Shakespeare and Company Bookstore, Paris

The Shakespeare and Company Bookstore in Paris
Photo courtesy of Beggs via Flickr

Nothing gives me a kick more than the sight and smell of books, and bookstores are at the top of the list.  When I saw this quaint little bookstore in Paris I decided to collect all the beautiful photos in a post. 


Situated at the heart of the city, at the Latin Quarter near the Seine and offering a view of the Notre Dame, Shakespeare and Company is a booklover's paradise.  A delightful combination of nostalgic charm and modern thought, the bookstore is a haven for Parisians as well as English readers and writers.  They have a large collection of English books and a staff who all speak Fluent English and who will be glad to help you find whatever book you are looking for, and then recommend some.  


The bookshop has a library upstairs where visitors can sit and read, meet fellow travelers and chat in English.  The library is also the venue where many readings and writing workshops are held, and in summer writers give talks outside the shop on balmy nights.


But if you find all that charming, wait till you learn about the store's remarkable history. When it first opened in 1913 it offered food and bedding to penniless authors, including James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway who was a regular at the shop. That's why the shop is littered with beds, and since its opening more than 50,000 people have used them, that is when they're not covered with books.  Read the detailed history below. 

From Winterson's feature in The Guardian, on the remarkable story of the shop:

(In 1913) the original Shakespeare and Company was opened by a young American called Sylvia Beach. Her shop in rue de l'Odéon soon became the place for all the English-speaking writers in Paris. Her lover, Adrienne Monnier, owned the French bookstore across the road, and she and Beach ran back and forth, finding penniless writers a place to stay, lending them books, arranging loans, taking their mail, sending their work to small magazines and, most spectacularly, publishing James Joyce's Ulysses in 1922 when no one else would touch it.

Hemingway was a regular at the shop, and writes about it in his memoir A Moveable Feast. ... It was Hemingway, as a major in the US army, who at the liberation of Paris in 1945 drove his tank straight to the shuttered Shakespeare and Company and personally liberated Sylvia Beach. ...

George (Whitman, who carried on Beach's tradition) took in the beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso. Henry Miller ate from the stewpot, but was too grand to sleep in the tiny writers' room. Anaïs Nin left her will under George's bed. There are signed photos from Rudolf Nureyev and Jackie Kennedy, signed copies of Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs.

George opened his doors midday to midnight, and the deal then is the deal now: sleep in the shop, on tiny beds hidden among the bookstacks; work for two hours a day helping out with the running of the place; and, crucially, read a book a day, whatever you like, but all the way through, unless maybe it's War and Peace, in which case you can take two days. ...

At any time there are six or more young people from the compass points of the world, reading, talking, thinking, boiling spaghetti in the kettle, running across the road to the public showers, stacking, carrying, selling, stock-taking, and all in a spirit of energy and enterprise that is not to be found in any chain bookstores. They stay for two weeks or two months, and some just sleep outside on a bench until there's room inside.

George, who still lives upstairs, and his daughter Sylvia, are keen to encourage both writing and reading, and the shop organizes The Paris Literary Prize for novellas. The store also buys secondhand books so you can sell what you’ve finished and buy something new for the rest of the journey.

Here is a great video of Syliva talking about the bookshop and her life :-)

Shakespeare & Company

37 rue de la Bûcherie

75005 Paris

Tel : 00 33 (0) 1 43 25 40 93

Open everyday 10am - 11pm,  

except for Saturday and Sunday when it opens at 11am.

http://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore wins Academy Award

"Inspired, in equal measures, by Hurrican Katrina, Buster Keaton, and a love for books,
“Morris Lessmore” is a story of people who devote their lives to books
and books who return the favor."

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morriss Lessmore is a visual treat for all booklovers.  With a heartwarming plot, beautiful imageries (especially of books), and uplifting music it is not surprising that it won the Academy Awards for Short Animated Film yesterday.

Made by illustrator William Joyce and Co-director Brandon Oldenburg and produced by Moonbot Studios,  the film is a humorous analogy to the healing powers of books :-)  It may only be 15 minutes long but it doesn't fail to draw you in from the beginning into this magical world of books and how they shape our lives -- all this without any dialogue. It had so much heart it brought a tear to my eye in the end!  Once you see it you'll know what I mean!  

Moonbot Studios is actually a maker of beautifully crafted iPad apps for kids, and The Fantastic Flying Books is actually a spin-off of one of those apps.

To appreciate it better here are some beautiful screenshots from the film :-)

Here is the trailer:



Watch the full length 15 minute animation here:



Enjoy!

