Bookshelves
Gersende Guingouain
Born and raised in the Gothic city of Chartres, Gersende moved to Paris to study humanities, specialising in English Literature. It was only with copious quantities of tea and existential talks with friends that she succeeded in surviving a further three years of business school. Deciding to investigate the wonders of a Tech Giant in Dublin’s fair city, she then googled her way through an improbable Brave New World, before joining Shakespeare and Company as a digital project manager.
Gersende’s bookshelves
Bookshelves
Dystopic Humanities
14th February 2015
Be they populated by androids, composite beings, artificially-sprouted babies or technology-addicts mesmerised by the glare of their screens, these not so fictional fictions of the future depict the worst of human nightmares. Explore post-apocalyptic worlds, hide with the dissenters, escape from the domesticated masses, join the resistance and reclaim freedom & humanity.
Bookshelves
Irish Bards & Celtic Quills
14th February 2015
For such a small country, Ireland has given birth to many literary giants… and four Nobel Prizes: G.B. Shaw, W.B. Yeats, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney. From tales as old as time, passed down through generations to poetic wanderings and stories of troubles and torments, discover more Irish voices and relish the ancient Art of Storytelling.
Bookshelves
The Anarchist in the Bookshop
14th February 2015
Politics, economics, media, gender or technology give rise to behaviours and belief systems that shape our societies to their detriment when self-referential foundations remain unquestioned. No interpretative filter, no subterranean ideology is left unscathed by the following thinkers. Fasten your seat belts!
Bookshelves
Run on powerful lines
14th February 2015
You’re on the bus, you just missed your stop (…again). You cannot take your eyes off the page. All you can feel is this compulsion to get hold of the nearest pen and notebook that you can find to jot words that the author seems to have purposefully laid down for your own epiphanic moment. To save them for later, to hear them resonating within you, echoing with your own narrative…
Bookshelves
The Running Bookshelf
24th May 2017
From the German thriller by Tom Tykwer, Run Lola Run, to Marathon Man directed by John Schlesinger, running is easily captured on screen. But how do you write about running, and why would you? Focus and endurance are two qualities needed both to run and to write. In reality, you run with your head as much as with your legs
Whether as a method of unlocking creativity (Murakami) or as an outlet for built up anti-establishment rage (Sillitoe), running can be meaningful in many ways. Away from the horrifying torture of the treadmill and social pressures to get fit, running for its own sake is a way to explore your physical capacities as well as an empowering act of self-determination as you choose a specific path from myriad possibilities. And running can be a place where biology and philosophy mix together, producing profound meditations on the meaning of life.
Bookshelves
The Plague Bookshelf (and Other Infectious Diseases)
19th September 2017
A plague o' both your houses!
(Act III, Sc. 1, Romeo and Juliet)
Bookshelves
Live Lightly
16th January 2019
We have more stuff than we could ever need. Every year, TV reports about Black Friday suggest how far society has gone mad with accumulation. The planet is drowning in unnecessary objects and their attendant waste. This bookshelf explores the roots of our culture of consumption and the importance of choosing other priorities (engagement with the present, sleep, silence and mental space) over commodities.
Read more about the selected titles on Le Blog.