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The Shakespeare and Company Interview

Discover your next favourite book, or take a deep dive into the mind of an author you love, with The Shakespeare and Company Interview podcast.

Now also the home of Editions: A Shakespeare and Company x Faber Production.

Long-form interviews with internationally acclaimed authors, recorded from our bookshop in the heart of Paris. Hosted by S&Co Literary Director, Adam Biles.

Discover all our upcoming events here.

If you enjoy these conversations, you can order The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews here.

Past guests include: Ottessa Moshfegh, Ian McEwan, Ali Smith, Hari Kunzru, Rachel Kushner, Katie Kitamura, Elif Shafak, Claire-Louiose Bennett, Leïla Simoni, Ian Dunt, David Runciman, Richard Powers, Eimear McBride, Armando Iannucci, Lauren Grodd, Lauren Elkin, Recebcca Solnit, John Berger, Hollie McNish, Michael Pedersen, Rob Doyle, Philippe Sands, George Saunders, Edouard Louis, Rachel Cusk, Preti Taneja, Alejandro Zambra, DBC Pierre, Meg Mason, Sandra Newman, David Simon, Joshua Cohen, Geoff Dyer, David Wallce-Wells, Emul Saint-John Mandel, Mohsin Hamid, Tess Gunty, A.M. Homes, John Higgs, Miriam Toews, Kamila Shamsie, Annie Ernaux, William Boyd, David Keenan, Jonathan Coe, Coco Mellors, Tom Mustill, Jeanette Winterson, Sarah Churchwell, Katy Hessel, Don Paterson, Elizabeth McCracken, Meena Kandasamy, Aleksandar Hemon, Catherine Lacey, Xiaolu Guo, M. John Harrison, Dolly Adderton, Hernan Diaz, Kathryn Scanlan, Ben Lerner, Isabel Waidner, Nick Laird, Adam Thirlwell, Mark O’Connell, Marie Darrieussecq, Jo Ann Beard, C Pam Zhang, Naomi Klein…and many, many more.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Copyright: © Shakespeare and Company

Latest Episodes:

🎸Music, Sugar and other Obsessions, with Don Paterson🎸 Jan 11, 2023

Show notes

This week Adam is joined by Don Paterson, multi-award winning, and much beloved poet, and now author of one of the extraordinary and refreshing memoir, TOY FIGHTS: A BOYHOOD. Charting the first two decades of the poet’s life, from his birth in Dundee to his move to London, TOY FIGHTS is a book about many things: music, class, religion, origami, money, mental illness, and family. It’s also about poetry, although perhaps in a more oblique way than the reader might be expecting.

TOY FIGHTS is both uproariously funny, and yet profoundly tender, and manages to be sobecause it is stuffed with that ingredient by which any memoir succeeds or fails—authenticity. It’s also a deeply political book, although one which not only eschews ideology and facile categorisations of class, but vigorously pours scorn upon then.

Buy Toy Fights: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/7753105/paterson-don-toy-fights

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SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS EPISODES

Looking for Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses? https://podfollow.com/sandcoulysses

If you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can now subscribe for bonus episodes and access to complete chapters of Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses.

Subscribe on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/sandco

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/shakespeare-and-company-writers-books-and-paris/id1040121937?l=en

All money raised goes to supporting “Friends of Shakespeare and Company” the bookshop’s non-profit, created to fund our noncommercial activities—from the upstairs reading library, to the writers-in-residence program, to our charitable collaborations, and our free events.

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Don Paterson was born in Dundee in 1963. His poetry has won many awards, including the Whitbread Poetry Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Costa Poetry Award, all three Forward Prizes and, on two occasions, the T. S. Eliot Prize. He was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2009. He is Professor of Poetry at the University of St Andrews and, for over twenty-five years, was Poetry Editor at Picador Macmillan. He also works as a jazz musician.

Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel Feeding Time here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/7209940/biles-adam-feeding-time

Listen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

📚Books of the Year📚 Dec 28, 2022

Show notes

In this special episode of the Shakespeare and Company podcast, we look back at our bookseller’s favourite reads of the year.

