out
Come and listen to John Smith's gorgeous, folky tunes.
John Smith is the guitar man from Devon who has quietly become one of the most exciting voices on the new British folk scene. Touring relentlessly as headliner and support act, he has opened shows for John Martyn, Iron and Wine, Seth Lakeman, Davy Graham, John Renbourn, David Gray, Cara Dillon, James Yorkston, Martin Carthy, Jools Holland, Tinariwen, Martin Simpson, Gil Scott-Heron and Chris Thile.
John plays the steel-string acoustic guitar. He was named Young Acoustic Guitarist Of The Year in 2003 and hasn't stopped to look back, unless it's to pick up a banjo. John has four records out; The Fox and the Monk (2006), Map Or Direction (2009), a collection of covers, Eavesdropping (2011), and his latest release, Great Lakes (2013).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmc15VBcm3k – Salty and Sweet by John Smith
http://johnsmithjohnsmith.com/ – John Smith's website Read more...
Friday 17th May 7:00pm
"Harrowing, humane and brilliant" The Times
We are thrilled to welcome Elliot Perlman on The Street Sweeper.
On the crowded streets of New York City there are even more stories than there are people passing each other every day… only some of these stories survive to become history.
Lamont Williams, recently released from prison and working as a hospital janitor, strikes up an unlikely friendship with a patient, an elderly Jewish Holocaust survivor who starts to tell him of his extraordinary past. Meanwhile Adam Zignelik, the son of a prominent Jewish civil rights lawyer, is facing a personal crisis: almost 40-years-old, his long-term relationship is faltering and his academic career has stalled. It's only when one of his late father's closest friends, the civil rights activist William McCray, suggests a promising research topic that the possibility of some kind of redemption arises.
Dealing with memory, racism and the human capacity for guilt, resilience, heroism, and unexpected kindness, The Street Sweeper spans over fifty years, and ranges from New York to Melbourne, Chicago, Warsaw and Auschwitz, as these two very different paths – Adam's and Lamont's – lead to one greater story.
Elliot Perlman is the acclaimed author of a collection of short stories and three novels: Three Dollars, Seven Types of Ambiguity, which was a 'New York Times Notable Book' and a national bestseller in France where it was described "one of the best novels of recent years, a complete success" (Le Monde), and The Street Sweeper. A barrister, he lived in New York for many years and currently lives in Melbourne.
In collaboration with Editions Robert Laffont. Read more...
Wednesday 15th May 7:00pm
"Grand, intimate and joyous" – The New York Times
We are delighted to present Ben Fountain, PEN/Hemingway Award-winning author of the critically acclaimed short story collection, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara.
Ben is here to discuss his stunning debut novel, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk ("The Catch-22 of the Iraq War" —Karl Marlantes), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and a finalist for the National Book Award.
A razor-sharp satire set in Texas during America's war in Iraq, it explores the gaping national disconnect between the war at home and the war abroad. This remarkable novel follows the surviving members of the heroic Bravo Squad through one exhausting stop in their media-intensive "Victory Tour" at Texas Stadium, football mecca of the Dallas Cowboys, their fans, promoters, and cheerleaders.
Ben Fountain grew up in North Carolina and has lived in Dallas, Texas, since 1983. Read more...
Wednesday 15th May 3:00pm
Children's Hour – music, rhythm and stories for kids: Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event is fast becoming an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated. Read more...
Monday 13th May 7:00pm
"One of the best and most original guitarists in America." Rolling Stone
His gig last November was SO good that we've invited legendary American guitarist Gary Lucas back to the bookshop to play another concert!
Gary Lucas is a Grammy-nominated songwriter, a soundtrack composer for film and television, and an international recording artist. He has been described as a "legendary leftfield guitarist" (The Guardian); "the thinking man's guitar hero" (The New Yorker); and "perhaps the greatest living electric guitar player" (Daniel Levitin). He has played and collaborated with Captain Beefheart, Jeff Buckley, Nick Cave and Lou Reed, among many, many others. He also co-wrote two of Jeff Buckley's most famous hits, "Grace" and "Mojo Pin". To date, he has released over 20 acclaimed albums in multiple genres and performed in over 40 countries. He lives in New York.
Gary will be joined for one song by Jeanne Madic. Read more...
Monday 6th May 7:00pm
"A novel rich as the past is conjures up, weaving a story as playful and disturbing as the strange wax sculptures that its hero gives life to." Sarah Dunant
"Rupert Thomson is in the front rank of English authors." Observer
In collaboration with Granta, we are delighted to present Rupert Thomson on his brilliant new novel, Secrecy.
It is Florence, 1691. The Renaissance is long gone, and the city is a dark, repressive place, where everything is forbidden and anything is possible. The Enlightenment may be just around the corner, but knowledge is still the property of the few, and they guard it fiercely. Art, sex and power – these, as always, are the obsessions.
Poignant but paranoid, sensual yet chilling, Secrecy is a novel that buzzes with intrigue and ideas. It is a love story, a murder mystery, a portrait of a famous city in an age of austerity, an exercise in concealment and revelation; but above all, it is a trapdoor narrative, one story dropping unexpectedly into another, the ground always slippery and uncertain.
Rupert Thomson is the author of eight highly acclaimed novels: Dreams of Leaving, The Five Gates of Hell, Air and Fire, The Insult, Soft, The Book of Revelation, Divided Kingdom and most recently, Death of a Murderer, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year Award and by World Book Day for the Book to Talk About 2008. His memoir, This Party's Got to Stop, also published by Granta, won him the Writers' Guild Non-Fiction Award. Read more...
Friday 3rd May 5:00pm
Join Cars on Rooftops in the library for a lovely bop among the books!
Cars on Rooftops is a Paris based folk-pop band, highly influenced by britpop, american folk and modern jazz. The 5 strong band has just released its debut EP, titled Know, to critical acclaim. Know is a musical quest in search of a simple question: do you know who we are?
Answers are (hopefully) here:
Monday 29th April 7:00pm
Read more... style="font-family: arial; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">A very exciting literary / musical hybrid evening — celebrating, probably the first ever, dub remix of a novel…!
Thursday 25th April 6:00pm
Beckett and Philosophy: Subjectivity, Language, Ethics (with Amanda Dennis)
Beckett's texts have a reputation for being bleak, opaque, difficult to make sense of – even nihilistic or absurdist. These claims may help explain feelings of frustration while reading Beckett, but they overlook certain vital moments in the works – moments in which experimental forms (like the destabilization of narrative) become ways of exploring possibilities for artistic invention. Beckett's works certainly break the conventions of narrative, of genre, and of character portrayal, but to what end? Philosophers such as Theodor Adorno, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault and Alain Badiou have involved Beckett in their own thinking about creativity, subjectivity, language and ethics. Engaging works by these thinkers, we'll go beyond commonplace readings of Beckett as an "existentialist" to show how Beckett's texts both anticipate and work through some of the most pressing problems of twentieth-century philosophy – problems, broadly speaking, that have to do with the self (an "I" who is consistent through time), with language (its insufficiencies and excesses), and with ethics: openness to others and to difference.
As always, Philosophers in the Library is open to anyone (not just the Beckett experts!). Read more...
Monday 22nd April 7:00pm
A spring evening of poetry and wine…
A sampling of sonnets read by Charlotte Corman and Lola Peploe in celebration of Shakespeare's birthday.
Lola Peploe is an English actress who trained at the Drama Centre London and has worked in theatre, television and film. She has just finished working on a feature film in Brazil.
Charlotte Corman is a bilingual French actress who trained at the Conservatoire here in Paris, and also for a year at LAMDA in London. She works in radio, cinema and theatre. Read more...
Wednesday 17th April 3:00pm
Children's Hour – music, rhythm and stories for kids: Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event is fast becoming an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated. Read more...
Monday 15th April 6:00pm
Read more... style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 0px 13px; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.545454025268555px;">We are incredibly excited to welcome the tremendous Michael and Clare Morpurgo to Shakespeare and Company in a very special event for their exquisite collaborative publication, Where My Wellies Take Me (illustrated by Olivia Gill).
Thursday 11th April 6:00pm
A dramatic reading of Our Lady of Perpetual Donuts (currently playing at the Lucernaire) by Jennifer Wiltsie.
Edna Howard is more than she seems. The Mayor of Hayward, CA, is honouring her with a Local Hero award for her work with abused kids. In her acceptance speech she shares her own decades-long story of physical, psychological and emotional abuse. But she is no victim. With absolutely no self-pity, she tells how through faith, a sense of humor, and a tremendous capacity for love… she survived – finding salvation in… donuts. Our lady of perpetual donuts is devoted to defending, protecting and empowering the countless children in her care. One love-filled donut at a time. Read more...
Monday 8th April 7:00pm
'My favourite writer, the famous Nikolai Leskov' – Anton Chekhov
'Stories as strong as fables and crazy as life' – Alice Munroe
Following on from their marvellous event last autumn, we are delighted to welcome extraordinary translating duo Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky back to the bookshop to celebrate the publication of The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories by Nikolai Leskov.
Leskov's short stories exploded the traditions of nineteenth-century Russian fiction. Innovative in form and playful in language, these seventeen tales are peopled by outsized characters that include serfs, princes, military officers, Gypsy girls, wayward monks, horse dealers, nomadic Tartars, and garrulous storytellers.
Wednesday 3rd April 7:00pm
"Charming, warm-hearted and thought-provoking" The New York Times
In collaboration with Belfond, we are very excited to welcome Scott Hutchins, author of the acclaimed and electrifying debut, A Working Theory of Love.
Recently divorced thirty-six-year-old Neill Bassett has got a lot of questions.
Not the run-of-the-mill, insolubles, why am I here? Who am I? But the pressing questions of adult life: Really? and Are you sure? and Now what?
He's about to get some answers…
By day, Neill is engaged in an extraordinary experiment: painstakingly helping to create what might become the world's first sentiment machine, an artificial intelligence that is based on the personality of his dead father. By night, meanwhile, he is coming to terms with his own emotional shortcomings, reconciling his new-found bacherlorhood with the unexpected attractions of a vulnerable but intriguing young woman called Rachel. So the question is: what does it take to be a real human being? And more alarmingly, what if he succeeds?
Set in contemporary San Francisco, where everything goes (and regularly does), this recklessly witty, formidably funny, outrageously honest novel captures the exquisite agony of the most important relationships of our twenty-first century lives.
Scott Hutchins, a Truman Capote Fellow in the Wallace Stegner Program at Stanford University, received his MFA from the University of Michigan. His work has appeared inStoryQuarterly, The Rumpus, The New York Times, and Esquire. He currently teaches at Stanford. Read more...
Monday 1st April 3:00pm
Join us on Easter Monday/April Fool's Day for an afternoon concert with the wonderful Thos Henley…
Thos Henley is twenty-five. He was born and raised in England. He learnt the guitar in Granada, sang with it on the streets of Paris, went to write a book in Greece and has now settled in Dresden. Thos plays pop music on an acoustic guitar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwK0dOJaPNo – In Hearing Taste by Thos Henley Read more...
Monday 25th March 7:00pm
A very special double bill of entertainment…
"Penetrating insight and dry observation" The Independent
Lucy Wadham, the bestselling author of The Secret Life of France, will be reading from her new book, Heads and Straights, an autobiographical tale of bohemians, punk, the King's Road in the 1970s and family.
Lucy is a Chelsea girl, brought up off the King's Road in the seventies when punk was in full bloom. Her family comes in the wonderful tradition of English eccentrics. In Heads and Straights, she creates a funny, moving account of a family eager to escape the confines of class. Through interlocking tales of their extravagant and often self-destructive journeys away from the Circle Line stops of Sloane Square, South Kensington and Gloucester Road, Lucy evokes the collision between conformism and bohemian excess and the complicated class antipathies that flourished in that particular time and place. In the end we are left wondering – is it ever possible to escape, or do we, in our travels, simply loop back on ourselves
Lucy Wadham was born in London and has lived in France for the past twenty years.
We are delighted to welcome the brilliant The Bookshop Band to our bookshop in Paris! Formed in late September 2010 by Poppy Pitt, Beth Porter and Ben Please, The Bookshop Band write songs inspired by books, and play them in bookshops. Supported by Vintage Books, the band went on a tour of independent bookshops around the UK in 2012. Over this period they were featured on 6Music, The Today Program, Front Row, BBC 1 News and the Guardian, among others. They have written songs based on too many books to list, but they include Embassytown by China Miéville, Pure by Andrew Miller, and The Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal. They have been described as "charming, clever and quite unfairly talented" by Patrick Gale – we cannot wait to hear their literary crooning!
http://www.thebookshopband.co.uk/ – The Bookshop Band's lovely website
http://vimeo.com/44626112 – 'A shop with books in' – a song inspired by bookshops (which we love, of course) Read more...
Wednesday 20th March 3:00pm
Children's Hour – music, rhythm and stories for kids: Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event is fast becoming an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated. Read more...
Monday 18th March 7:00pm
Join International Writer's Conference Revisited: Edinburgh, 1962 editors Angela Bartie and Eleanor Bell in this commemorative event, as they talk with the original Conference organisers – pioneering publisher John Calder and seminal arts figure Jim Haynes – about their memories of the ground-breaking 1962 International Writers' Conference. Traveling from all corners of the globe, delegates included Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, William Burroughs, Hugh MacDiarmid, Muriel Spark, Alexander Trocchi, Lawrence Durrell, Stephen Spender, Erich Fried and Khushwant Singh. Heady and confrontational, the "Roman amphitheatre" environment of the city's McEwan Hall saw fierce discussion of censorship, the future of the novel, and more. Enthralling the 2000-strong daily audience, and filling the front pages of Britain's national newspapers and beyond, the Conference made literary history.
Thursday 14th March 6:00pm
Our Philosophers in the Library series continues with Ben McConnell, who will be giving an introduction to Zen Buddhism, outlining the general foundations of Zen practice, as well as identifying certain Buddhist themes in the work of such literary figures as Henry David Thoreau, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Ginsberg. Also discussed will be such topics as: How does Zen practice fit into a normal, busy life? What are the motivations behind practicing Zen? What are koans? And is "enlightenment" the end of the road for a Buddhist?