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell

The first time I read this book I couldn’t put it down I read it until 3 o'clock in the morning. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell is about the amazing strength of the human spirit. No other story has inspired me as much as Karana’s did. It won the Newberry Medal Award in 1960, the same year it was published. To this day, Karana’s strength and spirit still lives in my heart to inspire me.

At the end of the book is a note by Scott O’ Dell that Karana's life is based on the true story of The Lost Woman of San Nicolas who actually lived alone for 17 years (1835 – 1853) on the island of San Nicolas 75 miles southwest of Los Angeles until she was found, dressed in a skirt of green cormorant feathers. Today she is buried on a hill near the Santa Barbara Mission and her green cormorant skirt feathers was sent to Rome.

Sample illustrations from my copy of the illustrated edition

Karana's strength is amazing. As a woman she is a great inspiration to many young girls around the world. The book is truly an unforgettable classic. 


If you’re planning to get a copy I recommend the illustrated hardcover color edition, one to keep for life.

Map of San Nicolas Island in California

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

First Edition, 1952

I had been putting off reading The Old Man and the Sea for some time because I thought if it was considered a 'classic' it would be complicated.  I was immediately proven wrong from the beginning.  It was actually written with so much simplicity and purity it is so powerful. One of Ernest Hemingway's most enduring works, The Old Man and the Sea was written in Cuba in 1951, published in 1952, and played a major role in Hemingway's winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.

Ernest Hemingway,
Pulitzer Prize winner and
Nobel Prize winner for Literature

The book was one of the last books that Hemingway had written. At that time he was already growing older, and like most people, he was changing.  This change prompted him to write about old age.  When the book was first published it was featured in Life magazine which sold out over five million copies in two days. Today, the first edition (top photo) is available only in rare book auctions and sold for up to USD 4,000 (Php 180,000) a copy.

The strikingly simple story is about an old Cuban fisherman, Santiago, who goes out to sea to catch fish.  He has been unsuccessful for the last 84 days but unknown to Santiago this next trip would prove to become his greatest ordeal.  When Santiago finally catches a giant marlin on his line he hopes to bring it home because it would fetch a good price at the market. But he is unable to hoist the huge fish (which turned out to be 18 feet long) onto his boat so he has no choice but to drag it along.  Then sharks start to get attracted to the bleeding fish. The trip would prove to be a most grueling 4-day battle with the giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream for Santiago.

Cojimar, Cuba
Where Hemingway stayed while writing
The Old Man and the Sea and the inspiration for the book

There are very few characters and the plot is simplicity itself.  The writing is elegant, beautiful, painstakingly simple, and yet so powerful it resonates with the truth.  Surprisingly its purity is what makes it profound. To say more would take a literary major to give this book justice. This masterpiece has to be read and enjoyed to be properly appreciated.  

 

Memoirs of a Geisha - by Arthur Golden

First Edition Cover

According to American writer Arthur Golden, 'geisha' doesn't mean 'prostitute' as commonly assumed.  It means 'artisan' or 'artist'.  I read Memoirs of a Geisha a few years ago way before the film was released and it was so beautiful it has stayed with me all these years.   Since then I saw the film too but it was nothing like reading the book and getting lost in the haunting world of pre-war Japan where geishas flourished, whose beauty regimen were practiced religiously to beguile the most powerful of men, whose charm and cunning were made into an art, and for whom true love was never an option.

American writer Arthur Golden
has an M.A. in Japanese history. 
His interviews with a number of geisha
provided critical background information
about the world of the geisha. 

Memoirs of a Geisha, published in 1997, is about Sayuri, a young girl with mesmerizing blue-gray eyes who lives in a village with her parents and sister.  Sayuri's family is poor, and when her mother falls ill her father has no choice but to sell the girls to an acquaintance believing they would be cared for.  Unknown to their father the girls are sold into separate geisha houses.  Luckily for Sayuri, because of her beauty and her unusual blue-gray eyes, she is sold to one of the best okiyas (geisha house) in the flourishing district of Kyoto. 

At the okiya, Sayuri who is too young to become a geisha, is first made to work endless hours cleaning the house after the other geishas.  But later she is also made to learn the rigorous art of being a geisha and is transformed.  She learns about dance and music, wearing kimono, putting on elaborate makeup and doing her hair.  She also learns about the proper refinements required of geishas including pouring sake to reveal just a touch of her inner wrist and to compete with other geishas for men's solicitude and the money that goes with it. But amidst all this she is scorned by the leading geisha in her okiya Hatsumomo who would later envy her success and become her most bitter rival.   


