Since my arrival in Paris (Autumn 2015), I have been exploring daily to familiarize myself with the culturally rich capital of France. Inspired by the city’s art and culture, architecture, music and people, ideas for a children’s book started brewing…
In the nineteenth century the British attitude to French writers was full of contrasts. The great triumvirate of Emile Zola, Guy de Maupassant and Gustave Flaubert presented to Victorian readers a range of characters, scenes and passions that British writers…
“Working in a bookshop every day, seeing much-anticipated new releases being freshly unpacked and incredible vintage paperbacks that have wound their ways onto our shelves, it’s almost impossible not to slip a book into my pocket on the way out…
For two years, from 2012 to 2014, I could be found tucked into George Whitman’s former bedroom, his cat, Kitty, on my lap, reading and sorting Shakespeare and Company’s archives. It was the first and the most daunting task in creating…
Maggie O’Farrell visited Shakespeare and Company in February 2014 to present Instructions for a Heatwave, a novel full of complex familial dynamics, personal struggles and the heatwave of her early childhood. As I sat across from her that evening, at…