Ben will draw upon his experience of twelve years of Zen practice, three of which were as a resident staff member at the Rochester Zen Center, in Rochester, New York. Read more...
Monday 11th March 7:00pm
As the Oulipo celebrates its 60th anniversary, the avant-garde French literary group seems to be more on the cultural radar than ever before. The last few years have seen a panoply of English translations of Oulipian work, as well as two important critical works centering on the movement: Daniel Levin Becker's 'Many Subtle Channels' and Lauren Elkin/Scott Esposito's 'The End of Oulipo?: An Attempt to Exhaust a Movement'.
Wednesday 6th March 4:00pm
We are thrilled to present musicians Cole Stacey and Joseph O'Keefe, who will be playing an intimate acoustic set in the library. Read more...
Monday 4th March 7:00pm
We are delighted to welcome John Baxter back to the bookshop to discuss his latest book, The Perfect Meal.
John Baxter's The Perfect Meal is part grand tour of France, part history of French cuisine, taking readers on a journey to discover and savour some of the world's great cultural achievements before they disappear completely. Read more...
Monday 25th February 7:00pm
Three English-speaking writers living in Paris, Nancy Huston, Ellen Hinsey and Denis Hirson will all be reading from their work at Shakespeare and Company on February 25th 2013. Read more...
Friday 22nd February 6:00pm
The talk will focus on the philosophical concept most strongly associated with G.W.F. Hegel's philosophy and its legacy: 'dialectic.' Notwithstanding the complex and diverse theoretical reception of the concept (most notably in the historical forms that structure 'post-', 'anti-', and 'neo-' Hegelianism), not to mention the notorious difficulty of Hegel's own philosophical exposition, this talk will move at a consciously rudimentary level, staying close to only a small number of critical moments in Hegel's work (especially the Phenomenology of Spirit) and attempting to expose and explicate as clearly as possible central themes and salient meanings found therein. Accordingly, the talk will advance through a series of basic reflections: it will inquire into the identity of the dialectic ('what is it?'), its operation ('how does it work?') and its consequences ('what happens as a result of dialectics?'). In the attempt to demystify Hegel's dialectic at an introductory level, it will hopefully become clear in what sense Hegel's thought is still of relevance today.
No prior knowledge of Hegel or philosophy in general is necessary — Philosophers in the Library is open to everyone. Read more...
Thursday 21st February 7:00pm
Becoming a Writer/Staying a Writer: novelist Louise Doughty will talk about the practicalities of becoming a writer and staying one in today's difficult and exciting climate. Read more...
Wednesday 20th February 3:00pm
Children's Hour – music, rhythm and stories for kids: Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event is fast becoming an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated. Read more...
Thursday 14th February 7:00pm
'A triumph. . . brimful of wit and narrative energy' Sunday Times
In collaboration with Belfond, we are very happy to present Paul Murray, author of Skippy Dies (2010) and An Evening of Long Goodbyes (2003). A former bookseller, Paul Murray was born in 1975. He studied English literature at Trinity College in Dublin and has a Masters degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia. His first novel, An Evening of Long Goodbyes, was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize in 2003 and was nominated for the Kerry Irish Fiction Award. His most recent book, Skippy Dies, described as a tragicomic masterpiece about growing up and learning about life in a Dublin boarding school, was longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize and received a staggering amount of critical acclaim.
Paul Murray is in France to promote the French publication of Skippy Dies, Skippy dans les etoiles (Belfond). We can't wait to hear from him… Read more...
Tuesday 12th February 7:30pm
In collaboration with Stock, we are very excited to present Kevin Powers, author of the critically acclaimed, award-winning The Yellow Birds. An unforgettable depiction of the psychological impact of war, by a young Iraq veteran, The Yellow Birds is already being hailed as a modern classic. Described as "All Quiet on the Western Front for the Arab wars" by Tom Wolfe and "a classic of contemporary war literature" by The New York Times, The Yellow Birds is also the winner of the Guardian First Book Award, and a finalist in the National Book Awards. It was chosen as a book of the year in 2012 by The New York Times, The Times, The Independent, the TLS, and The Irish Times, among many others.
Kevin Powers was born and raised in Richmond, VA. In 2004 and 2005 he served with the U.S. Army in Mosul and Tal Afar, Iraq. He studied English at Virginia Commonwealth University after his honourable discharge and received an M.F.A. in Poetry from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin in 2012. Read more...
Monday 4th February 7:00pm
"This could be the start of something major" – ****, Q Magazine Read more...
Friday 1st February 7:00pm
We are delighted to present journalist Stephanie LaCava with her captivating literary debut, An Extraordinary Theory of Objects. Read more...
Thursday 10th January 7:30pm
We are very sorry to announce that tomorrow's event with Anne Carson has been cancelled, due to unforeseen circumstances. We will most likely be rescheduling this event for July. Apologies for any disappointment this has caused. Read more...
Thursday 3rd January 4:00pm
Please join author Rosemary Flannery for a signing of her book, Angels of Paris. Read more...
Wednesday 19th December 3:00pm
Children's Hour – music, rhythm and stories for kids. Read more...
Tuesday 18th December 7:00pm
Broken Hearts and Unbound Dreams
'Immense skill and breathless conviction… there's no faulting Reid's command of her craft' The Times Read more...
Friday 14th December 5:00pm
Please join us for a tea party in the library on Friday 14th December, between 5-8pm, to celebrate the life of George Whitman, the bookshop's founder and our much missed friend. Read more...
Thursday 13th December 6:00pm
New York expat Marc Grossman, the creator of Bob's Juice Bar (10e) and Bob's Kitchen (3e) and author of several popular cookbooks, will be celebrating the release of his latest cookbook New York – Les Recettes Culte (ed. Marabout) at Shakespeare and Company. Read more...
Monday 10th December 7:00pm
Please join us to celebrate the launch of The White Review No. 6, notably featuring interviews with China Mieville, Julia Kristeva and Edmund de Waal, fiction by Helen DeWitt, essays on J. H. Prynne and Bela Tarr, artwork by Matt Connors and poetry by Emily Berry.
To mark the release of this new edition, editors Jacques Testard and Benjamin Eastham have put together a panel to discuss the past, present and future of literary magazines, including Christian Lorentzen (Senior Editor at the London Review of Books and editor of Say What You Mean: The n+1 Anthology), Craig Taylor (Five Dials, and the author of Londoners), Heather Hartley (Paris editor of Tin House) and Krista Halverson (former managing editor of Zoetrope). Read more...
Monday 3rd December 7:00pm
Shakespeare and Company presents Topsy Turvy Tales by Humpty Dumpty Publishing!
Topsy Turvy Tales is an illustrated gift book of tales by Charlotte Boulay-Goldsmith and Laura Hyde. Dark and twisted, heart-warming and fun, it has a Tim Burton and Edward Gorey quality.
This is the first title from exciting and energetic, new, all female publishing company Humpty Dumpty Publishing, who team together writers and illustrators to publish exquisite and affordable gift books with a twist.
Charlotte and Laura will be around if you'd like your copy signed; and, in the library, two of the tales from the book which have been adapted into animations, narrated by Maryam d'Abo and Bill Nighy, will be screening. There will also be wine, live music by Lady Merxck and other surprises! Read more...
Tuesday 27th November 2:00pm
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The Pillow Project is a visiting American 'Freejazz' dance company for creating new ideas in spontaneous and experimental movement.
Sunday 25th November 7:00pm
Chaplin's first 'talkie', Modern Times (1936) is a satirical critique of the recently mechanized, fast-paced 20th Century. Going from assembly line worker to accidentally leading a workers' revolt, Chaplin gets himself involved in endless unexpected slapstick situations. Deliberately getting arrested to benefit from the hospitality on 'the inside' in contrast to the bleak economy on the outside, Chaplin eventually pairs up with a 'gamin', paving the way for a modern day fairytale.
Led by Frau Doktor Katy Masuga of Skidmore College, join us in the library for one of the greatest films of all time by the most legendary silent filmmaker of all time. Read more...
Thursday 22nd November 7:00pm
"One of the best and most original guitarists in America." Rolling Stone Read more...
Wednesday 14th November 3:00pm
Children's Hour – music, rhythm and stories for kids. Read more...
Monday 12th November 7:00pm
"A sharp satirical voice only predictable in its provocation" —Playboy Read more...
Thursday 8th November 4:00pm
We are delighted to welcome musician Rhob Cunningham, who will be playing an acoustic set in the library. Read more...
Monday 5th November 7:00pm
"She is the reason I stopped slamming… Aja Monet writes with a spirit that makes me miss Brooklyn"
Wednesday 31st October 9:30pm
Buster Keaton's Haunted House (1921) will have you scared silly! In the first half of this 22-minute silent film, Keaton finds himself literally in a very sticky situation in his job at the bank. From Wall Street to the walking dead, Keaton soon ends up running from counterfeiters and robbers right into the arms of disgruntled Faustian stage actors, mischievous ghosts, headless horsemen and living skeletons.
Led by Frau Doktor Katy Masuga of Skidmore College, join us for a light-hearted Halloween treat in the library with 'The Great Stone Face' of slapstick silent cinema.
Monday 29th October 7:00pm
Writing with invention and savage insight, A.M. Homes lays bare the insecurities of contemporary American life in her new novel May We Be Forgiven, which she will discuss at this event. Read more...
Tuesday 23rd October 2:00pm
Join us for beautiful music from Academy Award-winning Glen Hansard, principal songwriter and vocalist/guitarist for Irish group The Frames and one half of folk rock duo The Swell Season. Glen Hansard is also known for his acting – he has appeared in the BAFTA winning film The Commitments, and starred in the musical film Once. We're thrilled to have him join us for this one off magical gig among our books… Come along! Read more...
Monday 22nd October 7:00pm
Celebrate Picador's 40th anniversary with Liza Klaussmann and Sunjeev Sahota. At the start of the event Adam Biles will read a short extract of his work as part of the New Writers' series. Read more...
Sunday 21st October 7:00pm
Please join us on Sunday, Oct. 21st at 7PM for a screening of Robert Wiene's horror classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) in conjunction with an introduction to German Expressionism by Frau Doktor Katy Masuga. Read more...
Thursday 18th October 6:00pm
Tonight, for Philosophers in the Library, Agnès Gayraud will discuss Simone de Beauvoir and 'becoming a subject'. Read more...
Wednesday 17th October 3:00pm
Music, rhythm and stories for kids. Read more...
Sunday 14th October 6:00pm
In collaboration with Sonatine Editions, we are thrilled to present the inimitable David Simon. Read more...
Monday 8th October 6:00pm
An evening of chocolate: Learn how to become a connoisseur of high-quality chocolate and taste some of the freshest and most avant-garde chocolates being made in Paris today.
International chocolate expert Chloé Doutre-Roussel, author, The Chocolate Connoisseur, will give an overview of the history of chocolate from the Mayans to 2012, and reveal the up-and-coming trends that will shape the world of high-end chocolate. Alexandra Whisnant (creator, gâté comme des filles chocolats) will present a limited-edition box of chocolates created especially for this event, with flavors and designs inspired by Shakespeare and Company, and discuss her distinctive approach to making chocolates.
We've reserved 5 copies of The Chocolate Connoisseur to be signed for online orders, click here to pre-order. Read more...
Wednesday 3rd October 4:00pm
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From 4-4:30pm Marjorie R. Williams, co-author and photographer of Markets of Paris will sign copies of the new book and answer questions about various markets of Paris – from open-air food markets to covered markets, flea and antique markets, craft markets and more. Come by to get her take on some of the city's best markets (including the best bets for organic, or bio, items) and discover neighborhoods you haven't seen before!
Monday 1st October 7:00pm
Tonight we are honoured to welcome two of the world's greatest translators, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volohonsky, presented by Dan Gunn. They will discuss the art of translation, read extracts of their work and answer questions. Read more...
Friday 21st September 6:00pm
The September edition of Philosophers in the Library will centre on the roots, troubles and redemption of American democracy. Led by Lex Paulson – a veteran of the Obama campaign and author of the "Applied Classics" series, who's currently pursuing a philosophy PhD at the Sorbonne–the talk will explore the subject with the help of two illuminating texts, Polybius's Histories and Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. A Greek captive in 2nd-century BC Rome, Polybius wrote the seminal account of how Rome's balanced constitution accelerated her conquest of the known world; Rome's republican system, in turn, was the primary influence upon America's founding generation as its new republic was born. De Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat sent to study American prisons in the 1830's, produced instead the most insightful, readable, and enduring account ever written on America and its civic life.
What light do these ancient texts shed on the campaign of 2012? Can American democracy, for all its dysfunction, still be saved? Read more...
Thursday 20th September 7:00pm
Festival America! Come and see an incredible range of events in Vincennes from 20-23 September with over 70 authors from the Americas – see Toni Morrison, Dave Eggers and many more…www.festival-america.org Read more...
Wednesday 12th September 5:00pm
Come and hear an acoustic concert (upstairs in the library or outside if it's fine) with the stunning American musician Alyssa Graham. Blending '60s folk rock with hints of Neil Young, Nick Drake and Bob Dylan, Alyssa's Lock, Stock & Soul has garnered praise from all corners including The Huffington Post, AOL Music, Paste Magazine, Daytrotter, Marie Claire and American Songwriter. Her debut album, Echo, was chosen by The New York Times as a Critics' Choice CD. "The right voice…a sumptuous and flexible croon"— New York Times Read more...
Wednesday 12th September 3:00pm
Music, rhythm and stories for kids: Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs and stories in English (for all nationalities even those who don't speak English!). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit. There will be instruments to play and noise to make! 4 euros donation appreciated. Read more...
Monday 10th September 7:00pm
Noel Riley Fitch, Rick Tulka and John Baxter will discuss the Paris café and its central role in art and literature. Why is the Paris café central to artistic history? How is the café portrayed in art and literature? What has the café offered the artist? What historical events have occurred in cafés? Why are its numbers diminishing and what future can we foresee? Read more...
Wednesday 5th September 4:00pm
Come for a *brief signing* (4pm-420pm) with Ron Rash, award-winning poet, short-story writer and novelist. Read more...
