Join us for a summer’s evening of verse with three wonderful poets – Chris Garrecht-Williams, Tino Villanueva, and Alejandro Murguía, the San Francisco Poet Laureate.

Chris Garrecht-Williams has a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University, where he was a 2010-2011 Teaching Fellow. He is a Senior Poetry Editor at Narrative Magazine, and his poems have appeared in Forklift: Ohio, The Chattahoochee Review, Beecher’s Magazine, The Chiron Review and elsewhere. Chris Garrecht-Williams will be reading as part of our New Writers’ Series.

Tino Villanueva writes and also paints. He is the author of seven volumes of poetry, including: Shaking Off the Dark (1984); Crónica de mis años peores (1987); Scene from the Movie GIANT (1993), which won a 1994 American Book Award; Primera causa / First Cause (1999); and So Spoke Penelope (2013). His poems appear in many high school and college textbooks, and his paintings on the covers and inside pages of U.S. and international cultural journals:  Nexos (Mexico City), Green Mountains Review, TriQuarterly, Parnassus, MELUS, Sigila (Paris), and Connecticut Review.  Six of his poems have been anthologized in The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature (2011). He teaches at Boston University.

Alejandro Murguía is the author of Southern Front and This War Called Love (both winners of the American Book Award). His non-fiction book, The Medicine of Memory, highlights the Mission District in the 1970s during the Nicaraguan Solidarity movement. He is a founding member and the first director of The Mission Cultural Center. He was a founder of The Roque Dalton Cultural Brigade, and co-editor of Volcán: Poetry From Central America. Currently he is a professor in Latina Latino Studies at San Francisco State University. He is the author of the short story “The Other Barrio” which first appeared in the anthology San Francisco Noir and recently filmed in the street of the Mission District. In poetry he has published Spare Poems, and this year a new collection called Native Tongue. He is the Sixth San Francisco Poet Laureate and the first Latino poet to hold the position. Read more...

We are very excited to present a bookshop production of one of Shakespeare’s most loved comedies.

Our performance of Much Ado About Nothing is a Shakespeare and Company community event, and involves staff, volunteers, and Tumbleweeds alike. Taking place right outside the shop, the play is an energetic version of one of Shakespeare’s most hilarious comedies, and is a labor of love for all involved. Read more...

We are very excited to announce that Barbara Kingsolver will be signing copies of her books from 6.30-7.30pm.

Barbara Kingsolver was born in 1955, and grew up in rural Kentucky.

Her books, in order of publication, are: The Bean Trees (1988), Homeland (1989),Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike (1989), Animal Dreams (1990),Another America (1992), Pigs in Heaven (1993), High Tide in Tucson (1995), The Poisonwood Bible (1998), Prodigal Summer (2000), Small Wonder (2002), Last Stand: America’s Virgin Lands, with photographer Annie Griffiths Belt (2002), Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (2007), The Lacuna (2009), and Flight Behavior (available Nov. 6, 2012). She served as editor for Best American Short Stories 2001. Her books have been translated into more than two dozen languages, and have been adopted into the core literature curriculum in high schools and colleges throughout the nation. She has contributed to more than fifty literary anthologies, and her reviews and articles have appeared in most major U.S. newspapers and magazines.

Kingsolver was named one the most important writers of the 20th Century by Writers Digest. In 2000 she received the National Humanities Medal, our country’s highest honor for service through the arts. Critical acclaim for her books includes multiple awards from the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association, among many others. The Poisonwood Bible was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Orange Prize, and won the national book award of South Africa, before being named an Oprah Book Club selection. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle won numerous prizes including the James Beard award. The Lacuna won Britain’s prestigious Orange Prize for Fiction in 2010. In 2011, Kingsolver was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for the body of her work.

Kingsolver established the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, the nation’s largest prize for an unpublished first novel, which since 1998 has helped to establish the careers of more than a half dozen new literary voices. Through a recent agreement, the prize has now become the PEN / Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Read more...

We are delighted to welcome Michelle de Kretser on her stunning new novel, Questions of Travel.

Laura travels the world before returning to Sydney, where she works for a publisher of travel guides. Ravi dreams of being a tourist until he is driven from Sri Lanka by devastating events.

An enthralling array of people, places and stories surround these superbly drawn characters – from Theo, whose life plays out in the long shadow of the past, to Hana, an Ethiopian woman determined to reinvent herself.

Michelle de Kretser illuminates travel, work and modern dreams in this brilliant evocation of the way we live now. Questions of Travel is infused with wit, imagination, uncanny common sense and a deep understanding of what makes us tick.

“Novel by novel, the Sri Lankan-born Australian has emerged as one of the most fiercely intelligent voices in fiction today. This new work, her most ambitious yet, makes globalisation and its discontents the focus of a multi-faceted story that unites grandeur and intimacy” Boyd Tonkin, The Independent Read more...

This edition of Philosophers in the Library will explore the shifting meanings of the concept of law.

“Law” is one of the words which we use every single day without stopping to think about it: “That’s not fair.” “I know my rights.” “Isn’t that against the law?” But different countries have radically different ways of understanding these general terms, shaped by the twists and turns of history, legal philosophy, and street-level culture. Does the French “loi” mean what English and Americans mean by “law”, or is it more specific? What do the French mean by the word “droit”, and how does this relate to the idea of fairness or rights used in the Anglo-Saxon world? Join a conversation led by Gregory Bligh, doctoral student in legal philosophy at Paris II and the French child of English parents, for an exploration of law, rights, and fairness in two very different languages. Read more...

“In the world of British poetry Carol Ann Duffy is a superstar” The Guardian

“Duffy is magnificent, grounded, heartfelt, dedicated to the notion that poetry can give us the music of life itself” Scotsman

It is a huge honour to present Carol Ann Duffy, one of the most important and best-loved voices in contemporary British poetry.

Born in Glasgow in 1955, Duffy published her first full-length collection, Standing Female Nude, in 1985. This was followed by Selling Manhattan (1987), The Other Country (1990), and Mean Time (1993), which won an award from the Scottish Arts Council, the Forward Prize and the Whitbread Prize for Poetry. ‘Prayer’ from this volume, a sonnet that concludes with the mantra of the BBC shipping forecast, has become one of her most loved poems. Next came The World’s Wife (1999), a brilliant series of dramatic monologues from the wives of famous men from history (there’s Mrs. Midas, Mrs. Faust, Mrs. Darwin). Feminine Gospels followed in 2002, the same year Duffy became CBE (having received an OBE in 1995). In 2005, Picador published Rapture, 52 poems charting the rise and fall of a love affair, which won the T.S. Eliot Prize.

In 2009, Duffy was appointed Britain’s Poet Laureate, the first woman and Scot to hold the position in the 400-year history of the award. Her laureateship has been marked by her generous creation of opportunities for other poets, and she notably donates her Laureate payment as a Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry.

Duffy’s most recent collection, Bees, described as “swooningly glorious” by The Times and “indisputably her best volume” by The Sunday Times, was published in 2011.

Carol Ann Duffy lives in Manchester, where she is Professor and Creative Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. Read more...

“Harrowing, humane and brilliant” The Times

We are thrilled to welcome Elliot Perlman on The Street Sweeper.

On the crowded streets of New York City there are even more stories than there are people passing each other every day… only some of these stories survive to become history.

Lamont Williams, recently released from prison and working as a hospital janitor, strikes up an unlikely friendship with a patient, an elderly Jewish Holocaust survivor who starts to tell him of his extraordinary past. Meanwhile Adam Zignelik, the son of a prominent Jewish civil rights lawyer, is facing a personal crisis: almost 40-years-old, his long-term relationship is faltering and his academic career has stalled. It’s only when one of his late father’s closest friends, the civil rights activist William McCray, suggests a promising research topic that the possibility of some kind of redemption arises.

Dealing with memory, racism and the human capacity for guilt, resilience, heroism, and unexpected kindness, The Street Sweeper spans over fifty years, and ranges from New York to Melbourne, Chicago, Warsaw and Auschwitz, as these two very different paths – Adam’s and Lamont’s – lead to one greater story.

Elliot Perlman is the acclaimed author of a collection of short stories and three novels: Three Dollars, Seven Types of Ambiguity, which was a ‘New York Times Notable Book’ and a national bestseller in France where it was described “one of the best novels of recent years, a complete success” (Le Monde), and The Street Sweeper. A barrister, he lived in New York for many years and currently lives in Melbourne.

In collaboration with Editions Robert Laffont. Read more...

“Grand, intimate and joyous” – The New York Times

We are delighted to present Ben Fountain, PEN/Hemingway Award-winning author of the critically acclaimed short story collection, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara.

Ben is here to discuss his stunning debut novel, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (”The Catch-22 of the Iraq War” —Karl Marlantes), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and a finalist for the National Book Award.

A razor-sharp satire set in Texas during America’s war in Iraq, it explores the gaping national disconnect between the war at home and the war abroad. This remarkable novel follows the surviving members of the heroic Bravo Squad through one exhausting stop in their media-intensive “Victory Tour” at Texas Stadium, football mecca of the Dallas Cowboys, their fans, promoters, and cheerleaders.

Ben Fountain grew up in North Carolina and has lived in Dallas, Texas, since 1983. Read more...

Children’s Hour – music, rhythm and stories for kids: Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don’t speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event is fast becoming an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated. Read more...

“A novel rich as the past is conjures up, weaving a story as playful and disturbing as the strange wax sculptures that its hero gives life to.” Sarah Dunant

“Rupert Thomson is in the front rank of English authors.” Observer

In collaboration with Granta, we are delighted to present Rupert Thomson on his brilliant new novel, Secrecy.

It is Florence, 1691. The Renaissance is long gone, and the city is a dark, repressive place, where everything is forbidden and anything is possible. The Enlightenment may be just around the corner, but knowledge is still the property of the few, and they guard it fiercely. Art, sex and power – these, as always, are the obsessions.

Poignant but paranoid, sensual yet chilling, Secrecy is a novel that buzzes with intrigue and ideas.  It is a love story, a murder mystery, a portrait of a famous city in an age of austerity, an exercise in concealment and revelation; but above all, it is a trapdoor narrative, one story dropping unexpectedly into another, the ground always slippery and uncertain.

Rupert Thomson is the author of eight highly acclaimed novels: Dreams of Leaving, The Five Gates of Hell, Air and Fire, The Insult, Soft, The Book of Revelation, Divided Kingdom and most recently, Death of a Murderer, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year Award and by World Book Day for the Book to Talk About 2008.  His memoir, This Party’s Got to Stop, also published by Granta, won him the Writers’ Guild Non-Fiction Award. Read more...