Some of these titles were published in 2022, others just happened to rise to the top of their respective “to read” piles in the past twelve months…but they all come with the S&Co. stamp of approval.

There’s something for everyone here, from a rock star’s autobiography, to a novel about a 19th century translator’s revolt, to a classic of modern science fiction that spans something like a billion earth years.

Find the full list below.

Sign up to our newsletter: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/subscriptions

Dancing in Odessa, Ilya Kaminsky: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6316982/kaminsky-ilya-dancing-in-odessa

Cleopatra and Frankenstein, Coco Mellors: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6416524/mellors-coco-cleopatra-and-frankenstein

Harlem Shuffle, Colson Whitehead: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6461812/whitehead-colson-harlem-shuffle

The Sweetness of Water, Nathan Harris: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6433167/harris-nathan-the-sweetness-of-water

From a Low and Quiet Sea, Donal Ryan: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6871035/ryan-donal-from-a-low-and-quiet-sea

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6192095/louise-kennedy-kennedy-trespasses

Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger and Stella Maris: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/5474563/mccarthy-cormac-the-passenger

Open Water, Caleb Azumah Nelson: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6294505/nelson-caleb-azumah-open-water

Babel Or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution, R. F. Kuang: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6031122/kuang-r-f-babel

The Hummingbird, Sandro Veronesi: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6191021/veronesi-sandro-the-hummingbird

The Queens of Sarmiento Park, Camila Sosa Villada: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6111567/villada-camila-sosa-the-queens-of-sarmiento-park

The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/5227917/liu-cixin-the-three-body-problem

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6951005/saunders-george-a-swim-in-a-pond-in-the-rain

Agatha Christie, Lucy Worsley: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6007132/worsley-lucy-agatha-christie

The Storyteller, Dave Grohl: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6113617/grohl-dave-the-storyteller

The Naked Don't Fear the Water, Matthieu Aikins: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6088623/aikins-matthieu-the-naked-don-t-fear-the-water

The Climate Book, Greta Thunberg: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/7314067/thunberg-greta-the-climate-book

Fight Night, Miriam Toews: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/5994736/toews-miriam-fight-night

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Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel Feeding Time here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/7209940/biles-adam-feeding-time

Listen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

👩‍🎨Katy Hessel on The Story of Art Without Men👩‍🎨 Dec 21, 2022

Show notes

Katy Hessel made her name highlighting the grotesque disparity between the representation of men and women in art galleries and fighting to correct it. Through her podcast and Instagram account, The Great Women artists, and now in her magisterial book The Story of Art Without Men. Beginning in the 16th century, Hessel demonstrates time and again how women have been erased from the history of art, and how—time and again—despite the restrictions imposed by the constraints of the patriarchy have proven significantly more radical and inventive than their male counterparts.

Buy The Story of Art Without Men here:

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SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS EPISODES

Looking for Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses? https://podfollow.com/sandcoulysses

If you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can now subscribe for bonus episodes and access to complete chapters of Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses.

Subscribe on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/sandco

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/shakespeare-and-company-writers-books-and-paris/id1040121937?l=en

All money raised goes to supporting “Friends of Shakespeare and Company” the bookshop’s non-profit, created to fund our noncommercial activities—from the upstairs reading library, to the writers-in-residence program, to our charitable collaborations, and our free events.

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Katy Hessel is an art historian, presenter, and curator dedicated to celebrating female artists. The founder of @thegreatwomenartists on Instagram and the podcast of the same name, she lives in London.

Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel Feeding Time here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/7209940/biles-adam-feeding-time

Listen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

📘BLOOMCAST | HOLIDAY SPECIAL📘 Dec 15, 2022

Show notes

This December—six months after saying goodbye—Bloomcast is back for a Holiday Special! Join Alice, Lex and Adam as they answer your questions, play games, tease each other, drink (tea, whiskey, Gimber) and leap off Forty Foot and into Ulysses one more (one last?) time…

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Bloomcast is a ten-part plunge into James Joyce's Ulysses presented by Adam Biles, Alice McCrum, and Lex Paulson, live from Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris. Join them as they muddle through this radical, sublime, and often misunderstood novel first published one hundred years ago, in 1922.