Monday 3rd September 7:30pm
Granta's John Freeman presents House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family and a Lost Middle East by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony Shadid, who passed away last year. John will be in discussion with one of France's most acclaimed writers, Amin Maalouf; Shadid's colleague from the Washington Post, Ed Cody; filmmaker Katia Jarjoura (and friend of Shadid's) and Jihane Chouaib, the director of the documentary Dream Country. House of Stone '. . . offers a powerful reminder of the impact that never-ending insecurity has on people long after the violence that ruined their lives has been forgotten by the rest of the world.' New York Times
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Friday 31st August 6:00pm
Upstairs in the library, Gerald Nicosia will treat us to a talk about On the Road, Jack Kerouac and his connection with the Beats. He will also read from his new book, One and Only: The Untold Story of On the Road, which tells of Kerouac's famous novel from the point of view of the woman who sat between Jack and Neal, Lu Anne Henderson, who is called 'Marylou' in the novel. Read more...
Saturday 25th August 9:00am
It's holiday time so this month our events are on hold until Friday 31 August – see you then! Read more...
Monday 23rd July 6:00pm
We welcome Brazilian cellist / singer / songwriter Dom for an intimate concert at Shakespeare and Company. Read more...
Wednesday 18th July 7:30pm
In collaboration with NYU's summer writing programme, come and hear acclaimed American writers Eileen Myles, Inferno, and Fiona Maazel, Last Last Chance. (Please note priority seating reserved for NYU students.) Read more...
Wednesday 11th July 7:30pm
In collaboration with NYU's summer writing programme, join us for a mini-festival of American Poets with Brenda Shaughnessy, Mark Bibbins, Sherwin Bitsui, Rebecca Wolff and Paul Legault. (Please note priority seating reserved for NYU students.) Read more...
Monday 9th July 7:30pm
In collaboration with NYU's summer writing programme, we present acclaimed American writers Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank; Helen Schulman, This Beautiful Life; and Rachel Zucker, Museum of Accidents. (Please note priority seating reserved for NYU students.) Read more...
Monday 2nd July 7:30pm
In collaboration with NYU's summer writing programme, we present acclaimed American poets Catherine Barnett, Matthew Rohrer and Deborah Landau. (Please note priority seating reserved for NYU students.)
Catherine Barnett is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, the Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers and a Pushcart Prize. Her book Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced won the 2003 Beatrice Hawley Award. Her new poetry collection, The Game of Boxes, is forthcoming in August 2012 from Graywolf Press. Barnett has taught at Barnard, the New School and NYU.
Matthew Rohrer is the author of A Hummock in the Malookas, Satellite, A Green Light, Rise Up, A Plate of Chicken, and Destroyer and Preserver. With Joshua Beckman he wrote Nice Hat. Thanks. and recorded the audio CD Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. Octopus Books published his action / adventure chapbook-length poem They All Seemed Asleep. He's received various awards including a Pushcart Prize and was selected as a National Poetry Series winner. Recently he participated in residencies / performances at the Museum of Modern Art and the Henry Art Gallery.
Deborah Landau is the author of Orchidelirium (winner of the Anhinga Prize for Poetry) and The Last Usable Hour (a Lannan Literary Selection). Her poems, essays and reviews have appeared in various publications including The Paris Review, Tin House, American Literature, The Best American Erotic Poems and The Harvard Review. She was educated at Stanford, Columbia and Brown, where she was a Javits Fellow and received a PhD in English and American Literature. She currently co-hosts the video interview program Open Book on Slate.com and is the director of the NYU Creative Writing Programme. Read more...
Wednesday 27th June 7:30pm
In collaboration with NYU's summer writing programme we present some of American's most exciting writers, Dinaw Mengestu, Darin Strauss, Chris Adrian and Colson Whitehead, in a panel chaired by Granta's John Freeman on The Worst, Terrible Thing. The writers will discuss how each of them has written into the heart of a horror (of some sort) and emerged with a story. Read more...
Monday 25th June 7:30pm
In collaboration with New York University's summer writing programme we present one of America's most original and influential writers and translators Lydia Davis. 'Sharp, deft, ironic, understated, and consistently surprising.' —Joyce Carol Oates 'Davis is a magician of self-consciousness. Few writers now working make the words on the page matter more.' —Jonathan Franzen Read more...
Monday 18th June 7:00pm
Tonight British writer Adam Thirlwell will discuss his new book Kapow! Exploding with unfolding pages and multiple directions, Kapow! is set in the thick of the Arab Spring, guided by the high-speed monologue of an unnamed narrator — over-doped, over-caffeinated, overweight — trying to make sense of this history in real time. Afterwards there will be acapella with Whim 'n Rhythm, Yale's all-senior, all-female acappella group http://www.whimnrhythm.com/
On Kapow!: A clever, funny, and bitingly critical cultural commentary, it uses spinning digressions to tell the stories of a group of interconnected characters in London and Egypt, each transformed by the idea of revolution. Kapow! asks readers to open and unfold pages, to follow text leaking in and out of paragraphs, while progressively becoming part of and lost within the narrator's giddy digressions. A beautifully crafted object told in Thirlwell's uniquely acrobatic voice, this is a visually immersive storytelling experience like no other.
Adam Thirlwell is the author of two novels, Politics and The Escape, and a book on the international art of the novel. He is the guest editor of an issue of McSweeney's magazine, to come out in Winter 2012. Read more...
Saturday 16th June 3:00pm
Come and celebrate Bloomsday with a selection of readings under the tree by acting students from Jacques Lecoq! Read more...
Friday 15th June 6:00pm
As part of our Philosophers in the Library series come and hear Daniel Levin Becker, author of Many Subtle Channels, discussing the intriguing Parisian collective the Oulipo. Here's an excerpt from his book published in The Believer to whet your appetite http://www.believermag.com/issues/201202/?read=article_becker (*Please note, his event in the Library has limited space, first in first seated). Read more...
Thursday 14th June 7:00pm
To celebrate Paris's Marché de la Poésie join us for an evening of bilingual readings of Erotiques by one of our favourite American poets E.E.Cummings. There will be readings from Lola Peploe, Laura Piani and the book's translator Jacques Demarcq. Published by Editions Seghers, this new bilingual French and English book is a collection of Cumming's most beautiful poems and erotic drawings. http://www.editions-seghers.tm.fr/site/erotiques_&100&9782232123375.html Read more...
Wednesday 13th June 5:00pm
Lecture on Writing in the library by Debra Spark – The Trigger: Where Do Stories Come From? Where do writers get their ideas? Overheard conversations, personal history, dreams, stray remarks. This one-hour lecture talks about inspiration by referencing writers as various as Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Ivan Turgenev, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joan Didion, and John Irving. Read more...
Thursday 7th June 7:00pm
In collaboration with Editions Stock, we're thrilled to welcome Jennifer Egan to present her brilliant novel, and one of the most talked-about books in recent times, A Visit From The Goon Squad. It was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, a National Book Critics Circle Award Winner and a PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist. There will also be a short reading from the recently published French edition. 'A spiky, shape-shifting new book. . . . A display of Egan's extreme virtuosity.' —The New York Times Read more...
Wednesday 6th June 7:00pm
Tonight in collaboration with Paris's &Now Conference we welcome three of America's most innovative writers, Robert Coover, Ben Marcus and Nick Flynn. Read more...
Saturday 2nd June 5:00pm
New Orleans-based 'The Collective' is visiting Paris with their show UnRoute at the Pavé d'Orsay at 20h on Friday 1st June, and will also be performing outside Shakespeare & Company on Saturday 2nd June at 5pm. UnRoute is a contemporary cabaret of theatrical vignettes presented from multiple viewpoints both in and out of our minds. Read more...
Wednesday 30th May 6:00pm
In collaboration with éditions Phébus and Albin Michel we welcome Australian writers Alex Miller and Chris Womersley. Alex will be reading from his acclaimed novel Lovesong 'a wonderful writer, one that Australia has been keeping secret from the rest of us for too long.' —John Banville. Chris will read from Bereft 'a narrative that grips like a dingo's jaws … This is a distinguishable novel' —The Independent. There will also be an extract in French from both novels. Read more...
Monday 28th May 7:00pm
With éditions Christian Bourgois, we welcome Francisco Goldman who will be speaking about his prize-winning novel Say Her Name 'A masterpiece of storytelling.'—Colm Toibin, The Guardian Read more...
Monday 21st May 7:00pm
Britain: The Paris Launch Granta launches it latest issue, themed Britain, with a night of readings and music. As the world prepares for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and the summer Olympics, Granta is publishing a collection of poetry, memoir and fiction relating to Britain. Join one of Granta's editors for a night of dramatic readings, wine and live music from British singer/songwriter Lail Arad. This event is part of a series of events that mark the launch of the latest issue of Granta magazine and explore the stories Britain is telling about itself today. Read more...
Wednesday 16th May 3:00pm
Music, rhythm and stories for kids: Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs and stories in English (for all nationalities even those who don't speak English!). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit. There will be instruments to play and noise to make! 4 euros donation appreciated. Read more...
Tuesday 15th May 3:00pm
Come and hear a relaxed acoustic performance outside the bookshop with Sweet Soubrette/Ellia Bisker. Ella is a songwriter and poet from New York performing dark, edgy love songs. www.sweetsoubrette.com accompanied by ukulele.
'honest and sultry…one of New York's most intriguing songwriting forces.'- The Deli Magazine Read more...
Monday 14th May 7:00pm
Tonight we welcome a marathon reading of poets from Brooklyn-based indie Ugly Duckling Presse, 'a publishing collective specializing in experimental poetry and new editions of forgotten textual artists, produces lovely, cheeky books by authors you've probably never heard of but your grandchildren will likely read in college.' – New York Times. Afterwards stay for music with punk, electronic Paris-based Ava's Verden http://www.myspace.com/avasverden. Read more...
Wednesday 9th May 4:00pm
Outside under the tree (or upstairs in the library if it's raining), listen to student presentations on the metaphysical poets led by their professor Katy Masuga. Read more...
Monday 7th May 7:00pm
We welcome British writer Deborah Levy who will read from her acclaimed novel Swimming Home, in which a group of beautiful, flawed tourists in the French Riviera come loose at the seams . . . Afterwards Deborah will be in conversation with Ben Eastham from The White Review. With a short reading at the beginning of the evening by Lucy Gellman, as part of our New Writers Series*. Read more...
Thursday 3rd May 8:00pm
(External Collaboration) 5×15 in French: five speakers, fifteen minutes each.
At 17 rue Dieu 75010 Paris
Book your ticket: http://www.weezevent.com/5×15-Paris
After the success of the first 5×15 in French (see http://vimeo.com/37939688), join us for the next exciting edition. Come and hear true stories of passion, obsession and adventure recounted live with just two rules: no scripts and only fifteen minutes each.
This time the line-up is: Dominique Blanc (la liberté de l'acteur); Jean-Luc Boutel (collectionneur d'anticipation ancient); Dominique Plihon (itinéraire d'un altermondialiste); Valérie Mréjen and Moriarty!
There will be a wine degustation after the show http://www.chateau-campagnebacchus.com/ Read more...
Tuesday 1st May 6:00pm
In the library (limited space, first in first seated): Celebrate the launch of anthology Vignettes & Postcards, Writings From the Evening Writing Workshop at Shakespeare and Company. The writers in this anthology were part of the workshop run by award-winning writer Erin Byrne at Shakespeare and Company and came from all over the world. Listen to the astounding stories they created there! Read more...
Wednesday 25th April 3:00pm
Bring your children (2-6 year-olds) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs and stories in English (for all nationalities even those who don't speak English!). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit. There will be instruments to play and noise to make! Then for children over 7 years, there will be a game club afterwards with cards, scrabble, uno and many more games you might be tempted to play… Read more...
Monday 23rd April 7:00pm
Come for the Paris launch of Alan S. Cowell's latest novel The Paris Correspondent, a tribute to journalism, love, and liquor in a turbulent era. Written in riveting prose that captures the changing world of a foreign correspondent's life, Alan S. Cowell's razor-sharp and darkly funny style will capture us all. Read more...
Friday 20th April 4:00pm
Come and talk to Chris Pavone who will be signing copies of his new spy thriller The Expats, which has been getting rave reviews – as Patricia Cornwell says it's 'Bristling with suspense and elegantly crafted'. Read more...
Thursday 19th April 7:00pm
We welcome Jeanette Winterson, one of the world's great storytellers and a beloved friend of Shakespeare and Company, to talk about her memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? At times hilarious, at times painful, this brave and beautiful book is one you must read and the event one you cannot miss. 'The most moving book of Winterson's I have ever read… but it wriggles with humour…At one point I was crying so much I had tears in my ears. There is much here that is impressive, but what I find most unusual about it is the way it deepens one's sympathy, for everyone involved' - Guardian Read more...
Monday 16th April 6:00pm
We welcome Kate Tempest for an evening of rhymes and poetry. Kate is one of the UK's most thrilling young performance poets. She has transfixed audiences all around the world with the power of her words and the strength of her performance, whether she is reciting Shakespeare, slam or her own poetry. *Note early time*
Kate Tempest is a writer. She writes rhymes, lyrics, poems and plays. She began at 16, rapping in battles across London, and began performing spoken word at 21. She's performed her writing on stages all over the world, from Latvia, Stockholm, Paris, Berlin, Austria and Munich to Sydney and New York, as well as playing all the major UK and European music festivals, including Glastonbury, where her poetry was included in the televised highlights. She has written poems for Barnardo's children's charity, the BBC, Amnesty International, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Turner Prize winning artist Chris Offili. She is 2 x poetry slam winner at the prestigious Nu-Yorican poetry cafe in New York. She has supported Billy Bragg on a UK tour with her band Sound of Rum, whose debut album 'Balance' came out in 2011 on UK independent record label Sunday Best. Her first play 'Wasted' was commissioned by theatre company Paines Plough and tours the UK from March to May 2012. Her first full length poetry book 'Everything Speaks in its Own Way' is released in April 2012, with a CD and DVD of live performance and interviews, on her own publishing imprint 'Zingaro'. Read more...