Mineko Iwasaki,
one of the foremost geisha
interviewed by Arthur Golden.
She wrote a book, Geisha of Gion,
which was published in 2003

The story comes to a turning point when Sayuri meets a gentleman in the street who offers her a cup of sweet ice.  This act of kindness from this handsome stranger strikes Sayuri in an unforgettable way and she hopes to meet the man again someday.    Later Sayuri meets Mameha, one of the most renowned Geisha in Kyoto, who takes Sayuri under her wing and helps transform her into one of the most beautiful and most sought-after Geishas in Kyoto.   Then as World War II erupts, Sayuri's okiya is forced to close and with no money she must persist to find her own freedom and happiness. 

Memoirs of a Geisha struck me because it is a story about the strength of the human spirit.  From the beginning you find yourself rooting for Sayuri who talks about her life with a voice that is so haunting and urgent, yet filled with wisdom.  You find yourself hoping that despite her hard life she would someday find happiness and most of all, true love.   The characters, especially that of Hatsumomo and Mameha, are unforgettable and very well developed, something I always look for in a book. 

My copy of Memoirs of a Geisha
has this cover

The writing is brilliant and spontaneous, filled with authenticity of 1930s Japan, but at the same time cleverly intertwined with characters' thoughts and actions as well as the gripping plot of the story.  Arthur Golden also manages to inject a bit of humor every now and then amidst the rich detail and backdrop of Kyoto.


Memoirs of a Geisha has struck me so much I have included in the list of the best books I have ever read.


To learn more about the world of the geisha, check out this interesting documentary from NBC.

The Pillars of the Earth - by Ken Follett

It has been some time since I read Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth (way before I started this blog) but the book struck me so much it has been ingrained in my memory as one of the best books I have ever read.  And since I still have no post here about it I decided to write one about this remarkable 1000-page saga. 


The epic story takes us back to the 12th century when England was about to erupt in civil war.  In the priory of Kingsbridge, Philip takes up his post as the new prior and he is determined to rebuild the town's crumbling old cathedral into one that would be talked about far and wide.  He hires Tom Builder, a mason who is desperate to find work to support his two children.  Tom meets and falls in love with Ellen, a woman who lives in the forest with her son Jack.  As the family work for Prior Philip in exchange for food and lodging, Tom takes as his apprentice Ellen's son Jack who quickly shows an inclination for building. It doesn't take Philip and Tom long to discover that they both share the same dream of building one of the most beautiful cathedrals in England.

Ken Follett at Salisbury Cathedral,
his inspiration for Kingsbridge Cathedral

Meanwhile, the bishop Bigod under whose jurisdiction Kingsbridge falls turns out to be a man with his own plans and he stops at nothing to keep Prior Philip from completing his projects for Kingsbridge. 


The Pillars of the Earth may be the most different among Ken Follett's works but for me it is the most wonderful.  The story drew me in from the beginning into this magical world of medieval England, with kings and queens, priories, farm life, intrigue, mystery, revenge, love and murder, spanning 50 years.  The plot is so intense, I didn't even notice the 1000 pages go by. And after I finished the novel I was still craving for more.   


Some readers may find that there are too many characters in the novel, but in my opinion they are all very rich and well-developed, something I always something I look for in a book. Other than Prior Philip, Tom, Ellen, and Jack, there is also the intense rivalry between the two noble families - the Hamleighs and the Bartholomews.   The Hamleighs are embarrassed when their son William courts Aliena, the beautiful daughter of Earl Bartholomew, and is turned down.  After Stephen is crowned King, the Bartholomews lose all their land to the Hamleighs.  Aliena later proves to be resourceful and strong. She takes up a wool business and grows rich over time. She finances her brother Richard's knighthood with the goal of reclaiming their family estate and have Richard become the new earl.   There is also the cathedral itself, which Ken Follett said is also a character on its own.

Follett made learning about medieval England very interesting and not at all boring.    His meticulous research blends fiction with historical fact and weaves a compelling story that is hard to put down.   If you like architecture you will definitely enjoy this book filled with fascinating details about the building of cathedrals and castles!  I was already interested in architecture even before I read this book, but after reading it I went straight to the bookstore and bought all the good books on architecture that I could find!   And even if you never thought anything of English history, with all its wars, castles and cathedrals, this book will make you want to learn more about it!


Even if the book is lengthy it is divided into six manageable parts. Follett does an excellent job telling the story from the viewpoint of the different characters. Each part is told from the perspective of one of the characters, giving you an intimate understanding of the deepest thoughts and feelings of the character.