Please share your thoughts on the book and anything you’d like to hear us discuss: ulysses@shakespeareandcompany.com

A student of environmental policy at Sciences Po-Paris, Alice McCrum runs programming at the American Library in Paris.

In between fits of Joycean nerdery, Dr. Lex Paulson is Executive Director of the School of Collective Intelligence at Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique in Morocco. An adopted Parisian, he teaches at Sciences Po-Paris and writes on the past and future of democracy.

Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company, Paris. He is the author of the novel Feeding Time, available in French as Défense de nourrir les vieux.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

🔥Sarah Churchwell on Gone with the Wind, January 6th, and the Lies America Tells🔥 Dec 07, 2022

Show notes

Gone with the Wind is one of the highest grossing films of all time, based on one of the bestselling novels ever written. It is also, according to Sarah Churchwell in her new book, a story “ about enslavers busily pretending that slavery doesn’t matter. Which”—Churchwell adds “is pretty much the story of American history.”

The Wrath to Come: Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells provides a powerful critique of the book and film, and an excoriating analysis of how it has shaped the way Americans understand their country, rewrite their history, and excuse their crimes.

Buy The Wrath to Come here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6334239/churchwell-sarah-the-wrath-to-come

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SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS EPISODES

Looking for Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses? https://podfollow.com/sandcoulysses

If you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can now subscribe for bonus episodes and access to complete chapters of Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses.

Subscribe on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/sandco

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/shakespeare-and-company-writers-books-and-paris/id1040121937?l=en

All money raised goes to supporting “Friends of Shakespeare and Company” the bookshop’s non-profit, created to fund our noncommercial activities—from the upstairs reading library, to the writers-in-residence program, to our charitable collaborations, and our free events.

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Sarah Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and Chair of Public Understanding of the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. She is the author of Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and The Invention of The Great Gatsby and The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe. Her literary journalism has appeared widely in newspapers including the Guardian, New Statesman, Financial Times, Times Literary Supplement and New York Times Book Review, and she comments regularly on arts, culture, and politics for television and radio, where appearances include Question Time, Newsnight and The Review Show. She has judged many literary prizes, including the 2017 Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction, the 2014 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, and she was a co-winner of the 2015 Eccles British Library Writer’s Award.

Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel Feeding Time here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/7209940/biles-adam-feeding-time

Listen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

🔔Hunchback of Notre-Dame Special! 🔔 Dec 02, 2022

Show notes

🔔Hunchback of Notre-Dame Special! 🔔

To celebrate the launch of our exclusive S&Co edition of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame—as well as a limited-edition gift bundle featuring a signed print of the beautiful cover art—Adam is joined by Krista Halverson, S&Co Publishing Director, and artist Neil Gower, to discuss this extraordinary classic of French literature.

Find out more about our Hunchback of Notre-Dame Bundle here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/7931829/the-hunchback-bundle

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The Hunchback of Notre-Dame Bundle benefits the Friends of Shakespeare and Company Association and includes :

- A copy of Shakespeare and Company’s 2022 edition of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, inked with the bookshop stamp. Produced in collaboration with Penguin Classics, the paperback has a gatefold cover, with original artwork and metallic-ink details, and a new introduction penned by the bookshop’s editors.

- A print of the cover illustration, hand-signed by its brilliant artist, Neil Gower, and stamped on the back with the bookshop’s hallmark and the date. It measures 37cm by 26cm (14.5" by 10.2") and was printed on 320g paper stock by Art & Caractère in Lavaur, France.

All proceeds from the bundle go to Friends of Shakespeare and Company, a not-for-profit association created during the pandemic to support the bookshop’s noncommercial activities. These include our free author events, upstairs reading library, Tumbleweed guest program, weekly podcast, publishing projects, and writers’ rooms, where since 1951 more than 30,000 poets and authors have slept the night for free in Paris. Because the new Association is taking on the related costs of these endeavours, we are better able to begin rebuilding the bookshop financially, to better safeguard Shakespeare and Company for the future—all while not having to sacrifice what’s at the heart of the bookshop: a community of readers and writers.