Thursday 12th April 6:00pm
Philosophers in the Library: Lectures and discussion (no experience necessary)
Our new series in the library starts off with Darren Frey On God and Evil: The History of Theodicies: Why would a loving being with the power to change the course of events allow millions to be massacred in genocides? Why would such a being sanction the enormous disparities of today's global economies? More intimately, how could a god capable of willing otherwise watch on as individuals face countless varieties of suffering, from grieving the loss of children to mourning failed relationships? Read more...
Thursday 5th April 6:00pm
We are thrilled to welcome Lisa Hannigan to sing amongst the books at Shakespeare and Company in advance of her European tour. Lisa's voice has a dreamy, magic lyricism combining the soulful edge of Nina Simone with the freshness of Joni Mitchell. As Herbie Hancock said of her vocals, 'there's so much jazz in the notes and phrases that she picks…I mean some of the things sound like choices that Miles would have made.' Read more...
Monday 2nd April 7:00pm
TRAVAILLER JAMAIS: Join us for songs of love, loss and liberty with Tom Hodgkinson. Tom is a British writer and editor of The Idler, an annual periodical that campaigns against the work ethic and promotes liberty, autonomy and responsibility. Tonight Tom will regale us with singing accompanied by ukulele and chat based around the themes of laziness and independence. Read more...
Thursday 29th March 6:00pm
Tonight in collaboration with Albin Michel we welcome Donald Ray Pollock for his first literary event in France. He will read and discuss his new novel The Devil All The Time, a taut and gritty tale that will leave readers astonished and deeply moved. 'Donald Ray Pollock's engaging and proudly violent first novel…suggests a new category of fiction—grindhouse literary. Subtle characterization: check. Well-crafted sentences: check. Enthusiastic amounts of murder and mayhem: check, check.'—Daily Beast Read more...
Wednesday 21st March 6:00pm
In collaboration with Granta, we welcome Justin Torres to read from his new novel and one of the most exciting books recently published, 'an indelible and essential work of art.' – Paul Harding (Pulitzer-winner). There will also be a short extract read in French. Read more...
Monday 19th March 7:00pm
Come and join us to find out all about the love lives of those artists and writers you admire. Tonight we welcome Dan Bullen the author of The Love Lives of the Artists and Lesley McDowell, the author of Between The Sheets, who will be in conversation, discussing these famous literary and artistic liaisons that have captured our imagination. Read more...
Friday 16th March 5:00pm
We are thrilled to welcome Irish folk singer/songerwriter Fionn Regan to Shakespeare and Company to sing amongst the books. We have been playing Fionn's music in the bookshop for some time and his lyrics are so poetic people have been known to tattoo themselves with them. He has been called the 'pied piper' of folk (Guardian) and 'his generation's answer to Bob Dylan' (Lucinda Williams). His music might also make you think of Nick Drake, Saul Bellow or Dylan Thomas (he's even performed in Dylan Thomas's boathouse). His albums include The End of History, The Shadow of an Empire and 100 Acres of Sycamore and oh they're good. In preperation listen at http://www.fionnregan.com/ Read more...
Monday 12th March 7:00pm
We welcome Caroline Brothers who will be reading from Hinterland, her exquisite, unsettling novel about refugees and what it is to be underage, homeless and invisible in a foreign land . . . Caroline Brothers has worked as a foreign correspondent in Europe and Latin America. She writes for the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times. Read more...
Thursday 8th March 6:00pm
Come and watch a relaxed (and much-anticipated!) performance in the library with actors from Actors of L'École Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq including ex-tumbleweed Lorenza Gentile. They will perform Sure Thing a short play by David Ives. Read more...
Monday 5th March 7:00pm
With Carcanet Press, we are delighted to welcome five acclaimed poets and translators: Sasha Dugdale, Jane Draycott, Mimi Khalvati, Olivia McCannon and Stephen Romer. Come join us for a rare Parisian celebration of some of Carcanet's finest poets. Read more...
Monday 20th February 7:00pm
With Editons Belfond we welcome Louise Doughty who will be reading from Whatever You Love, shortlisted for the Costa Novel Prize and longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. 'Gripping, absorbing, beautifully constructed and written with great sensitivity.' – Hilary Mantel ALSO the first in our New Writers Series, Irish poet Kerrie O'Brien, will read a selection of her work at the beginning of the evening. Read more...
Thursday 16th February 6:00pm
It all started with the desire of two artists to collaborate and create a joint experiment. Tonight Brandon Ross and Celine Curiol will give an original performance, bringing together one's music and the other's words. Read more...
Wednesday 15th February 7:00pm
'Sense may be all true and right, But Nonsense, thou art exquisite!' Tonight come for a concert with French group Mister Lear – on the 150th anniversary of Edward Lear (1812-1888)! They combine Edward Lear's lyrics with music for a lively and unforgettable performance. Acoustical, theatrical and somewhat eccentric! Be prepared to laugh (and cry). Read more...
Wednesday 8th February 5:00pm
WORKSHOP: Fred Leebron will give an interactive workshop on 'Embracing the Difficult: Writing Beyond What's Comfortable', to help take your writing to the next level, for fiction writers, poets, and nonfiction writers. This workshop will help you transcend your writing voice and establish new territories in your creative process. Fred Leebron, director of the Queens University MFA Program in Creative Writing, is working on an initiative to launch a European MFA Program beginning June 2012, and featuring Jayne Anne Phillips, Dinaw Mengestu, Aleksandar Hemon, Jeffrey Greene, Gwyneth Lewis, David St. John, Robert Antoni, and David Bezmozgis on its faculty. Free and open to all but limited space. Please email Fred directly for further details at email@example.com. Read more...
Monday 6th February 7:00pm
We welcome John Baxter who will share his love of Paris and read from The Most Beautiful Walk in The World. Paris is a pedestrian's city—each block a revelation, every neighborhood a new feast for the senses, a place rich with history and romance at every turn. The Most Beautiful Walk in the World is your guide to the true, off-the-beaten-path heart of the City of Lights. Read more...
Tuesday 10th January 6:00pm
In collaboration with éditions Belfond we welcome prize-winning novelist Lionel Shriver who will be interviewed by Steven Gale. She will read from So Much for That, a searing, ruthlessly honest novel which has just been published in French. 'The rare novel that will shake and change you. With these wholly realistic and sympathetic characters, [Shriver] makes us consider the most existential questions of our lives and the dreadful calculus of modern health care in this country…. It's a bitter pill, indeed, but take it if you can' – Washington Post Read more...
Wednesday 4th January 5:00pm
Join us for a relaxed acoustic concert in the library with pop duo Carosel. Carosel is Irish singer songwriter Michelle Phelan & Guitarist/instrumentalist Pete McGrane. They perform catchy music with a retro charm and feel good vibe – hear a sample http://www.carosel.ie/music. Read more...
Monday 19th December 6:00pm
CANCELLED – apologies. Come and watch a relaxed performance in the library with actors from Paris theater school Jacques Lecoq including ex-tumbleweed Lorenza Gentile. They will perform Sure Thing a short play by David Ives. Read more...
Friday 16th December 6:00pm
Rescheduled to this FRI 6pm. The Suitcase Cinema comes to the Library of Shakespeare and Company to unravel their 16mm reel of À Valparaiso (1962) and create a light and film installation… Arrive on time for the live music intro by Carly Sings and the guys from the Basement in the piano room! Read more...
Monday 12th December 7:00pm
We welcome two extraordinary musicians, singer/songwriter Piers Faccini and cellist/singer/songwriter Dom for an intimate collaborative concert. This will be an acoustic performance and seats are limited (60 places max, no reservation, first in the door – please note if full, it will not be possible to listen outside the bookshop as there will not be speakers this time). Read more...
Thursday 8th December 5:00pm
Come and join Elena Azzoni who will be signing copies of her new memoir A Year Straight: Confessions of a Boy-Crazy Lesbian Beauty Queen 'Frank, funny and revealing of relations between—and among—the sexes.' – Kirkus Reviews Read more...
Wednesday 7th December 7:00pm
Poet and novelist Margo Berdeshevsky will read from Between Soul and Stone, her breathtaking new volume of poetry wrestling with the diabolical complexity of the human heart. Read more...
Monday 5th December 8:00pm
We are delighted to present a bilingual poetry reading with three prize-winning poets: Amina Saïd, Vénus Khoury-Ghata and Marilyn Hacker. Amina and Venus will read their poems in French and Marilyn will read her English translations of their work from Present Tense of the World and Nettles. Read more...
Monday 28th November 7:00pm
We welcome Geoff Dyer 'One of the cleverest and funniest British writers currently drawing breath' to speak about his novels Paris Trance and Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi. He will be in conversation with Dinaw Mengestu, the author of How to Read the Air, and one of The New Yorker's '20 under 40′ best contemporary writers. Read more...
Thursday 24th November 4:00pm
Barbara Will will be signing her new book Unlikely Collaboration: Gertrude Stein, Bernard Faÿ, and the Vichy Dilemma
In 1941, the Jewish American writer and avant-garde icon Gertrude Stein embarked on one of the strangest intellectual projects of her life: translating for an American audience the speeches of Marshal Philippe Pétain, head of state for the collaborationist Vichy government. Unlikely Collaboration pursues troubling questions: Why and under what circumstances would Stein undertake this project? The answers lie in Stein's link to the man at the core of this controversy: Bernard Faÿ, Stein's apparent Vichy protector . . . Read more...
Wednesday 23rd November 3:30pm
Joyce Maynard will be signing copies of her celebrated novels Labor Day and The Good Daughters.
Joyce Maynard is the author of 14 books, including the novel To Die For and the best-selling memoir, At Home in the World—translated into 12 languages. Read more...
Monday 21st November 7:00pm
The White Review, a London-based arts and literature quarterly, comes to Shakespeare and Company accompanied by writer Will Self to present its third issue. Afterwards stay for music with The Melody Sheiks playing '20s Americana. Read more...
Sunday 20th November 5:00pm
We welcome the legendary Lenny Kaye, guitarist for Patti Smith and author of You Call It Madness: The Sensuous Song of the Croon, an impressionistic study of the romantic singers of the 1930s, from which he will read today. He will also treat us to a few songs. Read more...
Monday 7th November 7:00pm
In collaboration with Les Editions Plon, we welcome English novelist Marcel Theroux who will be reading from his latest book Far North. There will also be a reading in French from his novel The Paperchase which has just been released in French. 'An engaging mystery and an illuminating story about family secrets and identity. the author's deft descriptions of an angular childhood spiked with the soft humour of hindsight remain in the mind' – The Times Read more...
Monday 31st October 7:00pm
We are thrilled to launch the latest issue of The Moth Magazine, the quarterly arts & literature magazine published in Ireland. Christine Dwyer Hickey will read from her acclaimed novel The Cold Eye of Heaven, the brilliant and elusive Robert McLiam Wilson will read something surprising, and prize-winning poet Rebecca O'Connor will read a selection of her work and some of her favourite poems from the last six issues of the magazine. Afterwards stay for the swinging tunes of a stupendous Parisian swing band The Swing Club. Read more...
Saturday 29th October 3:00pm
A Tale of Three Cities, the first ever London/Paris/Berlin based Arts Journal is hosting an afternoon tea in the library at Shakespeare & Company to present their first issue. Read more...
Thursday 27th October 5:00pm
Following its warm reception last August, The Note Well Listening Salon is delighted to visit Shakespeare & Co again. Alice Shyy & Co of The Note Well, a London-based music friendship project, will present and discuss a curated list of six songs with the theme of SPOOK MUSIC. You are cordially invited to come listen, learn, and share. We hope you will gain a new tune, a new friend, a new story. Upstairs in the Library at Shakespeare and Company. Read more...
Monday 24th October 7:00pm
We welcome Tristan Garcia one of the most exciting young novelists in France today. He will read from Hate: A Romance, which won the Prix de Flore in France and received critical acclaim when published in English earlier this year. 'It's frenetic and French, for a reader who knows Deleuze from Derrida, who will chuckle when Garcia refers to the "domestic troubles" of Althusser. . . taut and readable' – The New York Times Read more...
Monday 17th October 7:00pm
In collaboration with Editions Christian Bourgois we welcome celebrated British author Edward St. Aubyn. He will read from At Last, a powerful reflection on pain and acceptance, and the treacheries of family. An extract will also be read in French. Read more...
Saturday 15th October 6:30pm
We are delighted to welcome Etgar Keret for a relaxed signing of his books (in English). Part Kafka, part Vonnegut, with the concerns and comedic delivery of Woody Allen, Etgar Keret is a brilliant and original master of the short story. Hilarious, witty, and always unusual, Keret is 'A brilliant writer…completely unlike any writer I know. The voice of the next generation.' — Salman Rushdie Read more...
Monday 10th October 7:00pm
Tonight we welcome Janine di Giovanni who will read from and discuss her new book Ghosts by Daylight: a Memoir of War and Love – 'Ghosts by Daylight, just like its author, is brave, heroically and elegantly told, and brutally honest' – Fatima Bhutto Read more...
Monday 3rd October 7:00pm
Katy Masuga, author of Henry Miller and How He Got That Way and The Secret Violence of Henry Miller, treats us to a talk on Miller and his freewheeling writing style, looking at how we learn from Miller how not to trust literature but also how to live in literature. Read more...
Wednesday 28th September 7:00pm
Acoustic Sessions at Shakespeare and Company: Come for an intimate concert with This is the Kit and The Magic Lantern. Kate Stables of This is the Kit has a voice of unaffected clarity, creating songs of unpretentious beauty. The Magic Lantern have an arresting sound, wringing emotion from the strangest places, sounding happy, sad, frustrated and vulnerable, often at the same time. Read more...
Monday 26th September 7:00pm
We welcome Tariq Ali, writer, filmmaker and editor of New Left Review. Tariq has written more than a dozen books on world history and politics, as well as scripts for the stage and screen. Interviewed by writer and publisher Charles Glass, Tariq will be discussing his latest book, The Obama Syndrome, 'Ali remains an outlier and in intellectual bomb-thrower; an urbane, Oxford-educated polemicist.' Observer Read more...