Beckett and Philosophy: Subjectivity, Language, Ethics (with Amanda Dennis)

Beckett’s texts have a reputation for being bleak, opaque, difficult to make sense of – even nihilistic or absurdist. These claims may help explain feelings of frustration while reading Beckett, but they overlook certain vital moments in the works – moments in which experimental forms (like the destabilization of narrative) become ways of exploring possibilities for artistic invention. Beckett’s works certainly break the conventions of narrative, of genre, and of character portrayal, but to what end? Philosophers such as Theodor Adorno, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault and Alain Badiou have involved Beckett in their own thinking about creativity, subjectivity, language and ethics. Engaging works by these thinkers, we’ll go beyond commonplace readings of Beckett as an “existentialist” to show how Beckett’s texts both anticipate and work through some of the most pressing problems of twentieth-century philosophy – problems, broadly speaking, that have to do with the self (an “I” who is consistent through time), with language (its insufficiencies and excesses), and with ethics: openness to others and to difference.

As always, Philosophers in the Library is open to anyone (not just the Beckett experts!). Read more...

A spring evening of poetry and wine…

A sampling of sonnets read by Charlotte Corman and Lola Peploe in celebration of Shakespeare’s birthday.

Lola Peploe is an English actress who trained at the Drama Centre London and has worked in theatre, television and film. She has just finished working on a feature film in Brazil.

Charlotte Corman is a bilingual French actress who trained at the Conservatoire here in Paris, and also for a year at LAMDA in London. She works in radio, cinema and theatre. Read more...

Children’s Hour – music, rhythm and stories for kids: Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don’t speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event is fast becoming an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated. Read more...

A dramatic reading of Our Lady of Perpetual Donuts (currently playing at the Lucernaire) by Jennifer Wiltsie.

Edna Howard is more than she seems. The Mayor of Hayward, CA, is honouring her with a Local Hero award for her work with abused kids. In her acceptance speech she shares her own decades-long story of physical, psychological and emotional abuse. But she is no victim. With absolutely no self-pity, she tells how through faith, a sense of humor, and a tremendous capacity for love… she survived – finding salvation in… donuts. Our lady of perpetual donuts is devoted to defending, protecting and empowering the countless children in her care. One love-filled donut at a time. Read more...

‘My favourite writer, the famous Nikolai Leskov’ – Anton Chekhov

‘Stories as strong as fables and crazy as life’ – Alice Munroe

Following on from their marvellous event last autumn, we are delighted to welcome extraordinary translating duo Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky back to the bookshop to celebrate the publication of The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories by Nikolai Leskov.

Leskov’s short stories exploded the traditions of nineteenth-century Russian fiction. Innovative in form and playful in language, these seventeen tales are peopled by outsized characters that include serfs, princes, military officers, Gypsy girls, wayward monks, horse dealers, nomadic Tartars, and garrulous storytellers.

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s stunning translation brings Leskov’s sophisticated storytelling and exuberant voice to life. Read more...

“Charming, warm-hearted and thought-provoking” The New York Times

In collaboration with Belfond, we are very excited to welcome Scott Hutchins, author of the acclaimed and electrifying debut, A Working Theory of Love.

Recently divorced thirty-six-year-old Neill Bassett has got a lot of questions.

Not the run-of-the-mill, insolubles, why am I here? Who am I? But the pressing questions of adult life: Really? and Are you sure? and Now what?

He’s about to get some answers…

By day, Neill is engaged in an extraordinary experiment: painstakingly helping to create what might become the world’s first sentiment machine, an artificial intelligence that is based on the personality of his dead father. By night, meanwhile, he is coming to terms with his own emotional shortcomings, reconciling his new-found bacherlorhood with the unexpected attractions of a vulnerable but intriguing young woman called Rachel. So the question is: what does it take to be a real human being? And more alarmingly, what if he succeeds?

Set in contemporary San Francisco, where everything goes (and regularly does), this recklessly witty, formidably funny, outrageously honest novel captures the exquisite agony of the most important relationships of our twenty-first century lives.

Scott Hutchins, a Truman Capote Fellow in the Wallace Stegner Program at Stanford University, received his MFA from the University of Michigan. His work has appeared inStoryQuarterly, The Rumpus, The New York Times, and Esquire. He currently teaches at Stanford. Read more...

Children’s Hour – music, rhythm and stories for kids: Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don’t speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event is fast becoming an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated. Read more...

Join International Writer’s Conference Revisited: Edinburgh, 1962 editors Angela Bartie and Eleanor Bell in this commemorative event, as they talk with the original Conference organisers – pioneering publisher John Calder and seminal arts figure Jim Haynes – about their memories of the ground-breaking 1962 International Writers’ Conference. Traveling from all corners of the globe, delegates included Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, William Burroughs, Hugh MacDiarmid, Muriel Spark, Alexander Trocchi, Lawrence Durrell, Stephen Spender, Erich Fried and Khushwant Singh. Heady and confrontational, the “Roman amphitheatre” environment of the city’s McEwan Hall saw fierce discussion of censorship, the future of the novel, and more. Enthralling the 2000-strong daily audience, and filling the front pages of Britain’s national newspapers and beyond, the Conference made literary history.
The Writers’ Conference Revisited: Edinburgh, 1962 presents a unique fusion of literary and historical materials to commemorate the cultural legacy of the Conference and all its controversy. Experts Dr Angela Bartie and Dr Eleanor Bell introduce and explore the Conference through a selection of fascinating sources. Featuring never-before-published original transcripts, highlights from the 1962 Conference programme, scrapbook-style press cuttings, and writing from attendees William Burroughs and Edwin Morgan, the book also brings us into the present. Comprising new interviews with John Calder and Jim Haynes, and artist Sandy Moffat, reflections from figures including Jenni Calder and Joan Lingard also enable 1962 to be vividly experienced like never before. This landmark book also showcases never-before-seen photographs, giving an exclusive visual glimpse into the action, both on and off stage, of the definitive literary event of the twentieth century. Read more...

Our Philosophers in the Library series continues with Ben McConnell, who will be giving an introduction to Zen Buddhism, outlining the general foundations of Zen practice, as well as identifying certain Buddhist themes in the work of such literary figures as Henry David Thoreau, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Ginsberg. Also discussed will be such topics as: How does Zen practice fit into a normal, busy life? What are the motivations behind practicing Zen? What are koans? And is “enlightenment” the end of the road for a Buddhist?

Ben will draw upon his experience of twelve years of Zen practice, three of which were as a resident staff member at the Rochester Zen Center, in Rochester, New York. Read more...

As the Oulipo celebrates its 60th anniversary, the avant-garde French literary group seems to be more on the cultural radar than ever before. The last few years have seen a panoply of English translations of Oulipian work, as well as two important critical works centering on the movement: Daniel Levin Becker’s ‘Many Subtle Channels’ and Lauren Elkin/Scott Esposito’s ‘The End of Oulipo?: An Attempt to Exhaust a Movement’.

Lauren Elkin, novelist and literary critic, is the co-author of ‘The End of Oulipo?’. Joanna Walsh is a writer and artist and member of the Oulipo-related organisation, The London Institute of ‘Pataphysics. In The End of Oulipo? Lauren and her co-author, literary critic Scott Esposito, consider the Oulipo’s strengths, weaknesses, and impact on today’s experimental literature. Lauren will read from the book, while Joanna will present a short and playful response to Oulipians, George Perec and Anne Garreta’s, treatments of the problems of bookshelves and bookselves. They’ll then have a short conversation/open Q&A touching on questions including: Why is the Oulipo so linked to performance? How do you solve a novel? Where might the novel be going, Oulipian or not? Read more...

We are thrilled to present musicians Cole Stacey and Joseph O’Keefe, who will be playing an intimate acoustic set in the library. Read more...

We are delighted to welcome John Baxter back to the bookshop to discuss his latest book, The Perfect Meal.

John Baxter’s The Perfect Meal is part grand tour of France, part history of French cuisine, taking readers on a journey to discover and savour some of the world’s great cultural achievements before they disappear completely. Read more...

Three English-speaking writers living in Paris, Nancy Huston, Ellen Hinsey and Denis Hirson will all be reading from their work at Shakespeare and Company on February 25th 2013. Read more...

The talk will focus on the philosophical concept most strongly associated with G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophy and its legacy: ‘dialectic.’  Notwithstanding the complex and diverse theoretical reception of the concept (most notably in the historical forms that structure ‘post-’, ‘anti-’, and ‘neo-’ Hegelianism), not to mention the notorious difficulty of Hegel’s own philosophical exposition, this talk will move at a consciously rudimentary level, staying close to only a small number of critical moments in Hegel’s work (especially the Phenomenology of Spirit) and attempting to expose and explicate as clearly as possible central themes and salient meanings found therein.  Accordingly, the talk will advance through a series of basic reflections: it will inquire into the identity of the dialectic (’what is it?’), its operation (’how does it work?’) and its consequences (’what happens as a result of dialectics?’).  In the attempt to demystify Hegel’s dialectic at an introductory level, it will hopefully become clear in what sense Hegel’s thought is still of relevance today.

No prior knowledge of Hegel or philosophy in general is necessary — Philosophers in the Library is open to everyone. Read more...

Becoming a Writer/Staying a Writer: novelist Louise Doughty will talk about the practicalities of becoming a writer and staying one in today’s difficult and exciting climate. Read more...

Children’s Hour – music, rhythm and stories for kids: Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs and stories in English (for all nationalities, even those who don’t speak English). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit, this lovely event is fast becoming an institution. There will be instruments to play and a lot of noise to make! Four euros donation appreciated.  Read more...

‘A triumph. . . brimful of wit and narrative energy’ Sunday Times

In collaboration with Belfond, we are very happy to present Paul Murray, author of Skippy Dies (2010) and An Evening of Long Goodbyes (2003). A former bookseller, Paul Murray was born in 1975. He studied English literature at Trinity College in Dublin and has a Masters degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia. His first novel, An Evening of Long Goodbyes, was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize in 2003 and was nominated for the Kerry Irish Fiction Award. His most recent book, Skippy Dies, described as a tragicomic masterpiece about growing up and learning about life in a Dublin boarding school, was longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize and received a staggering amount of critical acclaim.

Paul Murray is in France to promote the French publication of Skippy Dies, Skippy dans les etoiles (Belfond). We can’t wait to hear from him… Read more...

In collaboration with Stock, we are very excited to present Kevin Powers, author of the critically acclaimed, award-winning The Yellow Birds. An unforgettable depiction of the psychological impact of war, by a young Iraq veteran, The Yellow Birds is already being hailed as a modern classic. Described as “All Quiet on the Western Front for the Arab wars” by Tom Wolfe and “a classic of contemporary war literature” by The New York Times, The Yellow Birds is also the winner of the Guardian First Book Award, and a finalist in the National Book Awards. It was chosen as a book of the year in 2012 by The New York Times, The Times, The Independent, the TLS, and The Irish Times, among many others.

