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Christmas Opening Times – Horaires de Noël

Happy Holidays, booklovers! Thank you for all your support this year. Please note the shop will be closed from 6pm 23rd December until 9am, 3rd January. Rachel and I will be catching up on our reading. Merci pour tout votre soutien cette année. Veuillez noter que la boutique sera fermée du 23 décembre à 18h au 3 janvier à 9h. Rachel et moi allons rattraper nos lectures.

May 23rd: Printed Books in the Digital Age: A Conversation with Jonathan Simons of the Analog Sea

Rebelling against the idea that ‘If you’re not online, you don’t exist,’ Jonathan created a pocket-sized review which collects together poetry, essays, fiction, illustration and fine art for those “wishing to maintain contemplative life in the digital age.’” Editions are only available in print and exclusively in bookshops. All correspondence with the publisher is conducted by post rather, and their single webpage simply lists two mailing addresses, one in Freibury Germany, the other in Austin, Texas.  Matthew will be chatting to Jonathan on Tuesday, 23rd May at the bookshop on the role and relevance of Printed Books in the Digital Age. Doors open at 18.00 and we’ll start the conversation at around 19.00.  If you would like to join us – and I hope you will! – please sign up via Doodle – or send us a letter. As always, there will be drinks and snacks and friendly people to chat to (plus a bookshop to explore).  Jonathan Simons is the founding editor of offline publishing house Analog Sea and its literary journal, The Analog Sea Review. As a poet and essayist, he has written for publications including The London Magazine, PN Review, El País, subTerrain Magazine, and The Analog Sea Review. His work has been covered by,…

Christmas Opening Times – Horaires de Noël

Thank you for all your support this year. Please note the shop will be closed from noon, 24th December until 9am, 3rd January. Rachel and I will be catching up on our reading. Merci pour tout votre soutien cette année. Veuillez noter que la boutique sera fermée du 24 décembre à midi au 3 janvier à 9 heures. Rachel et moi allons rattraper nos lectures.

Paul Scraton at the bookshop – Friday, 24th June

A while ago I got a subscription to an independent publisher in the UK called Influx Press. I read the quietly brilliant The Country Will Bring Us No Peace (Matthieu Simard), then Steve Hollyman’s Lairies, which seemed to be my life in the 90’s reflected back to me. Then I got in the post a slim book with a strange black and white photograph on the cover… . This was In the Pines by Paul Scraton and I was an instant convert. It is a collection stories that take place in an unnamed town surrounded by pines and infused with burning nostalgia. Reading it made me feel as if my favourite characters from the books I read in my twenties had grown into slightly damaged yet nuanced adults who could not help but pick at the scars of their younger selves. The black and white photograph on the cover was taken in collaboration with Eymelt Sehmer, using a 170-year-old technique of collodion wet plate photography and there are more photographs within. One of the delights of this book is the way the narrative of the text and the medium of the photos speak to each other, as if to highlight…

Paul Lynch at the Bookshop – 20th May

I first interviewed Paul Lynch around seven years ago when his novel Black Snow was a finalist for the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger. I loved the book, his so-called Irish farm story from the author who had promised himself that he’d never write an Irish farm story; complex, dark, atmospheric, with hints Manly Hopkins. After Black Snow I couldn’t wait to read his next books, Grace – which the Washington Post described as, “a moving work of lyrical and at times hallucinatory beauty” – and Beyond the Sea, his story of two fisherman washed out to sea which, on recent reading, felt like the perfect book for our pandemic times with its theme of forced isolation and its aftermath. Paul will be at the bookshop on Friday, 20th May to talk about his writing. Doors open at 7pm. This is an event not to be missed, and not just for the free booze. Paul’s a talented and thoughtful writer and a great speaker. Message us if you plan to come!

Bibliotopia 2022

The annual Bibliotopia literature festival at the Jan Michalski Foundation is almost upon us. Between the weekend of 13th – 15th May writers from around world will be at the Foundation talking about their work under the theme of  ‘Care’.  The programme is now online and tickets tend to sell out quite quickly. The events are multilingual with simultaneous translations. Perhaps most striking is the event on Saturday evening with Ukrainian writers Serhiy Zhadan and Andrey Kurkov, the former speaking directly from Kharkiv, and the latter from New York.

Book Event: Jo Ann Hansen Rasch’s New Collection of Poetry

Jo Ann Hansen Rasch was one of the first – if not the first – writer we had at the bookshop, so it’s a great pleasure to have her back some 12 years later for the launch of her second poetry collection Dancing Light Sings. Born during the dramas of the last two or three years, the poems span a lifetime, revealing not only lighter moments, but darker legacies too. Jo Ann’s poetry is personal and written in simple confident language. Born in New Zealand, but living most of her adult life in Lutry, she has published a memoir, a book of poetry and many essays, short stories and poems. The event is taking place on Saturday, 9th April. We will serve light refreshments from 18.30 and the reading will start at 19.00. Please sign up here if you wish to attend.

Christmas Opening/Horaires d’ouverture de noël

Please note: the bookshop will be closed from midday on December 24th and will reopen at 9am on Monday, 3rd January. Veuillez noter que la librairie sera fermée à partir de midi le 24 décembre et rouvrira à 9 heures le lundi 3 janvier. Happy reading! See you in 2022!

Rachel Recommends: A Deadly Education

Genre: Fantasy I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I love magic school type books, and I think this one might be my favourite yet. A school with no teachers, where the school is trying to kill you, and the protagonist has a talent for destruction? Yes please! Well okay, not the school exactly, so much as the creatures that reside within it, but still. I tend to love everything written by Naomi Novik, but this is definitely my favourite (so far).  Enter a school of magic unlike any you have ever encountered. There are no teachers, no holidays, friendships are purely strategic, and the odds of survival are never equal. Once you’re inside, there are only two ways out: you graduate or you die. El Higgins is uniquely prepared for the school’s many dangers. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains and wipe out untold millions – never mind easily destroy the countless monsters that prowl the school. Except, she might accidentally kill all the other students, too. So El is trying her hardest not to use it… that is, unless she has no other choice.  This is book 1…

Le Livre sur les Quais

Hey booklovers, it’s the annual book festival Le Livre Sur Les Quais in Morges this weekend! There are some big names on the English Program this year, and our very own Matthew Wake will be animating several events, including (but not limited to) events with Amitav Ghosh and John Boyne! Check out the program below! https://www.lelivresurlesquais.ch/programme/