Tuesday 20th September 3:00pm
Using principles found in his book You Can Act: a complete guide for actors, D.W. Brown, along with his wife the legendary acting teacher Joanne Baron, will provide an introduction to the method of acting (the Meisner Technique) that has come to define American Method Acting. They will describe how an actor can best serve a script, making strong interpretive choices, yet still render a performance that is excitingly fresh and uncluttered. This seminar will be held upstairs in the library/limited places. Read more...
Monday 19th September 7:00pm
Tonight we welcome award-winning author Bobbie Ann Mason to read from her latest book The Girl in the Blue Beret, a beautiful and affecting story of love and courage, war and redemption, about an American World War II pilot shot down in Occupied Europe. "Bobbie Ann Mason is one of those rare writers who, by concentrating their attention on a few square miles of native turf, are able to open up new and surprisingly wide worlds for the delighted reader."—The New York Review of Books Read more...
Saturday 17th September 4:00pm
Join Max Weinbach upstairs in our little piano room this Saturday at 4pm as he plays and sings classic tunes ranging from Ellington to Sinatra. He may even play one or two of his own. Please note – this a relaxed gathering and space is limited to 10-15 people. Read more...
Monday 12th September 7:00pm
We are thrilled to launch Nikolai Grozni's extraordinary Wunderkind, a novel about music, genius and obsession set in cold war Sofia's music school for the gifted: 'Wunderkind is a gift for all the senses. Nikolai Grozni's shimmering, visceral prose unfurls like music, as if a baby grand served as his infernal typewriter.' – Patti Smith. Afterwards there will be more music by NZ folk musician Flip Grater. Read more...
Wednesday 7th September 7:30pm
Book your tickets for our 1st edition of Standing Room at Le Trianon Montmartre – bringing a particular mix of music and UK spoken word to Paris. With singer songwriter Piers Faccini and spoken word queen Francesca Beard, called 'brilliant' by the Scotsman, 'spine-tingling' by the Independent. 'Piers Faccini's music is rooted in English folk, American blues, traditional West African music and taranta from southern Italy . . . his whisper of a voice floats above his guitar and gentle polyrhythmic percussion to create an environment that's captivating, quietly insistent and delicate but not fragile . . .' – Wall St Journal
Read more...
Monday 29th August 5:00pm
We welcome Swedish songbird Vera Vinter for a casual acoustic concert at Shakespeare and Company (outside the bookshop or upstairs in the library). Vera's music is dreamy and passionate telling stories of Swedish folklore in the unique dialect called Kalixmål. Read more...
Friday 26th August 9:00pm
Come for a relaxed/intimate screening of 'Tumbleweeds: the Lost-beat Generation', Miki Gallasch's doc(mock)umentary about the writers and artists who live in Shakespeare and Company. A volatile hipster who no matter what cannot NOT be a hipster, a beautiful 14-year-old who turns her sex-life into art, an Englishman who's attempting to outdo Joyce, a drunkard who thinks he's Hemingway, and a potential genius who hardly says a word. Read more...
Thursday 25th August 5:00pm
Join us for a relaxed reading upstairs in the library with Willis Barnstone, poet, translator, biblical scolar, memoirist, anthologist and artist. A man who speaks of knowing Borges as others speak of their best friends. A Guggenheim fellow, he has four times been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, and has had four Book of the Month Club selections. His poetry has appeared in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, The New York Review of Books, and The Times Literary Supplement. "I wish Willis would stop stealing my French poems. He's taken all the languages. It's easy if you have ten tongues. I'll show him, that Baudelairian, that maitre."—Gerald Stern Read more...
Wednesday 10th August 2:45pm
2.30-3pm Come and meet the delightful Simon Van Booy who will be signing his new novel Everything Beautiful Began After "A powerful meditation on the undying nature of love and the often cruel beauty of one's own fate. This is a novel you simply must read!" —Andre Dubus III, New York Times bestselling author Read more...
Tuesday 26th July 6:00pm
This afternoon, hidden in one of the many book-laden corners at Shakespeare and Company, Leanne Shapton (leanneshapton.com) will be painting wooden book blocks from 4pm. You might see her working in the piano room, upstairs in the library or in the children's section next to the mirror of love. At 6pm there will be a Q&A upstairs in the library. Read more...
Monday 25th July 6:00pm
Come and celebrate a new anthology of poetry and fiction about Paris, Strangers in Paris, launched by editor David Barnes, with readings by various contributors. 'A rich collection of writings . . . parade the allees, avenues, rues, ruelles, gardens, boardrooms, academic hallways, bedrooms and dining rooms of Paris in all its seasons, to reflect on place and nation, on self, on language and the making of stories and poems, the mind turning round itself in its wanderings.'—Jennifer K Dick Read more...
Sunday 17th July 8:00pm
In a post-Bastille Day lit celebration for the millennium (at Le Carmen), Literary Death Match is teaming with Shakespeare & Co. to deliver one of the surefire greatest LDMs in its five-year history! Read more...
Wednesday 13th July 7:30pm
In collaboration with NYU: Join us for a discussion led by Joanna Yas (Open City) on Literary Publishing with Michael Wiegers (Copper Canyon Press) and Jennifer Barth (HarperCollins). Read more...
Monday 11th July 7:30pm
In collaboration with NYU, Lorin Stein will discuss The Paris Review. Lorin Stein is a critic, editor and translator and the third editor of The Paris Review since succeeding Philip Gourevitch in 2010. He worked as an editor at FSG who also published his translation of The Mystery Guest by Gregoire Bouillier and has also translated Tristan Garcia's Hate: A Love Story from the French. Books edited by Stein have received the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award and his translations from French have appeared in The New York Review of Books, Harper's and more. Read more...
Thursday 7th July 5:00pm
Welcome Ellyn Maybe, lyrical poet and hippy lovechild of Gertrude Stein and Allen Ginsberg! – 'Ellyn Maybe is an irresistible force. To read or listen to her poetry is to be gently and completely crushed while simultaneously inspired and charmed.' – Henry Rollins. Come and be crushed by her poetry this afternoon as she performs outside under the tree. Read more...
Wednesday 6th July 7:00pm
The Rhizome Society is a new English-speaking debating club in the upstairs library at Shakespeare & Co starting this July. The society meetings will take place every Wednesday night of this month from 7-9pm (excepting 13/7). The evening will consist of eight speakers, each speaking for a maximum of eight minutes for or against a particular topic. Questions for speakers from the floor during speeches will be permitted and encouraged. The topic of the inaugural meeting is Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori (It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country) and will take place at 7pm on Wednesday 6 July. Due to limited space, it is absolutely necessary to sign up either to speak or simply attend. To do so, or to find out what the following weeks' topics will be, or to sign up for the Rhizome Society newsletter, please send an email to Lydia at email@example.com. Read more...
Monday 4th July 7:30pm
In collaboration with NYU a night of exceptional poetry with celebrated American writers Matthew Rohrer, Dan Chiasson and Deborah Landau followed by tap and jazz. Read more...
Thursday 30th June 4:00pm
Join us upstairs in the library or outside the bookshop, to hear Emanuel Xavier recite his poetry. American author and editor, he is also a spoken word performer, whose latest poetry collection is If Jesus Were Gay & other poems. He has been featured on Def Poetry on American cable television network HBO and his spoken word/music compilation CD, Legendary- The Spoken Word Poetry of Emanuel Xavier, is available for download on iTunes. His background is South American and Puerto Rican and he was born, raised, and continues to live in New York City. Read more...
Wednesday 29th June 7:30pm
Join the editor of Granta, John Freeman leading a panel discussion on God and Fiction with three of America's most exciting writers Aleksandar Hemon, Nathan Englander and Chris Adrian. The evening will start with a reading by the authors from their work. Please note there will be standing room only at these events as most seats are reserved for NYU students. Read more...
Monday 27th June 7:30pm
In collaboration with New York University's summer writing program in Paris we present Helen Schulman, Meghan O'Rourke and Darin Strauss who will each read an extract of their work followed by questions. Afterwards stay for jazz and tap with Jazmin and the Berets. Please note there will be standing room only for these events as most seats are reserved for NYU students.
Darin Strauss is the author of the novels Chang & Eng, The Real McCoy, More Than It Hurts You, and the memoir which recently won the National Book Award, Half a Life. His work has appeared in Esquire, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek and many other publications. His work has been translated into fourteen languages and published in nineteen countries. Shakespeare and Company are also honoured to have him on the panel of the 2011 Paris Literary Prize.
Helen Schulman is the author of the short story collection, Not a Free Show, and four novels, most recently A Day at the Beach. She has been a Sundance Fellow, a New York Foundation for the Arts recipient and a Pushcart-Prize-winner. She has taught in the MFA program at Columbia University and at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference.
Meghan O'Rourke is the author of The Long Goodbye, a memoir about grief, and the poetry collections Once and Halflife. A former poetry editor for The Paris Review, she is also a culture critic for Slate magazine and a founding editor of the web site Double X. She is the recipient of the 2008 May Sarton Poetry Prize. Her essays and poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Best American Poetry, 32 Poems, and more.
Jazmin & the Berets, are a three-piece musical outfit comprising the talents of tap dancer/cabaret performer Jazmin Baret, singer/ guitarist John Matthews and saxophonist Michael O'Dougherty. Michael, from Denver, has played with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and for Diana Ross and Carry Grant. John, from the Bronx, NY, has played thousands of gigs between there and Paris and Jazmin, from Sydney, has danced her way around the globe at international festivals (Glastonbury, Edinburgh Fringe, Melbourne Arts, Sydney Festival, Paris Burlesque…). http://www.jazminbaret.com/acts/berets/ Read more...
Saturday 25th June 7:00pm
We are honoured to present the Editor of The New York Review of Books, Robert Silvers who will be interviewed by journalist and writer Mark Gevisser about his illustrious history at The New York Review of Books. Read more...
Thursday 23rd June 5:00pm
Shakespeare and Company is thrilled to present a series of conferences organized by The New York Review of Books at CERI Sciences Po Paris from 23 to 25 June in celebration of Tony Judt's life and work. The events involve an impressive list of speakers such as Robert Silvers, Jean Daniel, Denis Lacorne, Pierre Rosenvallon. Events are free; registration is required. For the full programme visit : www.nybooks.com/calendar/event-62/ Read more...
Monday 20th June 7:00pm
We welcome Priya Basil to read from her provocative novel The Obscure Logic of the Heart. 'A searing love story … burns and scorches with wry conviction about young love that refuses to say die.'- India Today Read more...
Saturday 18th June 9:00pm
Cancelled because of Rain – Sorry! In front of Shakespeare and Co Lecoq trained companies Rhum and Clay and Clout will give a special preview of their performance for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Through devised imaginative play, absurdism and clowning these new and exciting companies will be presenting their innovative work. (Standing room only) Read more...
Friday 17th June 6:00pm
In celebration of Shakespeare & Company's Paris Literary Prize, the winner and two runners-up will read a short extract of their work. Afterwards stay for music with Agnès Gayraud from La Féline. Agnès's voice is lush and melodic with an edge of David Lynch, and something girly at the same time. There's even a chance she'll play with our funny little sound mixing table usually reserved for readings http://www.myspace.com/lafeline Read more...
Thursday 16th June 10:00am
To celebrate Bloomsday, Stephen Crowe will display a selection of pieces at Shakespeare and Co from Wake in Progress, his ongoing project to illustrate every page of Finnegans Wake. Note – while this is not a specific event, Stephen's art will be on display from Bloomsday and then for the following week. Read more...
Monday 6th June 7:00pm
We are thrilled to welcome Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler, who will read from his latest novel Hell. 'The prose flows in a seemingly effortless stream . . . [leading] to complex and exquisitely written set pieces of inspired insight into the sinful and broken nature of humanity.' —News and Observer Read more...
Monday 30th May 6:00pm
A night of festivities and music to celebrate innovative publications – London Walks! by Shakespeare and Co's designer Badaude, GOGOPARIS the cult guide to Paris and Mademoiselle London ♥ Paris (sometimes) (quelquefois) the graphic and poetic exploits of a London girl lost in Paris. With fabulous music by The Paris Sheiks playing 20s Americana. http://www.ianmccamy.com/sound/McCamy%27s%20Old-time%20Revelers%20-%20demo.mp3 Read more...
Friday 20th May 5:00pm
Join us for an unforgettable evening of fiction with Paul Harding, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Tinkers 'Writing with breathtaking lyricism and tenderness, Harding has created a rare and beautiful novel of spiritual inheritance and acute psychological and metaphysical suspense.' —Booklist. Read more...
Thursday 19th May 4:00pm
Singer/songwriter Hannah Judson performs songs from recent CD release "underbelly." These songs examine private life under a lens amplified by the outside world. Love & war, desire & struggle; power & the background hum that something is missing. Influences include early Liz Phair, Velvet Underground, Leonard Cohen & Cat Power. Sad songs, happily sung. www.HannahJudson.com Read more...
Monday 16th May 6:30pm
Tonight we welcome celebrated American poet Jack Hirschman at 6.30pm followed by Yale University's world-renowned a cappella singing group Redhot & Blue at 7.15pm. Read more...
Monday 9th May 7:00pm
Tonight we welcome Tatiana de Rosnay who will read from her latest novel A Secret Kept and for the first time read an extract in English of her new novel Rose which will be out in the US and UK next year. 'De Rosnay's writing is eloquent and beautiful, and her characterizations are both honest and dead-on[...]' –Kirkus Read more...
Friday 6th May 7:00pm
We are thrilled to present Shakespeare expert and prize-winnng author Professor James Shapiro, to speak about his latest book Contested Will – who did write Shakespeare's plays? And why does it matter so much to us? James Shapiro's fascinating search for the source of this controversy retraces a path strewn with fabricated documents, calls for trials, false claimants, concealed identity, bald-faced deception and a failure to grasp what could not be imagined. ' . . . riverting . . .' Hilary Mantel Read more...
Monday 2nd May 7:00pm
I DON'T READ FICTION BUT MY WIFE DOES. WOULD YOU SIGN THE BOOK TO HER? Tonight Siri Hustvedt and Celine Curiol are in conversation about the strange cultural biases against fiction in general, and fiction written by women in particular. Is the novel a feminine? What do sex and gender mean in a literary form? It is true that all over the world women consume far more fiction than men. Why? What is at work here? More questions, some possible answers, several jokes, and a lively dialogue are guaranteed. Read more...