Kevin Powers was born and raised in Richmond, VA. In 2004 and 2005 he served with the U.S. Army in Mosul and Tal Afar, Iraq. He studied English at Virginia Commonwealth University after his honourable discharge and received an M.F.A. in Poetry from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin in 2012. Read more...

“This could be the start of something major” – ****, Q Magazine Read more...

We are delighted to present journalist Stephanie LaCava with her captivating literary debut, An Extraordinary Theory of Objects. Read more...

We are very sorry to announce that tomorrow’s event with Anne Carson has been cancelled, due to unforeseen circumstances. We will most likely be rescheduling this event for July. Apologies for any disappointment this has caused. Read more...

Please join author Rosemary Flannery for a signing of her book, Angels of Paris. Read more...

Children’s Hour – music, rhythm and stories for kids. Read more...

Broken Hearts and Unbound Dreams

‘Immense skill and breathless conviction… there’s no faulting Reid’s command of her craft’ The Times Read more...

Please join us for a tea party in the library on Friday 14th December, between 5-8pm, to celebrate the life of George Whitman, the bookshop’s founder and our much missed friend. Read more...

New York expat Marc Grossman, the creator of Bob’s Juice Bar (10e) and Bob’s Kitchen (3e) and author of several popular cookbooks, will be celebrating the release of his latest cookbook New York – Les Recettes Culte (ed. Marabout) at Shakespeare and Company. Read more...

Please join us to celebrate the launch of The White Review No. 6, notably featuring interviews with China Mieville, Julia Kristeva and Edmund de Waal, fiction by Helen DeWitt, essays on J. H. Prynne and Bela Tarr, artwork by Matt Connors and poetry by Emily Berry.

To mark the release of this new edition, editors Jacques Testard and Benjamin Eastham have put together a panel to discuss the past, present and future of literary magazines, including Christian Lorentzen (Senior Editor at the London Review of Books and editor of Say What You Mean: The n+1 Anthology), Craig Taylor (Five Dials, and the author of Londoners), Heather Hartley (Paris editor of Tin House) and Krista Halverson (former managing editor of Zoetrope). Read more...

Shakespeare and Company presents Topsy Turvy Tales by Humpty Dumpty Publishing!

Topsy Turvy Tales is an illustrated gift book of tales by Charlotte Boulay-Goldsmith and Laura Hyde. Dark and twisted, heart-warming and fun, it has a Tim Burton and Edward Gorey quality.

This is the first title from exciting and energetic, new, all female publishing company Humpty Dumpty Publishing, who team together writers and illustrators to publish exquisite and affordable gift books with a twist.

Charlotte and Laura will be around if you’d like your copy signed; and, in the library, two of the tales from the book which have been adapted into animations, narrated by Maryam d’Abo and Bill Nighy, will be screening. There will also be wine, live music by Lady Merxck and other surprises! Read more...

The Pillow Project is a visiting American ‘Freejazz’ dance company for creating new ideas in spontaneous and experimental movement.

Chaplin’s first ‘talkie’, Modern Times (1936) is a satirical critique of the recently mechanized, fast-paced 20^th Century. Going from assembly line worker to accidentally leading a workers’ revolt, Chaplin gets himself involved in endless unexpected slapstick situations. Deliberately getting arrested to benefit from the hospitality on ‘the inside’ in contrast to the bleak economy on the outside, Chaplin eventually pairs up with a ‘gamin’, paving the way for a modern day fairytale.

Led by Frau Doktor Katy Masuga of Skidmore College, join us in the library for one of the greatest films of all time by the most legendary silent filmmaker of all time. Read more...

“One of the best and most original guitarists in America.” Rolling Stone Read more...

Children’s Hour – music, rhythm and stories for kids. Read more...

“A sharp satirical voice only predictable in its provocation” —Playboy Read more...

We are delighted to welcome musician Rhob Cunningham, who will be playing an acoustic set in the library. Read more...

“She is the reason I stopped slamming… Aja Monet writes with a spirit that makes me miss Brooklyn”
- Saul Williams Read more...

Buster Keaton’s Haunted House (1921) will have you scared silly! In the first half of this 22-minute silent film, Keaton finds himself literally in a very sticky situation in his job at the bank. From Wall Street to the walking dead, Keaton soon ends up running from counterfeiters and robbers right into the arms of disgruntled Faustian stage actors, mischievous ghosts, headless horsemen and living skeletons.

Led by Frau Doktor Katy Masuga of Skidmore College, join us for a light-hearted Halloween treat in the library with ‘The Great Stone Face’ of slapstick silent cinema.

Read more...

Writing with invention and savage insight, A.M. Homes lays bare the insecurities of contemporary American life in her new novel May We Be Forgiven, which she will discuss at this event. Read more...

Join us for beautiful music from Academy Award-winning Glen Hansard, principal songwriter and vocalist/guitarist for Irish group The Frames and one half of folk rock duo The Swell Season. Glen Hansard is also known for his acting – he has appeared in the BAFTA winning film The Commitments, and starred in the musical film Once. We’re thrilled to have him join us for this one off magical gig among our books… Come along! Read more...

Celebrate Picador’s 40th anniversary with Liza Klaussmann and Sunjeev Sahota. At the start of the event Adam Biles will read a short extract of his work as part of the New Writers’ series. Read more...

Please join us on Sunday, Oct. 21st at 7PM for a screening of Robert Wiene’s horror classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) in conjunction with an introduction to German Expressionism by Frau Doktor Katy Masuga. Read more...

Tonight, for Philosophers in the Library, Agnès Gayraud will discuss Simone de Beauvoir and ‘becoming a subject’. Read more...

Music, rhythm and stories for kids. Read more...

In collaboration with Sonatine Editions, we are thrilled to present the inimitable David Simon. Read more...

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Tonight we are honoured to welcome two of the world’s greatest translators, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volohonsky, presented by Dan Gunn. They will discuss the art of translation, read extracts of their work and answer questions. Read more...

The September edition of Philosophers in the Library will centre on the roots, troubles and redemption of American democracy. Led by Lex Paulson – a veteran of the Obama campaign and author of the “Applied Classics” series, who’s currently pursuing a philosophy PhD at the Sorbonne–the talk will explore the subject with the help of two illuminating texts, Polybius’s Histories and Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. A Greek captive in 2nd-century BC Rome, Polybius wrote the seminal account of how Rome’s balanced constitution accelerated her conquest of the known world; Rome’s republican system, in turn, was the primary influence upon America’s founding generation as its new republic was born. De Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat sent to study American prisons in the 1830’s, produced instead the most insightful, readable, and enduring account ever written on America and its civic life.

What light do these ancient texts shed on the campaign of 2012? Can American democracy, for all its dysfunction, still be saved? Read more...

Come and hear an acoustic concert (upstairs in the library or outside if it’s fine) with the stunning American musician Alyssa Graham. Blending ‘60s folk rock with hints of Neil Young, Nick Drake and Bob Dylan, Alyssa’s Lock, Stock & Soul has garnered praise from all corners including The Huffington Post, AOL Music, Paste Magazine, Daytrotter, Marie Claire and American Songwriter. Her debut album, Echo, was chosen by The New York Times as a Critics’ Choice CD. “The right voice…a sumptuous and flexible croon”— New York Times Read more...

Music, rhythm and stories for kids: Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs and stories in English (for all nationalities even those who don’t speak English!). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit. There will be instruments to play and noise to make! 4 euros donation appreciated. Read more...

Noel Riley Fitch, Rick Tulka and John Baxter will discuss the Paris café and its central role in art and literature. Why is the Paris café central to artistic history? How is the café portrayed in art and literature? What has the café offered the artist? What historical events have occurred in cafés? Why are its numbers diminishing and what future can we foresee? Read more...

Come for a *brief signing* (4pm-420pm) with Ron Rash, award-winning poet, short-story writer and novelist. Read more...

Granta’s John Freeman presents House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family and a Lost Middle East by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony Shadid, who passed away last year. John will be in discussion with one of France’s most acclaimed writers, Amin Maalouf; Shadid’s colleague from the Washington Post, Ed Cody; filmmaker Katia Jarjoura (and friend of Shadid’s) and Jihane Chouaib, the director of the documentary Dream Country. House of Stone ‘. . . offers a powerful reminder of the impact that never-ending insecurity has on people long after the violence that ruined their lives has been forgotten by the rest of the world.’ New York Times

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Upstairs in the library, Gerald Nicosia will treat us to a talk about On the Road, Jack Kerouac and his connection with the Beats. He will also read from his new book, One and Only: The Untold Story of On the Road, which tells of Kerouac’s famous novel from the point of view of the woman who sat between Jack and Neal, Lu Anne Henderson, who is called ‘Marylou’ in the novel. Read more...

It’s holiday time so this month our events are on hold until Friday 31 August – see you then! Read more...

We welcome Brazilian cellist / singer / songwriter Dom for an intimate concert at Shakespeare and Company. Read more...

In collaboration with NYU’s summer writing programme, come and hear acclaimed American writers Eileen Myles, Inferno, and Fiona Maazel, Last Last Chance. (Please note priority seating reserved for NYU students.) Read more...

In collaboration with NYU’s summer writing programme, join us for a mini-festival of American Poets with Brenda Shaughnessy, Mark Bibbins, Sherwin Bitsui, Rebecca Wolff and Paul Legault. (Please note priority seating reserved for NYU students.) Read more...

In collaboration with NYU’s summer writing programme, we present acclaimed American writers Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank; Helen Schulman, This Beautiful Life; and Rachel Zucker, Museum of Accidents. (Please note priority seating reserved for NYU students.) Read more...

In collaboration with NYU’s summer writing programme, we present acclaimed American poets Catherine Barnett, Matthew Rohrer and Deborah Landau. (Please note priority seating reserved for NYU students.)

Catherine Barnett is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, the Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers and a Pushcart Prize. Her book Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced won the 2003 Beatrice Hawley Award. Her new poetry collection, The Game of Boxes, is forthcoming in August 2012 from Graywolf Press. Barnett has taught at Barnard, the New School and NYU.

Matthew Rohrer is the author of A Hummock in the Malookas, Satellite, A Green Light, Rise Up, A Plate of Chicken, and Destroyer and Preserver. With Joshua Beckman he wrote Nice Hat. Thanks. and recorded the audio CD Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. Octopus Books published his action / adventure chapbook-length poem They All Seemed Asleep. He’s received various awards including a Pushcart Prize and was selected as a National Poetry Series winner. Recently he participated in residencies / performances at the Museum of Modern Art and the Henry Art Gallery.

Deborah Landau is the author of Orchidelirium (winner of the Anhinga Prize for Poetry) and The Last Usable Hour (a Lannan Literary Selection). Her poems, essays and reviews have appeared in various publications including The Paris Review, Tin House, American Literature, The Best American Erotic Poems and The Harvard Review. She was educated at Stanford, Columbia and Brown, where she was a Javits Fellow and received a PhD in English and American Literature. She currently co-hosts the video interview program Open Book on Slate.com and is the director of the NYU Creative Writing Programme. Read more...

