Title: The Paris Bookseller
Author: Kerri Maher
Release Date: January 11, 2022
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
****My Review****
The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher
As someone who enjoys books, I can’t resist titles related to books, bookstores, fellow book lovers, or writers. And if we add to that that I enjoy historical fiction, then I definitely had to read this book.
Honestly I didn’t expect much from The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher. Somehow, in the last few weeks, all the books I read were just average. But that’s why this book was like a fresh breeze on a hot day. Just the kind of lazy read I needed after a busy day with my three little ones.
Who hasn’t heard of the cult bookstore “Shakespeare and company” in the Latin Quarter in Paris??
Anyone planning a visit to the City of Light has heard of or knows about this bookstore. The bookstore is on the must-see list along with Notre Dame and the Louvre.
In The Paris Bookseller, Kerry Maher masterfully presents the story of the young American Sylvia Beach. A young lady who arrived in Paris in 1918 after the end of the First World War. If I am not mistaken, it was based on a true story.
Undoubtedly, Sylvia is a quiet, serious girl who loves to read. After spending several months in Paris, she realizes that there is no bookstore with books in English in the city. Therefore, she decides to open one.
Fortunately, she found a small shop in a quiet street in the Latin Quarter near the Sorbonne but also near the Seine and Notre Dame Cathedral. She opened it in 1919 and named it “Shakespeare and Company”.
It starts modestly, but soon word of her bookshop spreads throughout Paris, enticing Americans and Brits living in Paris at the time begin to visit it.
In a short time, it becomes a favorite gathering place for Hemingway, Gertrude Satyn, Erich Maria Remarch and other members of the “Lost Generation”. Thus the bookstore became a very important even a cult place for European literature in general and the bookstore will mark an entire literary century.
Through the bookstore, Sylvia meets many interesting and different characters from the literary European world of the 20th century. The Irishman James Joyce, who leaves Ireland and travels to the continent after the ban on the publication of his latest but controversial book “Ulysses” being one of the most important.
When Sylvia hears why the book has been banned from print, she decides to print it herself, with her finances. Thus the most controversial and influential book of the 20th century takes shape.
In addition to the risk of being marginalized, Sylvia is in danger of losing the bookstore that is the center of her life. The bookstore is her everything not only in a material but also in a psychological sense. However, Sylvia puts everything on the line to publish “Ulysses” under the auspices of Shakespeare and company.
What will that decision do to her and her life? Was it worth risking it all?
Suddenly, Sylvia is at the crossroads of her life. She must decide what to do next and how much the bookstore means to her. The same bookstore that not only changed her life but also that of many other people related to literature.
As can be seen, The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher follows Sylvia’s emotional journey and recovery through the prism of the events in the bookstore and Paris between the two world wars. As a seemingly small and unreputable bookstore, it will become the epicenter of many literary events in the 20th century.
Excellently researched and presented, the readers can feel the spirit of the liberal Paris – a paradise for everyone with an artistic soul. The author manages to masterfully convey to us the atmosphere of Paris with all the features of that time. Meetings, relationships, happenings are just the way they are, seemingly casual and yet so effective.
Sylvia’s life in Paris and the journey she goes through together with the bookstore are superbly retold by Maher and draw the reader into an unusual world of the glamorous City of Light. The city connected with art, literature, fashion…
The author’s notes add additional insight into all the happenings and could almost be a whole story in themselves.
The bookstore still exists today, on the left bank of the Seine near Notre Dame, and is as important as a visit to the Eiffel Tower or the Luxembourg Gardens.
My warmest recommendation for all fans of historical fiction! And for The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher and the bookstore if the road takes you to Paris.