From an outsider’s perspective, Paris is a city of culture, romance, and art. You value the atmosphere as you stroll through the streets and think of all the great artists who have walked before you. It is no surprise then, that “the bookshop” is one of the most popular tourist destinations.
Offering over 44 million titles, the world’s biggest bookseller seems like the most trustworthy source to get a recommendation. With so much to choose from, you would think our reading preferences would expand with each Amazon order. But we often find ourselves browsing the same section of the virtual bookshelf.
I Love Dick is a manifesto for a generation of women who want to have it all, say it all, and be it all. Its journey from an underground, experimental novel to a cult classic shows far how ideas about women and femininity have evolved in that time.
There is a handful of English bookshops in Paris, for those who know where to find them. Yet none of them are as famous as the one standing in the shadows of Notre-Dame, the one with yellow and green lettering. The one known as Shakespeare and Company.
Rainbow colour-coded bookshelves, special edition hardbacks surrounded by fairy lights, atmospheric coffee shop scenes with a splayed open paperback on the table – this is what you can expect to see when scrolling through the 39 million posts under the ‘bookstagram’ hashtag on Instagram.
With the novel celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2018 and the release of its sixth film adaption in 2019, Little Women has seen a recent surge in popularity. To what extent do film adaptations ‘re-brand’ the original book
On the 21st January 2020, Alex Cristofi went from the peaceful quiet life of editor and author to being branded as a “book murderer”. Cristofi had, as his crime, cut three large books in half to make them easier to carry and read.
On 21st January 2020, the University of Liverpool’s Library tweeted an image with the caption: ‘This is not a bookmark.’ This firm declarative was in relation to a photograph of a piece of plastic wrapped sliced cheese which had been left in a library book.
Recipes and cookery books have been a long-standing bastion of elitism, copied down by the literate, and preserved by head chefs in royal kitchens. One example, The Forme of Cury from 1390, documents several hundred dishes, and a list of ingredients for a feast held by king Richard II.
Books have been part of our existence for thousands of years. In the Middle Ages books and manuscripts were one of the main source of “material” knowledge. Through books, a small number of people learned their history, how society works, how to flirt… almost everything.