In collaboration with NYU’s summer writing programme we present some of American’s most exciting writers, Dinaw Mengestu, Darin Strauss, Chris Adrian and Colson Whitehead, in a panel chaired by Granta’s John Freeman on The Worst, Terrible Thing. The writers will discuss how each of them has written into the heart of a horror (of some sort) and emerged with a story. Read more...

In collaboration with New York University’s summer writing programme we present one of America’s most original and influential writers and translators Lydia Davis. ‘Sharp, deft, ironic, understated, and consistently surprising.’ —Joyce Carol Oates ‘Davis is a magician of self-consciousness. Few writers now working make the words on the page matter more.’  —Jonathan Franzen Read more...

Come and celebrate Bloomsday with a selection of readings under the tree by acting students from Jacques Lecoq! Read more...

To celebrate Paris’s Marché de la Poésie join us for an evening of bilingual readings of Erotiques by one of our favourite American poets E.E.Cummings. There will be readings from Lola Peploe, Laura Piani and the book’s translator Jacques Demarcq. Published by Editions Seghers, this new bilingual French and English book is a collection of Cumming’s most beautiful poems and erotic drawings. http://www.editions-seghers.tm.fr/site/erotiques_&100&9782232123375.html Read more...

Lecture on Writing in the library by Debra Spark – The Trigger: Where Do Stories Come From? Where do writers get their ideas? Overheard conversations, personal history, dreams, stray remarks. This one-hour lecture talks about inspiration by referencing writers as various as Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Ivan Turgenev, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joan Didion, and John Irving. Read more...

In collaboration with Editions Stock, we’re thrilled to welcome Jennifer Egan to present her brilliant novel, and one of the most talked-about books in recent times, A Visit From The Goon Squad. It was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, a National Book Critics Circle Award Winner and a PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist. There will also be a short reading from the recently published French edition. ‘A spiky, shape-shifting new book. . . . A display of Egan’s extreme virtuosity.’
—The New York Times Read more...

Tonight in collaboration with Paris’s &Now Conference we welcome three of America’s most innovative writers, Robert Coover, Ben Marcus and Nick Flynn. Read more...

New Orleans-based ‘The Collective’ is visiting Paris with their show UnRoute at the Pavé d’Orsay at 20h on Friday 1st June, and will also be performing outside Shakespeare & Company on Saturday 2nd June at 5pm. UnRoute is a contemporary cabaret of theatrical vignettes presented from multiple viewpoints both in and out of our minds. Read more...

In collaboration with éditions Phébus and Albin Michel we welcome Australian writers Alex Miller and Chris Womersley. Alex will be reading from his acclaimed novel Lovesong ‘a wonderful writer, one that Australia has been keeping secret from the rest of us for too long.’ —John Banville. Chris will read from Bereft ‘a narrative that grips like a dingo’s jaws … This is a distinguishable novel’ —The Independent. There will also be an extract in French from both novels. Read more...

With éditions Christian Bourgois, we welcome Francisco Goldman who will be speaking about his prize-winning novel Say Her Name ‘A masterpiece of storytelling.’—Colm Toibin, The Guardian Read more...

Britain: The Paris Launch Granta launches it latest issue, themed Britain, with a night of readings and music. As the world prepares for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the summer Olympics, Granta is publishing a collection of poetry, memoir and fiction relating to Britain. Join one of Granta’s editors for a night of dramatic readings, wine and live music from British singer/songwriter Lail Arad. This event is part of a series of events that mark the launch of the latest issue of Granta magazine and explore the stories Britain is telling about itself today. Read more...

Music, rhythm and stories for kids: Bring your children (2-6 year-olds, siblings welcome too) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs and stories in English (for all nationalities even those who don’t speak English!). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit. There will be instruments to play and noise to make! 4 euros donation appreciated. Read more...

Outside under the tree (or upstairs in the library if it’s raining), listen to student presentations on the metaphysical poets led by their professor Katy Masuga. Read more...

We welcome British writer Deborah Levy who will read from her acclaimed novel Swimming Home, in which a group of beautiful, flawed tourists in the French Riviera come loose at the seams . . . Afterwards Deborah will be in conversation with Ben Eastham from The White  Review. With a short reading at the beginning of the evening by Lucy Gellman, as part of our New Writers Series*. Read more...

In the library (limited space, first in first seated): Celebrate the launch of anthology Vignettes & Postcards, Writings From the Evening Writing Workshop at Shakespeare and Company. The writers in this anthology were part of the workshop run by award-winning writer Erin Byrne at Shakespeare and Company and came from all over the world. Listen to the astounding stories they created there! Read more...

Bring your children (2-6 year-olds) to the library at Shakespeare and Company for an hour of music, songs and stories in English (for all nationalities even those who don’t speak English!). Led by the magic Kate Stables, mum and singer/songwriter from This is the Kit. There will be instruments to play and noise to make! Then for children over 7 years, there will be a game club afterwards with cards, scrabble, uno and many more games you might be tempted to play… Read more...

Come for the Paris launch of Alan S. Cowell’s latest novel The Paris Correspondent, a tribute to journalism, love, and liquor in a turbulent era. Written in riveting prose that captures the changing world of a foreign correspondent’s life, Alan S. Cowell’s razor-sharp and darkly funny style will capture us all. Read more...

Come and talk to Chris Pavone who will be signing copies of his new spy thriller The Expats, which has been getting rave reviews – as Patricia Cornwell says it’s ‘Bristling with suspense and elegantly crafted’. Read more...

We welcome Jeanette Winterson, one of the world’s great storytellers and a beloved friend of Shakespeare and Company, to talk about her memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? At times hilarious, at times painful, this brave and beautiful book is one you must read and the event one you cannot miss. ‘The most moving book of Winterson’s I have ever read… but it wriggles with humour…At one point I was crying so much I had tears in my ears. There is much here that is impressive, but what I find most unusual about it is the way it deepens one’s sympathy, for everyone involved’
- Guardian Read more...

We welcome Kate Tempest for an evening of rhymes and poetry. Kate is one of the UK’s most thrilling young performance poets. She has transfixed audiences all around the world with the power of her words and the strength of her performance, whether she is reciting Shakespeare, slam or her own poetry. *Note early time*

Kate Tempest is a writer. She writes rhymes, lyrics, poems and plays. She began at 16, rapping in battles across London, and began performing spoken word at 21. She’s performed her writing on stages all over the world, from Latvia, Stockholm, Paris, Berlin, Austria and Munich to Sydney and New York, as well as playing all the major UK and European music festivals, including Glastonbury, where her poetry was included in the televised highlights. She has written poems for Barnardo’s children’s charity, the BBC, Amnesty International, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Turner Prize winning artist Chris Offili. She is 2 x poetry slam winner at the prestigious Nu-Yorican poetry cafe in New York. She has supported Billy Bragg on a UK tour with her band Sound of Rum, whose debut album ‘Balance’ came out in 2011 on UK independent record label Sunday Best. Her first play ‘Wasted’ was commissioned by theatre company Paines Plough and tours the UK from March to May 2012. Her first full length poetry book ‘Everything Speaks in its Own Way’ is released in April 2012, with a CD and DVD of live performance and interviews, on her own publishing imprint ‘Zingaro’. Read more...

Philosophers in the Library: Lectures and discussion (no experience necessary)

Our new series in the library starts off with Darren Frey On God and Evil: The History of Theodicies: Why would a loving being with the power to change the course of events allow millions to be massacred in genocides? Why would such a being sanction the enormous disparities of today’s global economies? More intimately, how could a god capable of willing otherwise watch on as individuals face countless varieties of suffering, from grieving the loss of children to mourning failed relationships? Read more...

We are thrilled to welcome Lisa Hannigan to sing amongst the books at Shakespeare and Company in advance of her European tour. Lisa’s voice has a dreamy, magic lyricism combining the soulful edge of Nina Simone with the freshness of Joni Mitchell. As Herbie Hancock said of her vocals, ‘there’s so much jazz in the notes and phrases that she picks…I mean some of the things sound like choices that Miles would have made.’ Read more...

TRAVAILLER JAMAIS: Join us for songs of love, loss and liberty with Tom Hodgkinson. Tom is a British writer and editor of The Idler, an annual periodical that campaigns against the work ethic and promotes liberty, autonomy and responsibility. Tonight Tom will regale us with singing accompanied by ukulele and chat based around the themes of laziness and independence. Read more...

Tonight in collaboration with Albin Michel we welcome Donald Ray Pollock for his first literary event in France. He will read and discuss his new novel The Devil All The Time, a taut and gritty tale that will leave readers astonished and deeply moved. ‘Donald Ray Pollock’s engaging and proudly violent first novel…suggests a new category of fiction—grindhouse literary. Subtle characterization: check. Well-crafted sentences: check. Enthusiastic amounts of murder and mayhem: check, check.’—Daily Beast Read more...

In  collaboration with Granta, we welcome Justin Torres to read from his new novel and one of the most exciting books recently published, ‘an indelible and essential work of art.’ – Paul Harding (Pulitzer-winner). There will also be a short extract read in French. Read more...

Come and join us to find out all about the love lives of those artists and writers you admire. Tonight we welcome Dan Bullen the author of The Love Lives of the Artists and Lesley McDowell, the author of Between The Sheets, who will be in conversation, discussing these famous literary and artistic liaisons that have captured our imagination. Read more...

We welcome Caroline Brothers who will be reading from Hinterland, her exquisite, unsettling novel about refugees and what it is to be underage, homeless and invisible in a foreign land . . . Caroline Brothers has worked as a foreign correspondent in Europe and Latin America. She writes for the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times. Read more...

Come and watch a relaxed (and much-anticipated!) performance in the library with actors from Actors of L’École Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq including ex-tumbleweed Lorenza Gentile. They will perform Sure Thing a short play by David Ives. Read more...

With Carcanet Press, we are delighted to welcome five acclaimed poets and translators: Sasha Dugdale, Jane Draycott, Mimi Khalvati, Olivia McCannon and Stephen Romer. Come join us for a rare Parisian celebration of some of Carcanet’s finest poets. Read more...

With Editons Belfond we welcome Louise Doughty who will be reading from Whatever You Love, shortlisted for the Costa Novel Prize and longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. ‘Gripping, absorbing, beautifully constructed and written with great sensitivity.’ – Hilary Mantel ALSO the first in our New Writers Series, Irish poet Kerrie O’Brien, will read a selection of her work at the beginning of the evening. Read more...

It all started with the desire of two artists to collaborate and create a joint experiment. Tonight Brandon Ross and Celine Curiol will give an original performance, bringing together one’s music and the other’s words. Read more...