Friday 29th April 6:00pm
Tonight Moriarty will play from their new album The Missing Room at Shakespeare and Co. Moriarty are one of the most electrifying bands of the moment. The lead singer Rosemary's voice is like sweet molasses and the music brings backs memories and creates them the way the best music does. They have a sensual, melancholic yet joyful folky sound reminiscent of Billie Holiday, Massive Attack, Neil Young and Tom Waits http://www.myspace.com/moriartylands (* LIMITED SPACE, standing room only *) Read more...
Monday 18th April 7:00pm
Shakespeare and Company welcomes the erudite Leslie Dunton-Downer to discuss timely questions about the evolution of the English language and the role French played in this evolution. Her recent book is The English is Coming! How one language is sweeping the world. 'A fascinating intellectual romp through the past and the future of the English language. Like the best cocktail party conversation you've ever had, this book is smart, engaging, unpredictable, and leaves you wanting more. Leslie Dunton-Downer has created a masterpiece. If you like words, you will love this book.' – Steven D. Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics Read more...
Friday 15th April 5:30pm
Tonight Ros and Chloe Schwartz will be discussing the challenges they faced in translating The Little Prince, giving a unique insight into the translation process. There will be a signing afterwards at 6.30pm. "Creating a new translation of any classic is daunting, but the mother-and-daughter team of Ros and Chloe Schwartz have more than met the challenge in their delightful, poignant version of Saint-Exupéry's most famous work" the Times Literary Supplement. Read more...
Monday 11th April 7:00pm
Tonight we welcome Alan Riding to discuss his fascinating book And the Show Went On: Cultural life in Nazi occupied Paris 'Enthralling and disturbing… And the Show Went On describes this history in gripping and painful detail.' – The New York Times Book Review Read more...
Wednesday 6th April 6:00pm
Come and join us to launch the new albums by Thos Henley http://www.myspace.com/thoshenley and Erica Buettner http://www.myspace.com/ericabuettner and be carried away by the stupifyingly beautiful music of these two songer singwriters. 'Ginsberg-ghosted Parisian-beat-music' – For Folk's Sake Read more...
Thursday 31st March 7:00pm
Instrumental band Bombazine Black will bring a special stripped down two-piece version of their group to Shakespeare and Company. Featuring Matt Davis on guitar and Amalia Guégan on cello, it's sure to be wonderful!
Find out more and watch some of their music videos on their site.
"Matt Davis is the still centre of the hypnotic world that is Bombazine Black, playing deceptively simple guitar riffs that build in layers and ripple dreamily outwards, meeting in loving intersection with here a vibraphone, there a cello, sometimes a harmonium or a glockenspiel. Out of the barest, purest elements and melodies, the band builds up, wave by imperceptible wave, dreamy sonic landscapes that are transportational in the very best musical sense. It is completely tight — Davis knows precisely what he is orchestrating around him — and yet the effect, for the listener, is to enter a vast kind of looseness, an aural trance in which images unspool like movies inside our heads, and the chaos of the outside world recedes." – Luke Davies, author of Candy Read more...
Monday 28th March 7:00pm
Hollywood screenwriter Tracey Jackson will read from her new book Between a Rock and a Hot Place, part memoir, part self-help and a comedic look at aging. Read more...
Monday 21st March 7:30pm
Tonight we will be hosting a very special event with French writer Stéphane Hessel, author of the wildly popular Indignez-Vous !, now published for the first time in English as Time For Outrage by Charles Glass Books. Hessel, resistance fighter and concentration camp survivor, tells the youth of today that their lives and liberties are worth fighting for. Read more...
Monday 14th March 7:00pm
Editor and translator Helen Constantine joins us to read from her new book of collected stories by a wide range of French authors going from Zola and Balzac to Delerm and Boulanger, about the Paris underground: Paris Metro Tales. Read more...
Thursday 3rd March 7:00pm
After years of admiration spent devouring his books, we are thrilled to present Peter Carey, one of the most remarkable writers today. He will be reading from his latest novel Parrot and Olivier in America, an improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville, and an irrepressibly funny portrait of the impossible friendship between a master and a servant.
'Peter Carey is a wily seducer, a mental acrobat who can bound across continents and centuries and make us believe in whatever world he has discovered and imagined . . . it's possibly the most charming and engaging novel this demon of a story-teller has yet written. His prose has never been more buoyant, more vigorous, more musical. Open this book and listen to Peter Carey sing.' —Paul Auster Read more...
Monday 28th February 7:00pm
Alan Jenkins, prize-winning author of the collections The Drift, Harm and A Shorter Life, returns to Shakespeare and Company to read his new book of poems, Blue Days (The Sailor's Return). Read more...
Thursday 24th February 7:00pm
Roll up! Roll up! In order to celebrate the second issue of Vestoj – The Journal of Sartorial Matters, themed around fashion and magic, we invite you to an evening of 'Magic for Beginners'. Read more...
Friday 18th February 6:00pm
Come and get a special edition of Yvon's Paris, signed for you by Robert Stevens. This is an elegant and poetic collection of photographs which captures the magic of Paris at its most photogenic—the way many of us romantically wish it still were. Read more...
Thursday 17th February 6:00pm
(*Pleaes note this event is not open to the public and all places have been filled already.) We've been living up to our name in a new way by holding readings of Shakespeare plays, hosted by Leslie Dunton-Downer and Alan Riding, authors of The Essential Shakespeare Handbook. Read more...
Monday 7th February 7:00pm
In celebration of Bloodaxe's anthology Identity Parade: New British and Irish Poetry, there will be a night of poetry from some of the most interesting poets today. Featuring prize-winning poets A.B. Jackson, Annie Freud, Sally Read, Ahren Warner and editor and poet Roddy Lumsden, Identity Parade presents new British and Irish poetry at a time of great vibrancy and variety. Read more...
Wednesday 2nd February 3:00pm
For a calm Wednesday afternoon of music, come and listen to composer-lute player Jozef Van Wissem who will play amongst the books in the Shakespeare and Co library. Most recently Jozef has been commissioned by the National Gallery of London to compose a sound piece to Hans Holbein's painting The Ambassadors. He also collaborates with acclaimed film director Jim Jarmusch.
Jozef will play from his new release The Joy That Never Ends a record that shows the depths of the minimal beauty in his compositions and playing. And he always delivers hypnotic live sets. Featuring Jeanne Madic (Vanishing Twins), voice.
'In The Mirror of Eternal Light, the Dutch lutist Jozef van Wissem catches his own reflection in tender, minimalist picking and gold-spray overdubs.' –David Fricke, senior editor, Rolling Stone magazine
Monday 31st January 7:00pm
Join Amy Sackville, recent winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys prize, who will discuss and read from her poignant novel The Still Point. 'If Virginia Woolf had had a younger sister with a passionate interest in icebergs, she might have written something like this beautiful, unearthly novel, in which the secrets of a house and of a marriage continually open out onto a wild glare of Arctic light.' Francis Spufford Read more...
Monday 17th January 7:00pm
Acclaimed writer Peter Manseau will read from his prize-winning novel Songs for the Butcher's Daughter which will be published in February here in France by Editions Christian Bourgois. An extract will also be read in French by the translator Antoine Cazé. Read more...
Monday 10th January 7:00pm
Adam Thirlwell, one of the most exciting British novelists today, will read from The Escape and possibly a selection of other work. 'A novel where the humor is melancholic, the melancholy mischievous, and the talent startling.' —Milan Kundera « Un roman dont l'humour est mélancolique, la mélancolie malicieuse et le talent impressionnant. » Read more...
Monday 3rd January 7:00pm
There will be a selection of readings launching the latest issue of literary magazine Chimera/ Chimère: participants include Michel Deguy, winner of the Prix Goncourt de France, and the Mallarmé Academy's Grand Prize; Katherine Gallagher, the Australian poet; Patrick Chapman, the Irish writer; Adam Biles, editor of Gulper Eel; Philip Wilson, the translator; and last but not least, Rufo Quintavalle, editor of nthposition and Upstairs at Duroc. Read more...
Wednesday 22nd December 4:00pm
Join us out the front of Shakespeare and Company with Jazmin & the Berets, a three-piece musical outfit comprising the talents of tap dancer/cabaret performer Jazmin Baret, singer/ guitarist John Matthews and saxophonist Michael O'Dougherty. Read more...
Thursday 16th December 7:00pm
Seeing Krystle Warren perform for the first time is a striking experience – tonight come and experience the poetry of her music, the poetry of her voice surrounded by books at Shakespeare and Co. Krystle's vocal stylings feature a melisma as rich as that of Wonder or Hathaway, fusing styles of folk and country, and influences of artists ranging from Nick Drake to Joni Mitchell to Willie Nelson. B. LIMITED STANDING ROOM. Read more...
Monday 13th December 7:00pm
We are honoured to present Thad Carhart, acclaimed bestselling author of The Piano Shop on the Left Bank. Thad will be reading from his new historical novel Across the Endless River, the story of Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, the son of Sacagawea, and his intriguing sojourn as a young man in 1820s Europe. Read more...
Monday 6th December 7:00pm
Tonight we welcome Michael Scott Moore and Christine Buckley. Michael is the author of Sweetness and Blood an elegant and surprising history of surfing that examines its cultural influence in some of the most unexpected places. Christine is the co-author of Slave Hunter: One Man's Global Quest to Free Victims of Human Trafficking and a contributor to Best Women Travel Writing 2010 – she will be reading an extract from this anthology and her memoir-in-progress about her Vietnamese family. Read more...
Monday 29th November 7:00pm
Tonight we are delighted to welcome Alberto Manguel, internationally acclaimed novelist, essayist, anthologist, translator and editor. Manguel will be speaking about fiction and will treat us to a short reading from one of his novels. 'Books jump out of their jackets when Manguel opens them and dance in delight as they make contact with his ingenious, voluminous brain. He is not the keeper of a silent cemetery, but a master of bibliographical revels.'—Peter Conrad, The Observer Read more...
Saturday 27th November 6:00pm
Come for a book signing with Ben Crystal (Shakespeare on Toast) and David Crystal (The Stories of English). 'David Crystal is not just a great linguist, but a true champion and lover of language.'—Benjamin Zephaniah Read more...
Monday 22nd November 7:00pm
An evening of poetry with two of Paris's most celebrated poets Ellen Hinsey and Jeffrey Greene. Both writers have various collections of poetry and been published in The New Yorker, Poetry, Poetry Review among other publications. Read more...
Saturday 20th November 2:30pm
Come and join us to hear Shakespeare upstairs in the library at Shakespeare and Company. Neil Patrick Stewart from the American Repertory Theatre will read a passage from Julius Caesar in anticipation of the production of Julius Caesar showing mid- November at Théâtre Gérard Philipe in Saint Denis just outside of Paris. Afterwards there will be a short discussion of this particular production. Read more...
Monday 15th November 7:00pm
Come and join us for an evening of short fiction, poetry and translation in collaboration with independent press CB Editions. Publisher Charles Boyle will present both Beverley Bie Brahic, poet and translator of Francis Ponge and celebrated short story writer & novelist Gabriel Josipovici. Read more...
Friday 12th November 7:00pm
The launch for the 9th and 10th issues of Her Royal Majesty, a quarterly literary arts publication, will be celebrated jointly with a reading at Shakespeare & Company. Anne Marsella, Ryan Kerr, and other artists and writers will read from and present their work. The archives of this independent magazine are available online – www.heroyalmajesty.ca – and the most recent issue will be available for purchase at the event. Read more...
Monday 8th November 7:00pm
Ann Mah will be reading from her amusing and moving novel Kitchen Chinese about a young Chinese-American woman who travels to Beijing to find food, family, and herself. Ann might also treat us to a brief excerpt from her new unpublished novel about a female sommelier. After the reading, Jean-Marc Espinasse, the vigneron of Domaine Rouge-Bleu (www.rouge-bleu.com) will conduct a tasting of his delectable wine. Read more...
Monday 1st November 7:00pm
Tonight we welcome esteemed writer and journalist Charles Glass to discuss his latest book Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under the Nazi Occupation 1940–1944. This is an elegantly written and highly informative account of a group of Americans living in Paris when the city fell to the Nazis in June 1940. 'Rich in intrigue and heroism … for anyone interested in France during this period it is a fascinating treat.' Antony Beevor Read more...
Friday 29th October 8:30pm
WORD the first open mic/slam/improvisation night upstairs in the library at Shakespeare and Company. Featuring musician extraordinaire Thos Henley. Everyone welcome to watch or participate! Read more...
Monday 25th October 7:00pm
Thomas E. Kennedy will read from In the Company of Angels, a luminous love story about a Chilean torture survivor. 'Thomas E. Kennedy is an astonishment, and In the Company of Angels is as elegant as it is beautiful, as important as it profound. A marvel of a read.' —Junot Dìaz, Pulitzer Prize Winner Read more...
Thursday 21st October 6:30pm
A special premier screening of Fabrizio Polpettini's short film The Houses There Wear Verandahs Out of Shyness – a portrait of Burma-based Australian singer-songwriter Tamas Wells recording his fourth album in Burma. The film is in English and the screening will be repeated at intervals over the two hours. http://shyverandahs.blogspot.com/ Read more...
Monday 18th October 7:00pm
Tonight we welcome British journalists Ed Howker and Shiv Malik who will be discussing The Jilted Generation. This much-talked-about book tells the sad, maddening story of how their generation's future, once alive with possibility is being strangled by the culture of short-terminism. Radical, angry, passionate. Read more...
Monday 11th October 7:00pm
Join us for a discussion about Haifa, the subject of the latest issue of Mediterraneans, with the founding editor of the review, Kenneth Brown and journalist and political activist Dominique Vidal. Read more...
Friday 8th October 10:00am
We welcome the Faber & Faber Academy back for a new writing workshop from 8-10 October – Adventures in Non-Fiction led by acclaimed writers Jon Ronson (Them: Adventures with Extremists, The Men who Stare at Goats) and Francis Wheen (How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World). There are only a few places left so if you are interested in participating please see http://www.faber.co.uk/article/2010/3/adventures-in-non-fiction-investigations-and-manif/ Read more...