If you are still not convinced, The Pillars of the Earth is actually included in the 60+ books of Oprah's Book Club.  Oprah even shared "It's such a great read. It's like nothing I would ever read or had ever read before...I got to 800 pages and I slowed myself down because I didn't want it to end."

The Pillars of the Earth has already been adapted into a TV mini series by HBO.  Check out the trailer here.

Isabel Dalhousie Series - by Alexander McCall Smith

Once in a while a book comes your way that is so fresh and true it strikes you in a way that will make you say, "All books should be written this way."   Written by internationally celebrated Scottish writer Alexander McCall Smith, The Sunday Philosohy Club series is about amateur sleuth Isabel Dalhousie who solves Edinburgh mysteries.  As the editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, Isabel's hobbies include writing, reading, and listening to classical music.  Though she is single at 40, she doesn't let this stop her from getting preoccupied with men and finding love while helping others who come to her for help. 

Just like The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, another internationally acclaimed series by Alexander McCall Smith which I previously wrote about,  The Sunday Philosophy Club reverberates with refreshing wit, truth and a fresh outlook towards life and morality.  Some practical questions about morality that can typically come our way may not seem to have straightforward answers. But for Isabel things like marital infidelities and dishonesties in business practices all come with a moral obligation to help sort it out.  

There are several versions of this series available, including the UK and US versions, also in trade and mass market paperback formats.  It was difficult to complete a set of the same version in the same format here in Manila (mine was the US one in trade paperback format) so the collection you see in the photo was purchased from a mix of sources including Fully Booked, Kinokuniya in Singapore, and The Book Depository.

Here are the books in this charming and beguiling series:  The blurbs are from the Alexander McCall Smith Offical Site.



1.  The Sunday Philosophy Club

Amateur sleuth Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher who also uses her training to solve unusual mysteries. Isabel is Editor of the Review of Applied Ethics – which addresses such questions as ‘Truth telling in sexual relationships’ – and she also hosts The Sunday Philosophy Club at her house in Edinburgh. Behind the city’s Georgian facades its moral compasses are spinning with greed, dishonesty and murderous intent. Instinct tells Isabel that the young man who tumbled to his death in front of her eyes at a concert in the Usher Hall didn’t fall. He was pushed.

2.  Friends, Lovers and Chocolate

Isabel’s niece, Cat (she of the unsuitable boyfriends) is invited to a wedding in Italy. This means that Isabel is left in charge of Cat’s delicatessen – a task to which the redoutable moral philosopher proves more than equal. She is intrigued by the customers, of course, and one man in particular attracts her attention. He is recovering from heart surgery – a heart transplant in fact – and when Isabel gets to know him a bit better he reveals an extraordinary aspect of being the recipient of another’s heart. Isabel is drawn into an investigation of the facts behind the transplant, with disturbing results.



3.  The Right Attitude to Rain

This third installment is one of my favorites in the series. Bruised in love by her faithless Irish husband, Isabel Dalhousie is a connoisseur of intimate moral issues: she edits a philosophical journal and spends a great deal of her time considering how to improve the lives of those around her. There is her housekeeper Grace, whose future she must secure; her niece Cat, who is embarking on a new relationship with a dubious workaholic mummy’s boy; and even an American couple newly arrived in Edinburgh on a tour. And then there is Jamie, Cat’s ex-boyfriend, a handsome, gifted musician fourteen years Isabel’s junior, with whom she is slowly and hopelessly falling in love. 


4. The Careful Use of Compliments

This fourth installment is my favorite in the series. For philosophically minded Isabel late motherhood is not the only challenge facing her. Even as she negotiates a truce with her furious niece Cat, and struggles for authority over her son with her formidable housekeeper Grace, Isabel finds herself drawn into the story of a painter’s mysterious death off the island of Jura. Perhaps most seriously of all, Isabel’s professional existence and that of her beloved Review come under attack from the machiavellian and suspiciously handsome Professor Dove.
 

5.  The Comfort of a Muddy Saturday

When a chance conversation at a dinner party draws Isabel into the case of a doctor whose career has been ruined, she cannot ignore what may be a miscarriage of justice. Because for Isabel ethics are not theoretical at all, but an everyday matter of life and death.  As she attempts to unravel the truth behind Dr Thompson’s disgrace, Isabel’s patient intelligence is also required to deal with challenges in her own life. There is her baby son Charlie; Cat’s deli to look after, not to mention her vulnerable assistant Eddie; and a mysterious and unlikeable composer who has latched on to Jamie, making Isabel fear for the future of her new family.