‘Sense may be all true and right, But Nonsense, thou art exquisite!’ Tonight come for a concert with French group Mister Lear – on the 150th anniversary of Edward Lear (1812-1888)! They combine Edward Lear’s lyrics with music for a lively and unforgettable performance. Acoustical, theatrical and somewhat eccentric! Be prepared to laugh (and cry). Read more...

WORKSHOP: Fred Leebron will give an interactive workshop on ‘Embracing the Difficult: Writing Beyond What’s Comfortable’, to help take your writing to the next level, for fiction writers, poets, and nonfiction writers.  This workshop will help you transcend your writing voice and establish new territories in your creative process. Fred Leebron, director of the Queens University MFA Program in Creative Writing, is working on an initiative to launch a European MFA Program beginning June 2012, and featuring Jayne Anne Phillips, Dinaw Mengestu, Aleksandar Hemon, Jeffrey Greene, Gwyneth Lewis, David St. John, Robert Antoni, and David Bezmozgis on its faculty. Free and open to all but limited space. Please email Fred directly for further details at fleebron@gettysburg.edu. Read more...

We welcome John Baxter who will share his love of Paris and read from The Most Beautiful Walk in The World. Paris is a pedestrian’s city—each block a revelation, every neighborhood a new feast for the senses, a place rich with history and romance at every turn. The Most Beautiful Walk in the World is your guide to the true, off-the-beaten-path heart of the City of Lights. Read more...

In collaboration with éditions Belfond we welcome prize-winning novelist Lionel Shriver who will be interviewed by Steven Gale. She will read from So Much for That, a searing, ruthlessly honest novel which has just been published in French.  ‘The rare novel that will shake and change you. With these wholly realistic and sympathetic characters, [Shriver] makes us consider the most existential questions of our lives and the dreadful calculus of modern health care in this country…. It’s a bitter pill, indeed, but take it if you can’ – Washington Post Read more...

Join us for a relaxed acoustic concert in the library with pop duo Carosel. Carosel is Irish singer songwriter Michelle Phelan & Guitarist/instrumentalist Pete McGrane. They perform catchy music with a retro charm and feel good vibe – hear a sample http://www.carosel.ie/music. Read more...

CANCELLED – apologies. Come and watch a relaxed performance in the library with actors from Paris theater school Jacques Lecoq including ex-tumbleweed Lorenza Gentile. They will perform Sure Thing a short play by David Ives. Read more...

Rescheduled to this FRI 6pm. The Suitcase Cinema comes to the Library of Shakespeare and Company to unravel their 16mm reel of À Valparaiso (1962) and create a light and film installation… Arrive on time for the live music intro by Carly Sings and the guys from the Basement in the piano room!  Read more...

We welcome two extraordinary musicians, singer/songwriter Piers Faccini and cellist/singer/songwriter Dom for an intimate collaborative concert. This will be an acoustic performance and seats are limited (60 places max, no reservation, first in the door – please note if full, it will not be possible to listen outside the bookshop as there will not be speakers this time). Read more...

Come and join Elena Azzoni who will be signing copies of her new memoir A Year Straight: Confessions of a Boy-Crazy Lesbian Beauty Queen ‘Frank, funny and revealing of relations between—and among—the sexes.’ – Kirkus Reviews Read more...

Poet and novelist Margo Berdeshevsky will read from Between Soul and Stone, her breathtaking new volume of poetry wrestling with the diabolical complexity of the human heart. Read more...

We are delighted to present a bilingual poetry reading with three prize-winning poets: Amina Saïd, Vénus Khoury-Ghata and Marilyn Hacker. Amina and Venus will read their poems in French and Marilyn will read her English translations of their work from Present Tense of the World and Nettles. Read more...

We welcome Geoff Dyer ‘One of the cleverest and funniest British writers currently drawing breath’ to speak about his novels Paris Trance and Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi. He will be in conversation with Dinaw Mengestu, the author of How to Read the Air, and one of The New Yorker’s ‘20 under 40′ best contemporary writers. Read more...

Barbara Will will be signing her new book Unlikely Collaboration: Gertrude Stein, Bernard Faÿ, and the Vichy Dilemma

In 1941, the Jewish American writer and avant-garde icon Gertrude Stein embarked on one of the strangest intellectual projects of her life: translating for an American audience the speeches of Marshal Philippe Pétain, head of state for the collaborationist Vichy government. Unlikely Collaboration pursues troubling questions: Why and under what circumstances would Stein undertake this project? The answers lie in Stein’s link to the man at the core of this controversy: Bernard Faÿ, Stein’s apparent Vichy protector . . . Read more...

Joyce Maynard will be signing copies of her celebrated novels Labor Day and The Good Daughters.

Joyce Maynard is the author of 14 books, including the novel To Die For and the best-selling memoir, At Home in the World—translated into 12 languages. Read more...

The White Review, a London-based arts and literature quarterly, comes to Shakespeare and Company accompanied by writer Will Self to present its third issue. Afterwards stay for music with The Melody Sheiks playing ’20s Americana. Read more...

We welcome the legendary Lenny Kaye, guitarist for Patti Smith and author of You Call It Madness: The Sensuous Song of the Croon, an impressionistic study of the romantic singers of the 1930s, from which he will read today. He will also treat us to a few songs. Read more...

In collaboration with Les Editions Plon, we welcome English novelist Marcel Theroux who will be reading from his latest book Far North. There will also be a reading in French from his novel The Paperchase which has just been released in French. ‘An engaging mystery and an illuminating story about family secrets and identity. the author’s deft descriptions of an angular childhood spiked with the soft humour of hindsight remain in the mind’ – The Times Read more...

We are thrilled to launch the latest issue of The Moth Magazine, the quarterly arts & literature magazine published in Ireland. Christine Dwyer Hickey will read from her acclaimed novel The Cold Eye of Heaven, the brilliant and elusive Robert McLiam Wilson will read something surprising, and prize-winning poet Rebecca O’Connor will read a selection of her work and some of her favourite poems from the last six issues of the magazine. Afterwards stay for the swinging tunes of a stupendous Parisian swing band The Swing Club. Read more...

A Tale of Three Cities, the first ever London/Paris/Berlin based Arts Journal is hosting an afternoon tea in the library at Shakespeare & Company to present their first issue. Read more...

Following its warm reception last August, The Note Well Listening Salon is delighted to visit Shakespeare & Co again. Alice Shyy & Co of The Note Well, a London-based music friendship project, will present and discuss a curated list of six songs with the theme of SPOOK MUSIC. You are cordially invited to come listen, learn, and share. We hope you will gain a new tune, a new friend, a new story. Upstairs in the Library at Shakespeare and Company. Read more...

We welcome Tristan Garcia one of the most exciting young novelists in France today. He will read from Hate: A Romance, which won the Prix de Flore in France and received critical acclaim when published in English earlier this year. ‘It’s frenetic and French, for a reader who knows Deleuze from Derrida, who will chuckle when Garcia refers to the “domestic troubles” of Althusser. . . taut and readable’ – The New York Times Read more...

In collaboration with Editions Christian Bourgois we welcome celebrated British author Edward St. Aubyn. He will read from At Last, a powerful reflection on pain and acceptance, and the treacheries of family. An extract will also be read in French. Read more...

We are delighted to welcome Etgar Keret for a relaxed signing of his books (in English). Part Kafka, part Vonnegut, with the concerns and comedic delivery of Woody Allen, Etgar Keret is a brilliant and original master of the short story. Hilarious, witty, and always unusual, Keret is ‘A brilliant writer…completely unlike any writer I know. The voice of the next generation.’ — Salman Rushdie Read more...

Tonight we welcome Janine di Giovanni who will read from and discuss her new book Ghosts by Daylight: a Memoir of War and Love –  ‘Ghosts by Daylight, just like its author, is brave, heroically and elegantly told, and brutally honest’ – Fatima Bhutto Read more...

Katy Masuga, author of Henry Miller and How He Got That Way and The Secret Violence of Henry Miller, treats us to a talk on Miller and his freewheeling writing style, looking at how we learn from Miller how not to trust literature but also how to live in literature. Read more...

Acoustic Sessions at Shakespeare and Company: Come for an intimate concert with This is the Kit and The Magic Lantern. Kate Stables of This is the Kit has a voice of unaffected clarity, creating songs of unpretentious beauty. The Magic Lantern have an arresting sound, wringing emotion from the strangest places, sounding happy, sad, frustrated and vulnerable, often at the same time. Read more...

We welcome Tariq Ali, writer, filmmaker and editor of New Left Review. Tariq has written more than a dozen books on world history and politics, as well as scripts for the stage and screen.  Interviewed by writer and publisher Charles Glass, Tariq will be discussing his latest book, The Obama Syndrome, ‘Ali remains an outlier and in intellectual bomb-thrower; an urbane, Oxford-educated polemicist.’ Observer Read more...

Using principles found in his book You Can Act: a complete guide for actors, D.W. Brown, along with his wife the legendary acting teacher Joanne Baron, will provide an introduction to the method of acting (the Meisner Technique) that has come to define American Method Acting. They will describe how an actor can best serve a script, making strong interpretive choices, yet still render a performance that is excitingly fresh and uncluttered.  This seminar will be held upstairs in the library/limited places. Read more...

Tonight we welcome award-winning author Bobbie Ann Mason to read from her latest book The Girl in the Blue Beret, a beautiful and affecting story of love and courage, war and redemption, about an American World War II pilot shot down in Occupied Europe. “Bobbie Ann Mason is one of those rare writers who, by concentrating their attention on a few square miles of native turf, are able to open up new and surprisingly wide worlds for the delighted reader.”—The New York Review of Books Read more...

Join Max Weinbach upstairs in our little piano room this Saturday at 4pm as he plays and sings classic tunes ranging from Ellington to Sinatra. He may even play one or two of his own. Please note – this a relaxed gathering and space is limited to 10-15 people. Read more...

We are thrilled to launch Nikolai Grozni’s extraordinary Wunderkind, a novel about music, genius and obsession set in cold war Sofia’s music school for the gifted: ‘Wunderkind is a gift for all the senses. Nikolai Grozni’s shimmering, visceral prose unfurls like music, as if a baby grand served as his infernal typewriter.’ – Patti Smith. Afterwards there will be more music by NZ folk musician Flip Grater. Read more...

Book your tickets for our 1st edition of Standing Room at Le Trianon Montmartre – bringing a particular mix of music and UK spoken word to Paris. With singer songwriter Piers Faccini and spoken word queen Francesca Beard, called ‘brilliant’ by the Scotsman, ’spine-tingling’ by the Independent. ‘Piers Faccini’s music is rooted in English folk, American blues, traditional West African music and taranta from southern Italy . . . his whisper of a voice floats above his guitar and gentle polyrhythmic percussion to create an environment that’s captivating, quietly insistent and delicate but not fragile . . .’ – Wall St Journal

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We welcome Swedish songbird Vera Vinter for a casual acoustic concert at Shakespeare and Company (outside the bookshop or upstairs in the library). Vera’s music is dreamy and passionate telling stories of  Swedish folklore in the unique dialect called Kalixmål. Read more...