Wednesday 6th October 6:30pm
At the BNF (Bibliotheque National Francaise), Quai Francois Mauriac 13eme: Famed writer Michael Moorcock, author of Mother London, the Jerry Cornelius novels and the epic fantasy Elric cycle, will be reading, talking and signing his books. This is part of a continuing programme in association with New York University in Paris. Read more...
Monday 4th October 7:00pm
A night of acoustic sessions featuring music from:
You & You http://www.myspace.com/youandyou1978
Baden Baden http://www.myspace.com/badenbadenbaden
Thos Henley http://www.myspace.com/thoshenley Read more...
Sunday 3rd October 4:00pm
Leigh Hobbs will give a special signing of his wonderful books for children including the latest Mr Chicken Goes to Paris – Mr Chicken loves to travel and so when his French friend Yvette invites him to visit, he studies his maps, grabs his cambera and catches a taxi to the airport. Bring your kids along! (Signing only not reading) Read more...
Monday 27th September 7:00pm
Tonight Anne Marsella will read from The Baby of Belleville, a delightful novel filled with intrigue, eccentric characters and many surprises. Anne Marsella will be introduced by Susan Marson, author of Le Temps de L'autobiographie, Violette Leduc ou la mort avant la lettre. Read more...
Thursday 23rd September 7:00pm
In collaboration with Festival America at Vincennes we present two of America's most exciting writers Nick Flynn and Adam Haslett who will be reading from a selection of their work. Afterwards stay for piano music (upstairs) with jazz maestro Steve Tromans. Read more...
Sunday 19th September 7:00pm
Tonight there is a special performance just outside Shakespeare and Company (please note the play will be cancelled if there is rain). Eva the Chaste, a new monologue play by Barbara Hammond, takes place in that hour when night turns to dawn on a June morning on Dublin's Coast Road, where, after 20 years in Paris, Eva has returned to her birthplace to face the consequences of an act of love. Read more...
Monday 13th September 7:00pm
Tonight, with éditions Belfond, we welcome Richard Flanagan, one of the most original and impressive novelists working in the English language today. He will be reading from Wanting, a novel of magnificent power and reach. 'One of the best novels of this year…' The Times Read more...
Monday 6th September 7:00pm
Mingmei Yip will read from her latest novel Petals from the Sky, a Buddhist, interracial love story set in Hong Kong, Manhattan and Paris. Mingmei is also a professional qin musician and after her reading she will treat us to a special performance. 'Yip's second novel is a serious, engaging story of faith, devotion, and the commingling of cultures.' – Booklist Read more...
Sunday 29th August 6:00pm
After the Sunday afternoon tea party chez George, join us in the Shakespeare and Company library to hear John Kirby Abraham speak about his new book Paris Made Me…We are delighted to present John, after he has presented many readers in the past at Shakespeare and Company. Read more...
Monday 23rd August 7:00pm
The Note Well Salon makes its international debut with BOOK MUSIC, a night of literary-themed music. Read more...
Monday 16th August 7:00pm
Andrew Kaufman will read from his new novel The Waterproof Bible, a magical story of love and the isolation that defines the modern condition. This is a wholly original allegorical tale that is both emotionally resonant and outlandishly fun. Read more...
Monday 26th July 7:00pm
Please note the event with Andrew O'Hagan has been cancelled this coming Monday 26 July. Read more...
Monday 19th July 6:30pm
Come and celebrate the launch of Going Back at Granta's first-ever event in Paris. Join Pulitzer Prize-winning poet C. K. Williams, O. Henry Story Prize-winner Mavis Gallant and Vogue Young Writer's Award-winner Owen Sheers in conversation with Granta Editor John Freeman about Memory and Writing. Read more...
Monday 12th July 7:30pm
Tonight come and join us for two exhilarating readings with Jonathan Lethem & Helen Schulman - the finale of this year's collaboration with New York University in Paris. Read more...
Monday 5th July 7:30pm
In collaboration with New York University in Paris, Nathan Englander, author of The Ministry of Special Cases and Darin Strauss of Chang and Eng fame, will be joining us to read a selection of their work. Read more...
Monday 28th June 7:30pm
In collaboration with New York University in Paris, we are delighted to present celebrated poets Dan Chiasson, Yusef Komunyakaa and Meghan O'Rourke who will be joining us to read a selection of their work. Read more...
Wednesday 23rd June 7:00pm
*Exceptional time*. We are thrilled to present Booker Prize-winning author Yann Martel who will read from his much anticipated new novel Beatrice and Virgil. With all the spirit and originality that made Life of Pi so treasured, this brilliant new novel takes the reader on a haunting odyssey and asks profound questions about life and art, truth and deception, responsibility and complicity. Read more...
Friday 18th June 11:00am
The Shakespeare and Company Literary Festival
Free and open to all – see the festival website for our exciting programme of events! www.festivalandco.com
Participating authors and artists include: Martin Amis, Fatima Bhutto, Gregory L. Blackstock, Breyten Breytenbach, Natalie Clein, Tjawangwa Dema, Zena Edwards, Mathias Énard, Steven Gale, Janine di Giovanni, Petina Gappah, Mark Gevisser, David Hare, Jack Hirschman, Denis Hirson, Ian Jack, Yusef Komunyakaa, Hanif Kureishi, Emma Larkin, Nam Le, Natalie Levisalles, Njabulo Ndebele, The Paper Cinema, Porchlight Storytelling, Olivier Postel-Vinay, Philip Pullman, André Schiffrin, Will Self, Carole Seymour-Jones, Raja Shehadeh, Erica Wagner, Jeanette Winterson, Gao Xingjian, 5×15… See the website for all the details!
Thursday 10th June 7:00pm
As part of the Mairie de Paris literary festival Paris en toutes lettres, tonight we have a special evening dedicated to the founder of the original Shakespeare and Company, Sylvia Beach. Keri Walsh, the editor of recently released The Letters of Sylvia Beach will discuss the life of this formidable woman as revealed through her correspondence. Read more...
Monday 31st May 7:00pm
In his youth, James Frey spent many an afternoon at Shakespeare and Company and tonight we have the pleasure of welcoming him back into the fold. James Frey is the bestselling author of A Million Little Pieces, My Friend Leonard and more recently, a novel about LA, Bright Shiny Morning. 'A furiously good storyteller' – New York Times
Read more...
Wednesday 26th May 7:00pm
Shakespeare and Company is thrilled to welcome Pulitzer Prize winning author Marilynne Robinson, 'one of America's greatest – and most singular – contemporary novelists'. The Guardian. Read more...
Friday 21st May 7:00pm
Cecilia Woloch's Paris Poetry Workshop returns to Shakespeare and Company: A tradition for local and visiting poets, this May workshop is in its ninth year, reuniting English speaking poets from various corners of the map. We have many publications to celebrate this year – faculty and participants alike –so this grand finale is not to be missed. Come meet the poets and hear their latest work: Pam Davis, Kim Noriega, Elizabeth Iannaci, Betzi Richardson, Hope Alvarado, Elizabeth Marshall, Maria Ruiz, Eve Hoffman, Cheryl Passanisi, Shannon Burns, and Suzanne Allen. Read more...
Monday 17th May 7:00pm
Tonight we welcome Assaf Gavron, one of Israel's most exciting writers, to read from CrocAttack!/Almost Dead, his provocative, gripping and tragicomic novel about the perfectly ordinary madness that resides in the Middle East. 'Blasts right through the cliches and the politically correct surface to touch the chaotic and ambiguous core of the Israeli identity.' – Etgar Keret Read more...
Monday 10th May 7:00pm
Rob Stephenson will read from Passes Through. In language that is frank and uncompromising this debut novel moves forward in a rare and daring manner. Read more...
Monday 26th April 7:00pm
The St. Petersburg Review present Kenyan writers Parselelo Kantai and Mukoma Wa Ngugi, both shortlisted for the Caine Prize in 2009. Parselelo Kantai is a writer and investigative journalist who writes short fiction and is currently working on a novel. Mukoma Wa Ngugi is the author of Nairobi Heat and Hurling Words at Consciousness. Read more...
Monday 19th April 7:00pm
Magda Danysz will present her groundbreaking new book From Style Writing to Art, the first Street Art anthology ever published. She will be talking about why style writing/graffiti/street art is turning out to be the major art movement at this turn of the century. Magda will also be in discussion with Seen, the Godfather of graffiti. Read more...
Thursday 15th April 6:00pm
Tonight award-winning author Yiyun Li will read from her novel The Vagrants followed by a short extract read in French. "Yiyun Li has written a book that is as important politically as it is artistically. The Vagrants is an enormous achievement." – Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto Read more...
Monday 12th April 7:00pm
Irene Vilar will be reading from her acclaimed memoir Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict and will also discuss her previous book The Ladies' Gallery. 'A writer of extraordinary passion, erudition, and intelligence' – Tobias Wolff Read more...
Monday 5th April 7:00pm
Publishing icon John Calder will read from his new book of poetry Solo, and discuss his past and present publishing activities. Read more...
Monday 29th March 7:00pm
Tonight come and join us to hear Dom Gabrielli read from his recently published book of poetry, The Parallel Body. This is the second fascinating collaboration of poetry and art between Dom and his brother Piers Faccini, the painter and musican. Piers will accompany some of the poems on guitar. Read more...
Monday 22nd March 7:00pm
Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier will be discussing their new translation of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir which marks the 60th anniversary of publication. They have produced the first integral translation, reinstating a third of the original work. Read more...
Monday 15th March 7:00pm
Author and artist Roma Tearne will read from her acclaimed novels Bone China and Brixton Beach and present her Paris sketchbooks to the audience. She will also talk about the importance of memory for migrants and what made her start to write after having been a painter for so many years. Read more...
Monday 8th March 7:00pm
Chloe Aridjis will be reading from Book of Clouds, winner of the Prix du Premier Roman Etranger 2009. It is a haunting, masterfully wrought debut novel about a young woman adrift in Berlin, where a string of fateful encounters leads to romance, violence, and revelation. Read more...
Monday 1st March 7:00pm
A reading and wine tasting with writer Kristin Espinasse and her husband, winemaker Jean-Marc Espinasse (Domaine Rouge-Bleu). Read more...
Monday 22nd February 7:00pm
Songbirds Kate Stables and Erica Buettner will be singing and performing acoustically ! Both are exquisite, lyrical musicians and writers… They will be joined by poet Colin Mahar. Read more...
Friday 19th February 7:00pm
Join us for readings and festivities for the release party of the seventh issue of Her Royal Majesty www.heroyalmajesty.ca, an independent literary magazine. The theme of the new issue on FLESH is available online. Read more...
Monday 15th February 7:00pm
Janet Skeslien Charles will be reading from Moonlight in Odessa published by Bloomsbury and chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of their top ten debut novels this autumn. Read more...
Monday 8th February 7:00pm
Wendell Steavenson will be reading from The Weight of a Mustard Seed. This book tells the story of Iraq from the inside out, giving a portrait of the Iraqis behind the headlines 'a masterly and elegantly told story that weaves together the Iraqi past and present.' – The New York Times. Read more...
Monday 1st February 7:00pm
Join us to celebrate the launch of Heather Hartley's brilliant new book of poetry, Knock Knock, published by Carnegie Mellon University Press. 'Heather Hartley writes the kind of poetry many of us are starved for, a poetry without borders, Read more...
Friday 29th January 7:00pm
In Paris for the publication in French of The End, finalist for the National Book Award Salvatore Scibona will read from his prize winning novel. Excepts will also be read in French. The English paperback edition was published in Fall 2009.
Read more...
Monday 25th January 7:00pm
Margo Berdeshevsky will be reading from her new book of short stories Beautiful Soon Enough. Read more...
Monday 18th January 7:00pm
A special reading from celebrated author and critic Luc Sante, who is in Paris for Christian Boltanski's Monumenta exhibition at the Grand Palais. Read more...
Friday 15th January 6:00pm
In Paris for the publication in French of The Hour I First Believed (Le Chagrin et la Grâce), the New York Times bestselling author Wally Lamb will be with us for a signing of his books and some mulled wine ! Read more...
Monday 11th January 7:00pm
We are honoured to present prize-winning poet Marilyn Hacker as she reads from her new book of poetry Names. 'Hacker is, to use a trite term, a major poet. More than that she is exciting and true.'—George Szirtes. Read more...
Monday 4th January 7:00pm
For the first reading of 2010 Anita Michaels and Patricia Page will read from a selection of their work. Anita will read new Poems on China and identity and Patricia will read from her novel about Paris, Clean Start. Read more...
Monday 21st December 7:00pm
Tonight join author Jeff Koehler who will discuss his new cookbook Rice Pasta Couscous, the unity of these three grand staples and their similarities around the Mediterranean – their cultural and historical significance and their role at the center of celebrations, traditions, family meals and life's transitions. Read more...
Monday 14th December 7:00pm
Jacques Réda, celebrated French poet, and jazz critique will read from Suburban Beauty his book of poetry, just published by Gival Press. The poems will be read in English by his American translator Peter Schulman. This will be a bilingual event. Read more...
Monday 7th December 7:00pm
Tonight is a special Christmas event with Roy Howat who will read extracts from his new book The Art of French Piano Music: Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Chabrier that has just won the Book of the Year Award in the International Piano Awards for 2009. He will then play certain pieces on the piano. Read more...
Monday 30th November 7:00pm
Come for an evening of poetry and fiction with celebrated American authors Thaddeus Rutkowski and Charles D'Ambrosio. Read more...
Wednesday 25th November 4:00pm
Join us for a special tour with Michael Schuermann, author of Paris Movie Walks. Michael will take you to his specially chosen Parisian haunts, passing Notre Dame Cathedral and exploring the Rive Gauche as he describes classics such as An American in Paris, A Bout de Souffle… The walk is free – just turn up and come along! Read more...
Monday 23rd November 7:00pm
French poet Celine Zins, will reading in French from her collection of poetry Adamah and her American translator Peter Schulman will be reading his English version. Celine and Peter will also talk about the caveats and collaborative techniques of translation. This is a bilingual event. Read more...