Buy our Hunchback of Notre-Dame Bundle here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/7931829/the-hunchback-bundle

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Krista Halverson is publishing director at Shakespeare and Company. She wrote and edited the book Shakespeare and Company, Paris: A History of the Rag & Bone Shop of the Heart, and she is co-editor of the forthcoming poetry anthology, Paris in Our View, featuring poems about the French capital--it will be published by the bookshop early next year. Prior to moving to Paris, she was the managing editor of Zoetrope: All-Story, Francis Ford Coppola's literary and art quarterly, based in San Francisco.

Neil Gower is an internationally acclaimed graphic artist, best known for his book jackets (Bill Bryson, William Golding) and his literary cartography (Kazuo Ishiguro, Jilly Cooper, Simon Armitage). His work has been widely published in Europe and the US, including magazines such as The New Yorker, The Economist and Vanity Fair. He was Contributing Artist to Conde Nast Traveler in New York for 10 years. In 2017, he illustrated/co-authored As Kingfishers Catch Fire, a literary ornithology, with Alex Preston. The intensity and giddiness of distilling written evocations of birds into paint realigned his creativity towards exploring possibilities with his own words. His first collection of poetry Meet Me in Palermo was recently published by The Frogmore Press.

Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel Feeding Time here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/7209940/biles-adam-feeding-time

Listen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

🐋How to Speak to Whales (and other animals…) with Tom Mustill🐋 Nov 24, 2022

Show notes

How to Speak Whale is an investigation into the possibility, or otherwise, of human cetacean dialogue. It looks into the history of our relationship with these creatures—in some important ways so similar to us, in others, so profoundly different. It lays out our various attempts to interpret their song, and looks at how big data, combined with an open source philosophy might allow us to create a “Google Translate for animals”.

It’s also one man’s quest to make sense of the particular, transcendent but terrifying moment, a humpback whale almost landed on top of him.

Buy How to Speak Whale: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6534146/mustill-tom-how-to-speak-whale

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SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS EPISODES

Looking for Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses? https://podfollow.com/sandcoulysses

If you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can now subscribe for bonus episodes and access to complete chapters of Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses.

Subscribe on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/sandco

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/shakespeare-and-company-writers-books-and-paris/id1040121937?l=en

All money raised goes to supporting “Friends of Shakespeare and Company” the bookshop’s non-profit, created to fund our noncommercial activities—from the upstairs reading library, to the writers-in-residence program, to our charitable collaborations, and our free events.

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Tom Mustill studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge, before becoming a conservation biologist and then a wildlife filmmaker. His work with David Attenborough, Greta Thunberg, Stephen Fry and other conservation and science heroes across the globe have won over 30 international awards, including two Webbys, a Wildscreen Panda, two Jackson Wild Awards, as well as a Primetime Emmy nomination. He directed on the blockbuster Inside Nature's Giants' series which won a BAFTA, Royal Television Society and Broadcast award, as well as the ZSL Award for Communicating Zoology.

Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel Feeding Time here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/7209940/biles-adam-feeding-time

Listen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

💋On Love, Loss and Life in New York, with Coco Mellors💋 Nov 16, 2022

Show notes

This week we were joined in the writer’s studio by Coco Mellors, author of one of our biggest selling novels of the year, Cleopatra and Frankenstein.

It’s the story of a woman and a man—Cleo and Frank—who meet in New York on New Year’s Eve 2006, who fall in love despite—or perhaps because of—their very many differences, and whose marriage within months causes not only an earthquake in their own lives, but also sends disruptive aftershocks out into the lives of their friends and families. All of which makes Cleopatra and Frankenstein one of the most devilishly readable debuts of the year.

Buy Cleopatra and Frankenstein: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6416505/mellors-coco-cleopatra-and-frankenstein

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SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS EPISODES

Looking for Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses? https://podfollow.com/sandcoulysses

If you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can now subscribe for regular bonus episodes and early access to Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses.