Come for a relaxed/intimate screening of ‘Tumbleweeds: the Lost-beat Generation’, Miki Gallasch’s doc(mock)umentary about the writers and artists who live in Shakespeare and Company. A volatile hipster who no matter what cannot NOT be a hipster, a beautiful 14-year-old who turns her sex-life into art, an Englishman who’s attempting to outdo Joyce, a drunkard who thinks he’s Hemingway, and a potential genius who hardly says a word. Read more...

Join us for a relaxed reading upstairs in the library with Willis Barnstone, poet, translator, biblical scolar, memoirist, anthologist and artist. A man who speaks of knowing Borges as others speak of their best friends. A Guggenheim fellow, he has four times been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, and has had four Book of the Month Club selections. His poetry has appeared in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, The New York Review of Books, and The Times Literary Supplement. “I wish Willis would stop stealing my French poems. He’s taken all the languages. It’s easy if you have ten tongues. I’ll show him, that Baudelairian, that maitre.”—Gerald Stern Read more...

2.30-3pm Come and meet the delightful Simon Van Booy who will be signing his new novel Everything Beautiful Began After “A powerful meditation on the undying nature of love and the often cruel beauty of one’s own fate. This is a novel you simply must read!” —Andre Dubus III, New York Times bestselling author Read more...

This afternoon, hidden in one of the many book-laden corners at Shakespeare and Company, Leanne Shapton (leanneshapton.com) will be painting wooden book blocks from 4pm. You might see her working in the piano room, upstairs in the library or in the children’s section next to the mirror of love. At 6pm there will be a Q&A upstairs in the library. Read more...

Come and celebrate a new anthology of poetry and fiction about Paris, Strangers in Paris, launched by editor David Barnes, with readings by various contributors. ‘A rich collection of writings . . .  parade the allees, avenues, rues, ruelles, gardens, boardrooms, academic hallways, bedrooms and dining rooms of Paris in all its seasons, to reflect on place and nation, on self, on language and the making of stories and poems, the mind turning round itself in its wanderings.’—Jennifer K Dick Read more...

In collaboration with NYU: Join us for a discussion led by Joanna Yas (Open City) on Literary Publishing with Michael Wiegers (Copper Canyon Press) and Jennifer Barth (HarperCollins). Read more...

In collaboration with NYU, Lorin Stein will discuss The Paris Review. Lorin Stein is a critic, editor and translator and the third editor of The Paris Review since succeeding Philip Gourevitch in 2010. He worked as an editor at FSG who also published his translation of The Mystery Guest by Gregoire Bouillier and has also translated Tristan Garcia’s Hate: A Love Story from the French. Books edited by Stein have received the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award and his translations from French have appeared in The New York Review of Books, Harper’s and more. Read more...

Welcome Ellyn Maybe, lyrical poet and hippy lovechild of Gertrude Stein and Allen Ginsberg! – ‘Ellyn Maybe is an irresistible force. To read or listen to her poetry is to be gently and completely crushed while simultaneously inspired and charmed.’ – Henry Rollins. Come and be crushed by her poetry this afternoon as she performs outside under the tree. Read more...

In collaboration with NYU a night of exceptional poetry with celebrated American writers Matthew Rohrer, Dan Chiasson and Deborah Landau followed by tap and jazz. Read more...

Join us upstairs in the library or outside the bookshop, to hear Emanuel Xavier recite his poetry. American author and editor, he is also a spoken word performer, whose latest poetry collection is If Jesus Were Gay & other poems.  He has been featured on Def Poetry on American cable television network HBO and his spoken word/music compilation CD, Legendary- The Spoken Word Poetry of Emanuel Xavier, is available for download on iTunes.  His background is South American and Puerto Rican and he was born, raised, and continues to live in New York City. Read more...

Join the editor of Granta, John Freeman leading a panel discussion on God and Fiction with three of America’s most exciting writers Aleksandar Hemon, Nathan Englander and Chris Adrian. The evening will start with a reading by the authors from their work. Please note there will be standing room only at these events as most seats are reserved for NYU students. Read more...

We are honoured to present the Editor of The New York Review of Books, Robert Silvers who will be interviewed by journalist and writer Mark Gevisser about his illustrious history at The New York Review of Books. Read more...

We welcome Priya Basil to read from her provocative novel The Obscure Logic of the Heart. ‘A searing love story … burns and scorches with wry conviction about young love that refuses to say die.’- India Today Read more...

Cancelled because of Rain – Sorry! In front of Shakespeare and Co Lecoq trained companies Rhum and Clay and Clout will give a special preview of their performance for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Through devised imaginative play, absurdism and clowning these new and exciting companies will be presenting their innovative work. (Standing room only) Read more...

To celebrate Bloomsday, Stephen Crowe will display a selection of pieces at Shakespeare and Co from Wake in Progress, his ongoing project to illustrate every page of Finnegans Wake. Note – while this is not a specific event, Stephen’s art will be on display from Bloomsday and then for the following week. Read more...

We are thrilled to welcome Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler, who will read from his latest novel Hell. ‘The prose flows in a seemingly effortless stream . . . [leading] to complex and exquisitely written set pieces of inspired insight into the sinful and broken nature of humanity.’ —News and Observer Read more...

Join us for an unforgettable evening of fiction with Paul Harding, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Tinkers ‘Writing with breathtaking lyricism and tenderness, Harding has created a rare and beautiful novel of spiritual inheritance and acute psychological and metaphysical suspense.’ —Booklist. Read more...

Tonight we welcome celebrated American poet Jack Hirschman at 6.30pm followed by Yale University’s world-renowned a cappella singing group Redhot & Blue at 7.15pm. Read more...

Tonight we welcome Tatiana de Rosnay who will read from her latest novel A Secret Kept and for the first time read an extract in English of her new novel Rose which will be out in the US and UK next year. ‘De Rosnay’s writing is eloquent and beautiful, and her characterizations are both honest and dead-on[...]’ –Kirkus Read more...

We are thrilled to present Shakespeare expert and prize-winnng author Professor James Shapiro, to speak about his latest book Contested Will – who did write Shakespeare’s plays? And why does it matter so much to us? James Shapiro’s fascinating search for the source of this controversy retraces a path strewn with fabricated documents, calls for trials, false claimants, concealed identity, bald-faced deception and a failure to grasp what could not be imagined.  ‘ . . . riverting . . .’ Hilary Mantel Read more...

I DON’T READ FICTION BUT MY WIFE DOES. WOULD YOU SIGN THE BOOK TO HER? Tonight Siri Hustvedt and Celine Curiol are in conversation about the strange cultural biases against fiction in general, and fiction written by women in particular. Is the novel a feminine? What do sex and gender mean in a literary form? It is true that all over the world women consume far more fiction than men. Why? What is at work here? More questions, some possible answers, several jokes, and a lively dialogue are guaranteed. Read more...

Tonight Moriarty will play from their new album The Missing Room at Shakespeare and Co. Moriarty are one of the most electrifying bands of the moment. The lead singer Rosemary’s voice is like sweet molasses and the music brings backs memories and creates them the way the best music does. They have a sensual, melancholic yet joyful folky sound reminiscent of Billie Holiday, Massive Attack, Neil Young and Tom Waits http://www.myspace.com/moriartylands  (* LIMITED SPACE, standing room only *) Read more...

Shakespeare and Company welcomes the erudite Leslie Dunton-Downer to discuss timely questions about the evolution of the English language and the role French played in this evolution. Her recent book is The English is Coming! How one language is sweeping the world. ‘A fascinating intellectual romp through the past and the future of the English language.  Like the best cocktail party conversation you’ve ever had, this book is smart, engaging, unpredictable, and leaves you wanting more. Leslie Dunton-Downer has created a masterpiece. If you like words, you will love this book.’ – Steven D. Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics Read more...

Tonight Ros and Chloe Schwartz will be discussing the challenges they faced in translating The Little Prince, giving a unique insight into the translation process. There will be a signing afterwards at 6.30pm. “Creating a new translation of any classic is daunting, but the mother-and-daughter team of Ros and Chloe Schwartz have more than met the challenge in their delightful, poignant version of Saint-Exupéry’s most famous work” the Times Literary Supplement. Read more...

Tonight we welcome Alan Riding to discuss his fascinating book And the Show Went On: Cultural life in Nazi occupied Paris ‘Enthralling and disturbing… And the Show Went On describes this history in gripping and painful detail.’ – The New York Times Book Review Read more...

Hollywood screenwriter Tracey Jackson will read from her new book Between a Rock and a Hot Place, part memoir, part self-help and a comedic look at aging. Read more...

Tonight we will be hosting a very special event with French writer Stéphane Hessel, author of the wildly popular Indignez-Vous !, now published for the first time in English as Time For Outrage by Charles Glass Books. Hessel, resistance fighter and concentration camp survivor, tells the youth of today that their lives and liberties are worth fighting for. Read more...

Editor and translator Helen Constantine joins us to read from her new book of collected stories by a wide range of French authors going from Zola and Balzac to Delerm and Boulanger, about the Paris underground: Paris Metro Tales. Read more...

After years of admiration spent devouring his books, we are thrilled to present Peter Carey, one of the most remarkable writers today. He will be reading from his latest novel Parrot and Olivier in America, an improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville, and an irrepressibly funny portrait of the impossible friendship between a master and a servant.

‘Peter Carey is a wily seducer, a mental acrobat who can bound across continents and centuries and make us believe in whatever world he has discovered and imagined . . . it’s possibly the most charming and engaging novel this demon of a story-teller has yet written. His prose has never been more buoyant, more vigorous, more musical. Open this book and listen to Peter Carey sing.’ —Paul Auster Read more...

Alan Jenkins, prize-winning author of the collections The Drift, Harm and A Shorter Life, returns to Shakespeare and Company to read his new book of poems, Blue Days (The Sailor’s Return). Read more...

Roll up! Roll up! In order to celebrate the second issue of Vestoj – The Journal of Sartorial Matters, themed around fashion and magic, we invite you to an evening of ‘Magic for Beginners’. Read more...

Come and get a special edition of Yvon’s Paris, signed for you by Robert Stevens. This is an elegant and poetic collection of photographs which captures the magic of Paris at its most photogenic—the way many of us romantically wish it still were. Read more...

(*Pleaes note this event is not open to the public and all places have been filled already.) We’ve been living up to our name in a new way by holding readings of Shakespeare plays, hosted by Leslie Dunton-Downer and Alan Riding, authors of The Essential Shakespeare Handbook.  Read more...

