The Paris Bookseller – Kerri Maher

“What if instead of a French shop in America, I open an American shop here in Paris? There seems to be a hunger here to read more works in the original language and no shop or library to supply them.” (Quotation page 28)

Content

Opening her own English bookshop in Paris, Sylvia Beach has made her dream come true. Together with Adrienne Monnier’s well known French bookshop, this literary cluster at rue de l’Odéon soon is highly acclaimed, well-known and almost daily visited by young and famous French and American writers of the 1920s and 1930s in a bohemian, sparkling Paris. When James Joyce tells her that his avant-garde novel Ulysses is officially banned and forbidden in America, before it even was published, she just has to do something, because she is absolutely convinced that readers could not be deprived of the possibility to read this innovative novel. There could be only one solution and she is ready to accept the challenge and risk everything.

Theme and Genre

This novel about Sylvia Beach, her friends and these exciting years between the two world wars in Paris is a very well balanced mixture between researched facts and fiction. It is about well-known bookshops, literature, artists, especially writers, but also about publishing, friendship, family and love.

Characters

Most characters are real and described in a vivid way, always based on reality.

Plot and Writing

The author tells the story of Sylvia Beach and her famous bookshop “Shakespeare and Company” during the most important years between 1917 and 1936, as these years are the years where Sylvia’s life as a bookseller and publisher takes place. This marvelous journey through literature, love and friendship is told from Sylvia’s point of view, but in the third-person-form, which made it possible to share not only Sylvia’s story, emotions and opinion, but add many other details that made the picture complete. Mostly written during the two years of the Covid pandemic, when libraries, publishing houses and bookstores with engaged staff made online events and information possible, this novel once again reveals the magic of books and reading.

Conclusion

A gripping, interesting, lively story about a famous bookshop, literature, artists und confident, modern women, set in the bohemian metropole Paris during the roaring twenties.