Subscribe on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/sandco

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/shakespeare-and-company-writers-books-and-paris/id1040121937?l=en

All money raised goes to supporting “Friends of Shakespeare and Company” the bookshop’s non-profit, created to fund our noncommercial activities—from the upstairs reading library, to the writers-in-residence program, to our charitable collaborations, and our free events.

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Coco Mellors grew up in London and New York. She has an MFA from New York University, where she was a recipient of the Goldwater Fellowship. She currently lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband.

Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel Feeding Time here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/7209940/biles-adam-feeding-time

Listen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Writing the Queer, Indigenous Experience with Billy-Ray Belcourt Nov 09, 2022

Show notes

This week we welcome celebrated poet Billy-Ray Belcourt to discuss his innovative and moving debut novel A Minor Chorus.

In the stark expanse of Northern Alberta, a queer Indigenous doctoral student steps away from his dissertation to write a novel, informed by a series of poignant encounters: a heart-to-heart with fellow doctoral student River over the mounting pressure placed on marginalized scholars; a meeting with Michael, a closeted man from his hometown whose vulnerability and loneliness punctuate the realities of queer life on the fringe. Woven throughout these conversations are memories of Jack, a cousin caught in the cycle of police violence, drugs, and survival. Jack’s life parallels the narrator’s own; the possibilities of escape and imprisonment are left to chance with colonialism stacking the odds. A Minor Chorus introduces a dazzling new literary voice whose vision and fearlessness shine much-needed light on the realities of Indigenous survival.

Buy A Minor Chorus: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/7312862/a-minor-chorus-a-novel

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SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS EPISODES

Looking for Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses? https://podfollow.com/sandcoulysses

If you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can now subscribe for regular archive episodes and access to complete chapters of Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses.

Subscribe on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/sandco

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/shakespeare-and-company-writers-books-and-paris/id1040121937?l=en

All money raised goes to supporting “Friends of Shakespeare and Company” the bookshop’s non-profit, created to fund our noncommercial activities—from the upstairs reading library, to the writers-in-residence program, to our charitable collaborations, and our free events.

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Billy-Ray Belcourt is a writer and academic from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He is an Assistant Professor in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of four books: This Wound is a World, NDN Coping Mechanisms: Notes from the Field, A History of My Brief Body, and A Minor Chorus.

Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel Feeding Time here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/7209940/biles-adam-feeding-time

Listen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

🍫Jonathan Coe on Bournville🍫 Nov 02, 2022

Show notes

Bournville, Jonathan Coe’s latest novel, ostensibly follows the life of Mary Lamb (née Clarke) from VE Day 1945, when she was a precocious young pianist, to the darkest depths of the recent pandemic, stopping off at some of the events that helped define (and redefine) Britain over the last seven decades. As we hop from the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, to the 1966 World Cup, through jubilees and the death of Princess Diana, we live not only alongside Mary, but also her parents, her husband, her children and grandchildren, (and in a wider sense the British people as a whole) seeing these events through their eyes, and feeling their sense of excitement or despair at the changes and upheavals in their world.

Buy Bournville: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/7673827/coe-jonathan-bournville

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SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS EPISODES

Looking for Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses? https://podfollow.com/sandcoulysses

If you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can now subscribe for regular bonus episodes and early access to Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses.

Subscribe on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/sandco

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/shakespeare-and-company-writers-books-and-paris/id1040121937?l=en

All money raised goes to supporting “Friends of Shakespeare and Company” the bookshop’s non-profit, created to fund our noncommercial activities—from the upstairs reading library, to the writers-in-residence program, to our charitable collaborations, and our free events.

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Jonathan Coe was born a few miles from Bournville in 1961. The author of political satires such as What a Carve Up! and Number 11, and family sagas such as The Rotters' Club and The Rain Before It Falls, his novels have won prizes at home and abroad, including Costa Novel of the Year and the Prix du Livre Européen (both for Middle England).

Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel Feeding Time here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/7209940/biles-adam-feeding-time

Listen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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