6.  The Lost Art of Gratitude

Isabel meets an old foe, Minty Auchterlonie, at a birthday party attended by their young children. Ambitious Minty, now the head of a small investment bank, is in trouble with her shareholders. Isabel becomes involved, and is drawn into a murky world of financial concealment.  Minty is not the only high-flier in Isabel’s life; her niece Cat has just become engaged to a tightrope-walking stuntman. Isabel fears his next job – and the engagement – could end in disaster. Meanwhile, her own boyfriend Jamie has marriage in mind too ...

7.  The Charming Quirks of Others

Jillian McKinlay – wife of a trustee of an illustrious school – is Isabel's latest petitioner; she asks her to look into a poison-pen letter that makes insinuations about applicants for the position of principal. Isabel’s niece Cat has another new boyfriend who seems too good to be true. And when a pretty cellist with a tragic story takes a fancy to her husband-to-be, Isabel finds herself contemplating an act of heroic and alarming self-sacrifice.   This installment is my least favorite in the series.




8.  The Forgotten Affairs of Youth

When Jane, a visiting academic adopted and sent to Australia as a baby, asks for help in tracing her Scottish origins, Isabel cannot refuse. However, in these investigations, habitually upright Isabel finds herself beset by temptation: first, to count her own blessings when the unhappiness of others is all too clear. Then, the perennial temptation to suspicion – of the iniquitous Professor Lettuce’s latest subterfuge, and of her niece Cat’s weakness for the wrong man when a new assistant begins work at the delicatessen. Meanwhile, the search for Jane’s parents turns troubling, and Isabel can hardly prevent herself from interfering a little too forcefully in family secrets.

And there you have it, the complete series! I hope I have written enough to encourage you to read this charming and delightful series.  Makes for great light weekend reads!

 

11/22/63 by Stephen King

What if you could travel back in time and change history?  I just finished Stephen King's 11/22/63 and it was about a man who finds a way to travel back in time to stop President John F. Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963.   

Jake Epping is a recently divorced English teacher who meets a friend Al claiming to have stumbled on a portal to the past.   But Al is sick and before he passes away he convinces Jake to stop JFKs assassination as a service to the American people. But there is one catch, and that is Al's portal always takes the traveller back to the same moment on September 9, 1958.  Jake has to spend 5 years in the past before he can complete his mission.   

Because of numerous good reviews I dove into this book with high expectations. It was rather engrossing in the first third of the book when Jake travels for the first time and tries to change history in small steps, like saving a friend's family just a month after he arrives.  But when he finally decides to carry out his mission you had to spend 5 years with Jake in the 1960s and that was when it became dragging.  The story picks up again towards the last third of the book as the date of the assassination draws near, and reaches a very engrossing climax up to the moment of the assassination.  I thought that Under the Dome did a better job of holding my attention throughout the novel even if it was over 1000 pages long.

The book's writing style has the same spontaneity and wit that King never fails to use to draw his readers with.  Like his previous novels, he can have numerous characters (which some readers may find confusing) but who are always colorful and well-built.  I also noticed that the characters in both Under The Dome and 11/22/63 had their share of violence and experienced some degree of physical trauma. 

The plot as usual twists and turns, and has its pleasant surprises as well.  The story shows the extensive research involved in writing it, particularly on Lee Harvey Oswald and his Russian wife Marina, and about Dallas in the early 1960s.  The environment that King setup felt so real it was like you were there with Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas School Book Depository on that fateful day in 1963. King also had creative suppositions as to how the present might have been if Kennedy had lived.

The Texas School Book Depository
showing the corner window on the 6th floor

I thought the book had a better ending than Under the Dome but I can't say I was completely satisfied.  I will not say more lest I spoil the story for you.   But on the whole, it was a rather enjoyable 800-page ride.  

3D Map of Dealey Plaza
showing the motorcade route, 
the Texas School Book Depository,
and the Grassy Knoll

Today almost fifty years later the question remains whether or not Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.  Even after the Warren Commission Report released in 1964 concluded that he did, numerous conspiracy theories say otherwise. These theories include a second shooter from the infamous Grassy Knoll.  However, based on King's extensive research he writes in the book's afterword that he would put the probability of Oswald acting alone at 98%, even at 99%.  

This Discovery Channel documentary is a convincing experiment using modern forensic technology that Oswald acted alone. It proves that the autopsy results of JFKs body and blood spatter on the car could have been made only by rifle shots from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository. I am pretty convinced that there were no other gunmen on the Grassy Knoll or anywhere else.