Monday 16th November 7:00pm
We are thrilled to announce prize-winning novelist, critic and cultural historian Marina Warner will read from her new work-in-progress, a novel inspired by her father's bookshop in Egypt in the Fifties and will discuss her writing on the 1001 nights. Read more...
Monday 9th November 7:00pm
Marina Temkina, artist and author of What do you Want? and French poet Zeno Bianu will read a selection of their work. This event will mainly be in English with Zeno reading his poems in French. Read more...
Monday 2nd November 7:00pm
Shakespeare and Company's writer-in-residence, Michael Smith will be reading a selection of his work including his novel, The Giro Playboy, a twenty-first century beat classic in the making. It's an utterly charming miniature picaresque and a portrait of a life blissfully unmoored. Read more...
Monday 26th October 7:00pm
Award-winning travel writer and journalist Rosemary Bailey will be reading from Love and War in the Pyrenees, winner of the British Guild of Travel Writers Award for best narrative travel book. One of the main characters, Jean Kohn, will be an honoured guest at the event. Read more...
Monday 19th October 7:00pm
Laurence Korb and Liliane Lefèvre will be reading from their fourth Victor Legris mystery, The Marais Assassin. Read more...
Monday 12th October 7:00pm
Sir Alistair Horne will be reading from his compelling new book Kissinger 1973, The Crucial Year and talking about 'the man at the epicentre of events that shook the decade'. Read more...
Friday 9th October 7:00pm
Read more... dir="ltr"> In collaboration with the Faber and Faber Workshop organized at Shakespeare and Company, we are delighted to welcome prize-winning novelists Sarah Hall (How to Paint a Dead Man) and Andrew Miller (Oxygen) for an exceptional reading.
Monday 5th October 7:00pm
Jim Christy will be reading a selection of his work and Simon Lane will be launching his new book of short stories The Real Illusion. Read more...
Monday 28th September 7:00pm
David Waller will be reading from The Magnificient Mrs Tennant. Read more...
Friday 25th September 7:00pm
London's most intriguing literary magazine, Five Dials, launches its eighth issue, the Paris issue, at Shakespeare and Company. The evening will feature a reading by authors Steve Toltz (A Fraction of the Whole) and Joe Dunthorne (Submarine), and others. The magazine will be sent out to thousands of readers around the world at 11pm.
Read more...
Monday 21st September 7:00pm
Sarah Hesketh will be reading from her collection of poetry Napoleon's Travelling Bookshelf. Read more...
Friday 18th September 7:00pm
Michelle Tea and Sister Spit: The Next Generation, a "literary celebration of outspoken and courageous feminists" (The Independent Weekly magazine) from San Francisco, will be performing their poetry at Shakespeare and Company. Read more...
Monday 14th September 7:00pm
Mark Gevisser will be reading from his award-winning biography A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream and in conversation with Janine Di Giovanni about South Africa and its prospects for the future under Jacob Zuma.
Read more...
Friday 4th September 5:30pm
We are thrilled to present Dave Eggers who will be speaking about Sudan and his recent book What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Read more...
Monday 31st August 7:00pm
Josh Ekroy, Susie Reynolds and Robert Cole, poetry editor of Chimera Magazine, will be reading from a selection of their work. Read more...
Monday 24th August 7:00pm
Simon Von Booy will be reading from his collection of short stories Love begins in Winter, recently shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize 2009. Read more...
Monday 17th August 7:00pm
T.S. Eliot Prize-winning poet George Szirtes, will read from The New and Collected Poems and his recent book The Burning of the Books. Read more...
Monday 10th August 7:00pm
Gregor Dallas, author of Metrostop Paris, will be speaking on 'The Impossible Love: Abelard and Héloise' and reading extracts from their medieval correspondence. Read more...
Friday 7th August 7:00pm
As part of the Faber Academy writing workshop at Shakespeare and Company, Erica Wagner will be reading and discussing her work. Read more...
Thursday 6th August 7:00pm
Writing Workshop run by Sabrina Chapadjiev, editor of Live Through This – On Creativity and Self-Destruction.
Read more...
Monday 3rd August 7:00pm
Lucy Wadham will be reading from her new book The Secret Life of France (highly recommended by Shakespeare and Company). Read more...
Monday 27th July 5:30pm
At 5:30pm there will be readings from students at the American Academy, presented by their teacher Rolf Potts. Rolf will then read at 7pm from his recent travel book Marco Polo Didn't Go There. Read more...
Monday 20th July 7:00pm
Ruth Waterman will be reading from When Swan Lake Comes to Sarajevo: Musical Journeys into the Aftermath of War. Read more...
Monday 13th July 7:30pm
In collobaration with New York University of Paris, Shakespeare and Company presents Matthew Rohrer and reading a selection of their poetry. Read more...
Monday 6th July 7:30pm
Read more...>Bilingual event (in English, translated into French). In collaboration with New York University, Shakespeare and Company presents Jonathan Safran Foer, the author of the bestselling novels Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
Thursday 2nd July 7:00pm
Event in French only
As part of the festival We Aren't Going to Avignon, there will be a theatrical debate between two theatre companies, la Compagnie du Corbeau Blanc (with Sophie Millon playing Gertrude) and Compagnie Torquemada (Directed by Fabienne Maitre) performing Murder Party, a confrontation between Penetrator by Anthony Neilson and Gertrude – The Cry by Howard Barker. Provocation and aggression of the spectator is at the heart of these plays and will be at the heart of this debate. Despite their differences, will they be able to understand each other? Read more...
Monday 29th June 7:30pm
In collobaration with New York University, Shakespeare and Company presents Darin Strauss, the author of the international bestseller Chang and Eng, and The New York Times Notable Book The Real McCoy, one of the New York Public Library's '25 Books to Remember'. His latest novel, More Than It Hurts You, was published in June, 2008. Read more...
Saturday 27th June 3:00pm
Read more...>
In celebration of Canada Day, July 1st 2009, this is the 5th annual Canada Day poetry reading by a visiting group of well-known and emerging Canadian poets and writers.
Thursday 25th June 6:00pm
Steve Tomasula will be reading from a selection of his books. He is the author of the novels The Book of Portraiture (FC2); IN & OZ (Ministry of Whimsy Press); and VAS: An Opera in Flatland, an acclaimed novel of the biotech revolution. Read more...
Monday 6th October 7:00pm
Join us for a 'Global Book Night' to launch 'Booktober', a month-long campaign to raise funds and awareness for global literacy.Created and pioneered by children's literacy charity Room to Read, Booktober 2014 will be the charity's third month-long campaign, with exciting literary events taking place all over the world throughout the month of October. Join us upstairs at Shakespeare and Company from 7-9pm for an evening of readings from across the world, from countries where Room to Read is most active. There will also be special themed snacks and drinks, and one or two other exciting surprises. Discover new authors and learn more about this great charity---and help us kick off Booktober in style!
Wednesday 8th October 3:00pm
Children's Hour—music, rhythm, and stories for kids. Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs, and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event has become an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated.
Due to space restrictions, we ask that you email Kate at email@example.com to confirm your place, and also that each child is accompanied by only one adult where possible. Thanks, all!
Monday 13th October 7:00pm
We're delighted to invite you to join us in the library to celebrate the launch of a new edition of James Joyce's Dubliners by de Selby Press www.deselbypress.com, an independent Irish publishing house based here in Paris, founded by Linda Fallon and Terry Craven. This limited edition of Dubliners, released on the centenary of the book's first publication, features seventeen original illustrations by Stephen Crowe, artist and Joyce obsessive, as well as an introduction by Irish novelist Paul Murray (Skippy Dies).
Thursday 16th October 6:00pm
The Bard-en-Seine Readings
Throughout 2014, in honour of the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, we're hosting the Bard-en-Seine Readings. The goal is simple: to revisit and celebrate some of Shakespeare's most loved plays. So, once a month, we will be hosting informal read-throughs in the library, which will be recorded and sent out as podcasts in this very newsletter.
For October, the play will be Hamlet and the reading will take place on Thursday 16th at 6pm, in the library.
If you'd like to take part, please email Milly Unwin at email@example.com, and tell her whether you'd prefer a larger or a smaller role. Parts will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis, and we'll let you know a week in advance of the reading whether you have a role. No preparation necessary, and we'll provide the scripts. Please note that, due to space restrictions, the Bard-en-Seine Readings will only be open to those taking part.
The allocated plays for each remaining month of 2014 are as follows:
November – Twelfth Night
December – Anthony and Cleopatra
Please check the newsletter and website each month for dates and times, and details of how to apply.
Friday 17th October 7:00pm
Philosophers in the Library: The Politics of Style
What is literary style? In what sense can it be said to be political? In this talk, Daniel Hartley will give a brief overview of the history of the concept of style and will explain why and how it became central to the work of three Marxist literary critics: Raymond Williams, Terry Eagleton, and Fredric Jameson. He will provide an overview of the politico-philosophical problems that style raises (e.g., the advent of novelty, transindividual experience, and historical temporality) and will share with the audience some of the concepts he himself has developed for the political analysis of literary styles.
Daniel Hartley is Lecturer in English and American Literature and Culture at the University of Giessen (Germany). His book, The Politics of Style: Marxist Poetics in and beyond Raymond Williams, Terry Eagleton and Fredric Jameson, will be published by Brill in 2015.
Monday 20th October 7:00pm
We're delighted to present the wonderful Bonnie Greer, who will be discussing her new memoir, A Parallel Life, and the search for an authentic voice over the course of her career.
Bonnie Greer is an award-winning playwright and has written more than a dozen plays for BBC Radio, a short film for BBC2, a documentary for BBC television, two novels, and a biography of the writer and social activist Langston Hughes. She has also turned her hand to acting, playing Joan of Arc on the Paris stage. Bonnie Greer has lived in the United Kingdom since 1986 and was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours 2010 for her contribution to the arts and, the following year, she was named one of the UK's Top 300 Public Intellectuals. A regular contributor to Sky News Paper Review, BBC2's The Review Show and Radio 4's Any Questions, she also writes occasionally for The London Evening Standard, the Guardian, and The Daily Telegraph.
A Parallel Life is the first volume of Bonnie Greer's emotive, outspoken, and inspiring memoirs. It tells the story of a young African-American girl born into the black working class, growing up in a culture of racism and limited opportunity in 1960s Chicago—and ultimately receiving an award from the Queen for her contribution to the arts in the UK.
Wednesday 22nd October 3:00pm
Children's Hour—music, rhythm, and stories for kids. Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs, and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don't speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event has become an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated.
Due to space restrictions, we ask that you email Kate at email@example.com to confirm your place, and also that each child is accompanied by only one adult where possible. Thanks, all!
Thursday 23rd October 7:00pm
Join us in the library for an intimate, inspiring talk by Tracey Jackson and Paul Williams on Gratitude and Trust: Six Affirmations That Will Change Your Life. The book combines the knowledge Paul has gained in the twenty-four years he has spent working in the recovery movement, healing both himself and helping others to heal, and Tracey's lifelong quest for peace and a daily routine. Working with the underlying principles of the recovery movement as their foundation, Tracey Jackson and Paul Williams have created six affirmations as a guide to positive action and life-enriching new behaviour.
Tracey Jackson spent twenty years as a playwright, television, and screenwriter. She wrote the films Confessions of a Shopaholic, The Guru, and The Other End of the Line. Her first book, Between a Rock and a Hot Place, was published by Harper Collins in 2011.
Singer, songwriter, actor, recovery advocate, and presently president and Chairman of the Board of ASCAP, Paul Williams has been a fixture on the American cultural scene since the seventies. A Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee, he is the winner of one Oscar, three Grammys, and two Golden Globes.
Monday 27th October 7:00pm
The New Shapes of Publishing
Each week in the media, we're confronted with claims that the published book is a dying breed. However, here at Shakespeare and Company, we're constantly astounded by the variety and quantity of interesting independent publication projects in Paris and further afield. Our panel of new publishing visionaries will explore why alternative forms and methods of publishing seem such a necessary alternative. Vive le printed word!
The panel will be chaired by published author and fiction editor for 3:AM Magazine Joanna Walsh. Joanna is an experienced editor as well as being a prolific contributor to publications such as The London Review of Books, The White Review, and Granta.
The panelists are...
Harriet Alida Lye: Harriet Alida Lye founded Her Royal Majesty in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2007 as a local arts and literary magazine. After a year, publication shifted to Paris and in turn, the scope of the magazine widened. Running for 13 issues and over 6 years, both online and in print, HRM published both emerging and established artists and authors such as James Franco, poet Robert Hass, and the first ever short story by Alice Munro. Harriet stopped the magazine in 2013 and now focuses on her own writing. Her first novel will be published next year by Simon & Schuster, and she's working with a director on adapting her second novel for a feature film. She also works as a scout for a French publisher.
Samuél L. Barrantes: As the first novelist published by Inkshares, Samuél will be unfolding America's newest alternative publishing model. Inkshares allows budding authors to pitch their book and, if approved, sets a funding goal to cover publishing expenses, including editing, print, and distribution services from some of the industry's biggest names. From there, the book-buying public pledge money to the campaign in the form of pre-orders, fulfilling Inkshares' pledge: "The crowd funds, we publish."
Johnny Lloyd/Hayden Kays: London-based musician/author Johnny Lloyd and artist Hayden Kays established their own publishing press, Dirty Witness, in 2012 and subsequently published their debut collaborative novella, A Journey Through The Heart Of A Pig, as well as Hayden's art book, Hayden Kays Is An Artist. They will be discussing the idea of collaboration between different artistic disciplines, how and why they formed the press, and, in particular, their emphasis on the aesthetic presentation.
Will Cox: Will co-founded Belleville Park Pages in 2013. The Pages are focused on providing a more affordable, accessible, and frequent print publication, with a single double-sided sheet being produced each month. In their first year they published 200 writers from 23 countries and 6 continents. The publication is cheaper than a cup of coffee and can now be found in 29 stores in 9 countries. Will joins the panel to discuss the Pages' uniquely affordable, quick production ethos and its place in increasingly diverse modern publication.