As if this title wasn’t compelling enough – Paris + Books – this new historical fiction chronicles the history of the famous bookstore Shakespeare and Company, a literary home to American expatriates and famous writers in the 1920s, focusing on the life of its founder Sylvia Beach.
The book was additionally fascinating to me because it tells how Beach published Ulysses when it was banned in America. (I wrote my master’s thesis on Ulysses.) Very rarely – maybe once before – can I recommend a modern work of historical fiction that is related to the excruciating, yet brilliant book that I studied in detail.
The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher
Beach founded Shakespeare and Company in 1919 and hosted many of the Lost Generation there, including Joyce & Hemingway, and most every American who visited Paris during this time.
I’ve often heard references to this bookstore but never knew the entire story of its founding, its relationship to the French bookstore across the street, its difficult path in publishing Ulysses and dealing with Joyce afterward, and how its livelihood was threatened as the depression hit and war loomed.
It is always interesting to hear how many people used to read and love Ulysses when no one does now…
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The book is based on Beach’s own memoir which I’d also like to add to my reading list.