In celebration of Bloodaxe’s anthology Identity Parade: New British and Irish Poetry, there will be a night of poetry from some of the most interesting poets today. Featuring prize-winning poets A.B. Jackson, Annie Freud, Sally Read, Ahren Warner and editor and poet Roddy Lumsden, Identity Parade presents new British and Irish poetry at a time of great vibrancy and variety. Read more...

Join Amy Sackville, recent winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys prize, who will discuss and read from her poignant novel The Still Point. ‘If Virginia Woolf had had a younger sister with a passionate interest in icebergs, she might have written something like this beautiful, unearthly novel, in which the secrets of a house and of a marriage continually open out onto a wild glare of Arctic light.’ Francis Spufford Read more...

Acclaimed writer Peter Manseau will read from his prize-winning novel Songs for the Butcher’s Daughter which will be published in February here in France by Editions Christian Bourgois. An extract will also be read in French by the translator Antoine Cazé. Read more...

Adam Thirlwell, one of the most exciting British novelists today, will read from The Escape and possibly a selection of other work. ‘A novel where the humor is melancholic, the melancholy mischievous, and the talent startling.’ —Milan Kundera « Un roman dont l’humour est mélancolique, la mélancolie malicieuse et le talent impressionnant. » Read more...

There will be a selection of readings launching the latest issue of literary magazine Chimera/ Chimère: participants include Michel Deguy, winner of the Prix Goncourt de France, and the Mallarmé Academy’s Grand Prize; Katherine Gallagher, the Australian poet; Patrick Chapman, the Irish writer; Adam Biles, editor of Gulper Eel; Philip Wilson, the translator; and last but not least, Rufo Quintavalle, editor of nthposition and Upstairs at Duroc. Read more...

Join us out the front of Shakespeare and Company with Jazmin & the Berets, a three-piece musical outfit comprising the talents of tap dancer/cabaret performer Jazmin Baret, singer/ guitarist John Matthews and saxophonist Michael O’Dougherty. Read more...

Seeing Krystle Warren perform for the first time is a striking experience – tonight come and experience the poetry of her music, the poetry of her voice surrounded by books at Shakespeare and Co. Krystle’s vocal stylings feature a melisma as rich as that of Wonder or Hathaway, fusing styles of folk and country, and influences of artists ranging from Nick Drake to Joni Mitchell to Willie Nelson. B. LIMITED STANDING ROOM. Read more...

We are honoured to present Thad Carhart, acclaimed bestselling author of The Piano Shop on the Left Bank. Thad will be reading from his new historical novel Across the Endless River, the story of Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, the son of Sacagawea, and his intriguing sojourn as a young man in 1820s Europe. Read more...

Tonight we welcome Michael Scott Moore and Christine Buckley. Michael is the author of Sweetness and Blood an elegant and surprising history of surfing that examines its cultural influence in some of the most unexpected places. Christine is the co-author of Slave Hunter: One Man’s Global Quest to Free Victims of Human Trafficking and a contributor to Best Women Travel Writing 2010 – she will be reading an extract from this anthology and her memoir-in-progress about her Vietnamese family. Read more...

Tonight we are delighted to welcome Alberto Manguel, internationally acclaimed novelist, essayist, anthologist, translator and editor. Manguel will be speaking about fiction and will treat us to a short reading from one of his novels. ‘Books jump out of their jackets when Manguel opens them and dance in delight as they make contact with his ingenious, voluminous brain. He is not the keeper of a silent cemetery, but a master of bibliographical revels.’—Peter Conrad, The Observer Read more...

Come for a book signing with Ben Crystal (Shakespeare on Toast) and David Crystal (The Stories of English). ‘David Crystal is not just a great linguist, but a true champion and lover of language.’—Benjamin Zephaniah Read more...

An evening of poetry with two of Paris’s most celebrated poets Ellen Hinsey and Jeffrey Greene. Both writers have various collections of poetry and been published in The New Yorker, Poetry, Poetry Review among other publications. Read more...

Come and join us to hear Shakespeare upstairs in the library at Shakespeare and Company. Neil Patrick Stewart from the American Repertory Theatre will read a passage from Julius Caesar in anticipation of the production of Julius Caesar showing mid- November at Théâtre Gérard Philipe in Saint Denis just outside of Paris. Afterwards there will be a short discussion of this particular production. Read more...

Come and join us for an evening of short fiction, poetry and translation in collaboration with independent press CB Editions. Publisher Charles Boyle will present both Beverley Bie Brahic, poet and translator of Francis Ponge and celebrated short story writer & novelist Gabriel Josipovici. Read more...

Tonight we welcome esteemed writer and journalist Charles Glass to discuss his latest book Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under the Nazi Occupation 1940–1944. This is an elegantly written and highly informative account of a group of Americans living in Paris when the city fell to the Nazis in June 1940. ‘Rich in intrigue and heroism … for anyone interested in France during this period it is a fascinating treat.’ Antony Beevor Read more...

WORD the first open mic/slam/improvisation night upstairs in the library at Shakespeare and Company. Featuring musician extraordinaire Thos Henley. Everyone welcome to watch or participate! Read more...

Thomas E. Kennedy will read from In the Company of Angels, a luminous love story about a Chilean torture survivor. ‘Thomas E. Kennedy is an astonishment, and In the Company of Angels is as elegant as it is beautiful, as important as it profound. A marvel of a read.’ —Junot Dìaz, Pulitzer Prize Winner Read more...

Tonight we welcome British journalists Ed Howker and Shiv Malik who will be discussing The Jilted Generation. This much-talked-about book tells the sad, maddening story of how their generation’s future, once alive with possibility is being strangled by the culture of short-terminism. Radical, angry, passionate. Read more...

Join us for a discussion about Haifa, the subject of the latest issue of Mediterraneans, with the founding editor of the review, Kenneth Brown and journalist and political activist Dominique Vidal. Read more...

At the BNF (Bibliotheque National Francaise), Quai Francois Mauriac 13eme: Famed writer Michael Moorcock, author of Mother London, the Jerry Cornelius novels and the epic fantasy Elric cycle, will be reading, talking and signing his books. This is part of a continuing programme in association with New York University in Paris. Read more...

Leigh Hobbs will give a special signing of his wonderful books for children including the latest Mr Chicken Goes to Paris – Mr Chicken loves to travel and so when his French friend Yvette invites him to visit, he studies his maps, grabs his cambera and catches a taxi to the airport. Bring your kids along! (Signing only not reading) Read more...

Tonight Anne Marsella will read from The Baby of Belleville, a delightful novel filled with intrigue, eccentric characters and many surprises.  Anne Marsella will be introduced by Susan Marson, author of Le Temps de L’autobiographie, Violette Leduc ou la mort avant la lettre.  Read more...

In collaboration with Festival America at Vincennes we present two of America’s most exciting writers Nick Flynn and Adam Haslett who will be reading from a selection of their work. Afterwards stay for piano music (upstairs) with jazz maestro Steve Tromans. Read more...

Tonight there is a special performance just outside Shakespeare and Company (please note the play will be cancelled if there is rain). Eva the Chaste, a new monologue play by Barbara Hammond, takes place in that hour when night turns to dawn on a June morning on Dublin’s Coast Road, where, after 20 years in Paris, Eva has returned to her birthplace to face the consequences of an act of love. Read more...

Tonight, with éditions Belfond, we welcome Richard Flanagan, one of the most original and impressive novelists working in the English language today. He will be reading from Wanting, a novel of magnificent power and reach. ‘One of the best novels of this year…’ The Times Read more...

Mingmei Yip will read from her latest novel Petals from the Sky, a Buddhist, interracial love story set in Hong Kong, Manhattan and Paris. Mingmei is also a professional qin musician and after her reading she will treat us to a special performance. ‘Yip’s second novel is a serious, engaging story of faith, devotion, and the commingling of cultures.’ – Booklist Read more...

After the Sunday afternoon tea party chez George, join us in the Shakespeare and Company library to hear John Kirby Abraham speak about his new book Paris Made Me…We are delighted to present John, after he has presented many readers in the past at Shakespeare and Company. Read more...

The Note Well Salon makes its international debut with BOOK MUSIC, a night of literary-themed music. Read more...

Andrew Kaufman will read from his new novel The Waterproof Bible, a magical story of love and the isolation that defines the modern condition. This is a wholly original allegorical tale that is both emotionally resonant and outlandishly fun. Read more...

Please note the event with Andrew O’Hagan has been cancelled this coming Monday 26 July. Read more...

Come and celebrate the launch of Going Back at Granta’s first-ever event in Paris. Join Pulitzer Prize-winning poet C. K. Williams,  O. Henry Story Prize-winner Mavis Gallant and Vogue Young Writer’s  Award-winner Owen Sheers in conversation with Granta Editor John Freeman about Memory and Writing. Read more...

Tonight come and join us for two exhilarating readings with Jonathan Lethem & Helen Schulman - the finale of this year’s collaboration with New York University in Paris. Read more...

In collaboration with New York University in Paris, Nathan Englander, author of The Ministry of Special Cases and Darin Strauss of Chang and Eng fame, will be joining us to read a selection of their work. Read more...

In collaboration with New York University in Paris, we are delighted to present celebrated poets Dan Chiasson, Yusef Komunyakaa and Meghan O’Rourke who will be joining us to read a selection of their work. Read more...

*Exceptional time*. We are thrilled to present Booker Prize-winning author Yann Martel who will read from his much anticipated new novel Beatrice and Virgil. With all the spirit and originality that made Life of Pi so treasured, this brilliant new novel takes the reader on a haunting odyssey and asks profound questions about life and art, truth and deception, responsibility and complicity. Read more...

As part of the Mairie de Paris literary festival Paris en toutes lettres, tonight we have a special evening dedicated to the founder of the original Shakespeare and Company, Sylvia Beach. Keri Walsh, the editor of recently released The Letters of Sylvia Beach will discuss the life of this formidable woman as revealed through her correspondence. Read more...

In his youth, James Frey spent many an afternoon at Shakespeare and Company and tonight we have the pleasure of welcoming him back into the fold. James Frey is the bestselling author of A Million Little Pieces, My Friend Leonard and more recently, a novel about LA, Bright Shiny Morning.  ‘A furiously good storyteller’ – New York Times

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Shakespeare and Company is thrilled to welcome Pulitzer Prize winning author Marilynne Robinson, ‘one of America’s greatest – and most singular – contemporary novelists’. The Guardian. Read more...

Cecilia Woloch’s Paris Poetry Workshop returns to Shakespeare and Company:  A tradition for local and visiting poets, this May workshop is in its ninth year, reuniting English speaking poets from various corners of the map.  We have many publications to celebrate this year – faculty and participants alike –so this grand finale is not to be missed.  Come meet the poets and hear their latest work: Pam Davis, Kim Noriega, Elizabeth Iannaci, Betzi Richardson, Hope Alvarado, Elizabeth Marshall, Maria Ruiz, Eve Hoffman, Cheryl Passanisi, Shannon Burns, and Suzanne Allen. Read more...

