The Paris Bookseller
Book Feature - The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher
HBL Note: You should all be familiar with Kerri Maher by now. I’ve featured her a number of times on this blog including a feature of two of her previous novels including The Kennedy Debutante and The Girl in White Gloves. She also appeared as a guest on an author panel I hosted entitled On Writing Fiction About the Kennedy Family. And lucky me, I got to meet her this summer when she came to Chicago on a research trip for her next novel. She was just as delightful in person as she has been online all these years.
All that to say, I am delighted to feature her latest novel, THE PARIS BOOKSELLER, about the infamous Sylvia Beach. We know her as the owner of Shakespeare and Company, where people like Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce could be found often. But did you know she published Joyce’s Ulysses when no one else would?Kerri brings to life the risks Sylvia Beach took, and during the depression, to bring the most well-known novel to the world. Scroll down to read more.
Book Feature - The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher
From the publisher:
When bookish young American Sylvia Beach opens Shakespeare and Company on a quiet street in Paris in 1919, she has no idea that she and her new bookstore will change the course of literature itself.
Shakespeare and Company is more than a bookstore and lending library: Many of the prominent writers of the Lost Generation, like Ernest Hemingway, consider it a second home. It's where some of the most important literary friendships of the twentieth century are forged—none more so than the one between Irish writer James Joyce and Sylvia herself. When Joyce's controversial novel Ulysses is banned, Beach takes a massive risk and publishes it under the auspices of Shakespeare and Company.
But the success and notoriety of publishing the most infamous and influential book of the century comes with steep costs. The future of her beloved store itself is threatened when Ulysses' success brings other publishers to woo Joyce away. Her most cherished relationships are put to the test as Paris is plunged deeper into the Depression and many expatriate friends return to America. As she faces painful personal and financial crises, Sylvia—a woman who has made it her mission to honor the life-changing impact of books—must decide what Shakespeare and Company truly means to her.