Tonight we welcome Assaf Gavron, one of Israel’s most exciting writers, to read from CrocAttack!/Almost Dead, his provocative, gripping and tragicomic novel about the perfectly ordinary madness that resides in the Middle East. ‘Blasts right through the cliches and the politically correct surface to touch the chaotic and ambiguous core of the Israeli identity.’ – Etgar Keret Read more...

Rob Stephenson will read from Passes Through. In language that is frank and uncompromising this debut novel moves forward in a rare and daring manner. Read more...

The St. Petersburg Review present Kenyan writers Parselelo Kantai and Mukoma Wa Ngugi, both shortlisted for the Caine Prize in 2009. Parselelo Kantai is a writer and investigative journalist who writes short fiction and is currently working on a novel. Mukoma Wa Ngugi is the author of Nairobi Heat and Hurling Words at Consciousness. Read more...

Magda Danysz will present her groundbreaking new book From Style Writing to Art, the first Street Art anthology ever published. She will be talking about why style writing/graffiti/street art is turning out to be the major art movement at this turn of the century. Magda will also be in discussion with Seen, the Godfather of graffiti. Read more...

Tonight award-winning author Yiyun Li will read from her novel The Vagrants followed by a short extract read in French. “Yiyun Li has written a book that is as important politically as it is artistically. The Vagrants is an enormous achievement.” – Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto Read more...

Irene Vilar will be reading from her acclaimed memoir Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict and will also discuss her previous book The Ladies’ Gallery. ‘A writer of extraordinary passion, erudition, and intelligence’ – Tobias Wolff Read more...

Publishing icon John Calder will read from his new book of poetry Solo, and discuss his past and present publishing activities. Read more...

Tonight come and join us to hear Dom Gabrielli read from his recently published book of poetry, The Parallel Body. This is the second fascinating collaboration of poetry and art between Dom and his brother Piers Faccini, the painter and musican. Piers will accompany some of the poems on guitar. Read more...

Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier will be discussing their new translation of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir which marks the 60th anniversary of publication. They have produced the first integral translation, reinstating a third of the original work. Read more...

Author and artist Roma Tearne will read from her acclaimed novels Bone China and Brixton Beach and present her Paris sketchbooks to the audience. She will also talk about the importance of memory for migrants and what made her start to write after having been a painter for so many years. Read more...

Chloe Aridjis will be reading from Book of Clouds, winner of the Prix du Premier Roman Etranger 2009. It is a haunting, masterfully wrought debut novel about a young woman adrift in Berlin, where a string of fateful encounters leads to romance, violence, and revelation. Read more...

A reading and wine tasting with writer Kristin Espinasse and her husband, winemaker Jean-Marc Espinasse (Domaine Rouge-Bleu). Read more...

Songbirds Kate Stables and Erica Buettner will be singing and performing acoustically ! Both are exquisite, lyrical musicians and writers… They will be joined by poet Colin Mahar. Read more...

Janet Skeslien Charles will be reading from Moonlight in Odessa published by Bloomsbury and chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of their top ten debut novels this autumn. Read more...

Wendell Steavenson will be reading from The Weight of a Mustard Seed. This book tells the story of Iraq from the inside out, giving a portrait of the Iraqis behind the headlines ‘a masterly and elegantly told story that weaves together the Iraqi past and present.’ – The New York Times. Read more...

Join us to celebrate the launch of Heather Hartley’s brilliant new book of poetry, Knock Knock, published by Carnegie Mellon University Press. ‘Heather Hartley writes the kind of poetry many of us are starved for, a poetry without borders, Read more...

In Paris for the publication in French of The End, finalist for the National Book Award Salvatore Scibona will read from his prize winning novel. Excepts will also be read in French. The English paperback edition was published in Fall 2009.

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Margo Berdeshevsky will be reading from her new book of short stories Beautiful Soon Enough. Read more...

A special reading from celebrated author and critic Luc Sante, who is in Paris for Christian Boltanski’s Monumenta exhibition at the Grand Palais. Read more...

In Paris for the publication in French of The Hour I First Believed (Le Chagrin et la Grâce), the New York Times bestselling author Wally Lamb will be with us for a signing of his books and some mulled wine ! Read more...

We are honoured to present prize-winning poet Marilyn Hacker as she reads from her new book of poetry Names. ‘Hacker is, to use a trite term, a major poet. More than that she is exciting and true.’—George Szirtes. Read more...

For the first reading of 2010 Anita Michaels and Patricia Page will read from a selection of their work. Anita will read new Poems on China and identity and Patricia will read from her novel about Paris, Clean Start. Read more...

Tonight join author Jeff Koehler who will discuss his new cookbook Rice Pasta Couscous, the unity of these three grand staples and their similarities around the Mediterranean – their cultural and historical significance and their role at the center of celebrations, traditions, family meals and life’s transitions. Read more...

Jacques Réda, celebrated French poet, and jazz critique will read from Suburban Beauty his book of poetry, just published by Gival Press. The poems will be read in English by his American translator Peter Schulman. This will be a bilingual event. Read more...

Tonight is a special Christmas event with Roy Howat who will read extracts from his new book The Art of French Piano Music: Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Chabrier that has just won the Book of the Year Award in the International Piano Awards for 2009. He will then play certain pieces on the piano. Read more...

Come for an evening of poetry and fiction with celebrated American authors Thaddeus Rutkowski and Charles D’Ambrosio. Read more...

Join us for a special tour with Michael Schuermann, author of Paris Movie Walks. Michael will take you to his specially chosen Parisian haunts, passing Notre Dame Cathedral and exploring the Rive Gauche as he describes classics such as An American in Paris, A Bout de Souffle… The walk is free – just turn up and come along! Read more...

French poet Celine Zins, will reading in French from her collection of poetry Adamah and her American translator Peter Schulman will be reading his English version. Celine and Peter will also talk about the caveats and collaborative techniques of translation. This is a bilingual event. Read more...

We are thrilled to announce prize-winning novelist, critic and cultural historian Marina Warner will read from her new work-in-progress, a novel inspired by her father’s bookshop in Egypt in the Fifties and will discuss her writing on the 1001 nights. Read more...

Marina Temkina, artist and author of What do you Want? and French poet Zeno Bianu will read a selection of their work. This event will mainly be in English with Zeno reading his poems in French. Read more...

Shakespeare and Company’s writer-in-residence, Michael Smith will be reading a selection of his work including his novel, The Giro Playboy, a twenty-first century beat classic in the making. It’s an utterly charming miniature picaresque and a portrait of a life blissfully unmoored. Read more...

Award-winning travel writer and journalist Rosemary Bailey will be reading from Love and War in the Pyrenees, winner of the British Guild of Travel Writers Award for best narrative travel book. One of the main characters, Jean Kohn, will be an honoured guest at the event. Read more...

Laurence Korb and Liliane Lefèvre will be reading from their fourth Victor Legris mystery, The Marais Assassin. Read more...

Sir Alistair Horne will be reading from his compelling new book Kissinger 1973, The Crucial Year and talking about ‘the man at the epicentre of events that shook the decade’. Read more...

Jim Christy will be reading a selection of his work and Simon Lane will be launching his new book of short stories The Real Illusion. Read more...

David Waller will be reading from The Magnificient Mrs Tennant. Read more...

London’s most intriguing literary magazine, Five Dials, launches its eighth issue, the Paris issue, at Shakespeare and Company. The evening will feature a reading by authors Steve Toltz (A Fraction of the Whole) and Joe Dunthorne (Submarine), and others. The magazine will be sent out to thousands of readers around the world at 11pm.

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Sarah Hesketh will be reading from her collection of poetry Napoleon’s Travelling Bookshelf. Read more...

Michelle Tea and Sister Spit: The Next Generation, a “literary celebration of outspoken and courageous feminists” (The Independent Weekly magazine) from San Francisco, will be performing their poetry at Shakespeare and Company. Read more...

Mark Gevisser will be reading from his award-winning biography A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream and in conversation with Janine Di Giovanni about South Africa and its prospects for the future under Jacob Zuma.

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We are thrilled to present Dave Eggers who will be speaking about Sudan and his recent book What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Read more...

Josh Ekroy, Susie Reynolds and Robert Cole, poetry editor of Chimera Magazine, will be reading from a selection of their work. Read more...

Simon Von Booy will be reading from his collection of short stories Love begins in Winter, recently shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize 2009. Read more...

T.S. Eliot Prize-winning poet George Szirtes, will read from The New and Collected Poems and his recent book The Burning of the Books. Read more...

Gregor Dallas, author of Metrostop Paris, will be speaking on ‘The Impossible Love: Abelard and Héloise’ and reading extracts from their medieval correspondence. Read more...

As part of the Faber Academy writing workshop at Shakespeare and Company, Erica Wagner will be reading and discussing her work. Read more...

Writing Workshop run by Sabrina Chapadjiev, editor of Live Through This – On Creativity and Self-Destruction.

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Lucy Wadham will be reading from her new book The Secret Life of France (highly recommended by Shakespeare and Company). Read more...

At 5:30pm there will be readings from students at the American Academy, presented by their teacher Rolf Potts. Rolf will then read at 7pm from his recent travel book Marco Polo Didn’t Go There. Read more...

Ruth Waterman will be reading from When Swan Lake Comes to Sarajevo: Musical Journeys into the Aftermath of War. Read more...

In collobaration with New York University of Paris, Shakespeare and Company presents Matthew Rohrer and reading a selection of their poetry. Read more...

Event in French only

As part of the festival We Aren’t Going to Avignon, there will be a theatrical debate between two theatre companies, la Compagnie du Corbeau Blanc (with Sophie Millon playing Gertrude) and Compagnie Torquemada (Directed by Fabienne Maitre) performing Murder Party, a confrontation between Penetrator by Anthony Neilson and Gertrude – The Cry by Howard Barker. Provocation and aggression of the spectator is at the heart of these plays and will be at the heart of this debate. Despite their differences, will they be able to understand each other? Read more...

In collobaration with New York University, Shakespeare and Company presents Darin Strauss, the author of the international bestseller Chang and Eng, and The New York Times Notable Book The Real McCoy, one of the New York Public Library’s ‘25 Books to Remember’. His latest novel, More Than It Hurts You, was published in June, 2008. Read more...

In celebration of Canada Day, July 1st 2009, this is the 5th annual Canada Day poetry reading by a visiting group of well-known and emerging Canadian poets and writers.

Steve Tomasula will be reading from a selection of his books. He is the author of the novels The Book of Portraiture (FC2); IN & OZ (Ministry of Whimsy Press); and VAS: An Opera in Flatland, an acclaimed novel of the biotech revolution. Read more...