All the books Isaac bought in Paris

In case you haven’t ever had the fortune of visiting, there is a beautiful bookshop in Paris, France, called Shakespeare and Company.

Not only is it an abolutely delightful haven for books in Paris (in English no less), the bookstore is famous in its own right for a few reasons.

The original Shakespeare and Company was also a publisher and was the only place that would publish James Joyce’s Ulysses in its entirety. Unfortuantely, the original store closed in 1941. However, the owner bequeathed the name to the current store which was originally called Le Mistral.

The bookstore also has beds tucked against the bookshelves in some of the rooms. The beds are for aspiring authors who, originally, needed somewhere to sleep while they pursued their literary dreams.  Starving artsist and all. Sleeping there is now seen almost as a right of passage. In exchange for a night’s sleep, aspiring authors must work for a couple of hours in the shop, read one book per day, and leave a one page biography of themselves (with a photo). People have stayed for weeks or months, but the longest someone has ever stayed was seven years.

Suffice to say, this bookstore is a book nerd’s dream, and I cannot fault Isaac any additional luggage fees for wanting to take home an armload of books from here.

Isaac’s pile of books goes from top to bottom, below.

Pax was only a kit when his family was killed, and “his boy” Peter rescued him from abandonment and certain death.

Now the war front approaches, and when Peter’s father enlists, Peter has to move in with his grandpa.

Far worse than being forced to leave home is the fact that Pax can’t go. Peter listens to his stern father — as he usually does — and throws Pax’s favorite toy soldier into the woods. When the fox runs to retrieve it, Peter and his dad get back in the car and leave him there — alone. But before Peter makes it through even one night under his grandfather’s roof, regret and duty spur him to action; he packs for a trek to get his best friend back and sneaks into the night.

This is the story of Peter, Pax, and their independent struggles to return to one another against all odds. Told from the alternating viewpoints of Peter and Pax.

From four stunning and accomplished French women — a fresh and spirited take on what it really means to be a Parisienne: how they dress, entertain, have fun and attempt to behave themselves.

In short, frisky sections, these Parisian women give you their very original views on style, beauty, culture, attitude and men. The authors — Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline de Maigret, and Sophie Mas — unmarried but attached, with children — have been friends for years.

Talented bohemian iconoclasts with careers in the worlds of music, film, fashion and publishing. They are untypically frank and outspoken as they debunk the myths about what it means to be a French woman today. Letting you in on their secrets and flaws, they also make fun of their complicated, often contradictory feelings and behavior. They admit to being snobs, a bit self-centered, unpredictable but not unreliable. Bossy and opinionated, they are also tender and romantic.

You will be taken on a first date, to a party, to some favorite haunts in Paris, to the countryside, and to one of their dinners at home with recipes even you could do. But to be out with them is to be in for some mischief and surprises. They will tell you how to be mysterious and sensual, look natural, make your boyfriend jealous, and how they feel about children, weddings and going to the gym. And they will share their address book in Paris for where to go: At the End of the Night, for a Birthday, for a Smart Date. For a Hangover, for Vintage Finds and much more.

How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are will make you laugh as you slip into their shoes to become bold and free and tap into your inner cool.

The epic tale of wrongful imprisonment, adventure and revenge, in its definitive translation.

Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo. He becomes determined not only to escape, but also to use the treasure to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration.

Dumas’ epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s.

Translated with an Introduction by Robin Buss.

The daily lives of ordinary people are replete with objects, common things used in commonplace settings. These objects are our constant companions in life.

As such, they should be made with care and built to last, treated with respect and even affection. They should be natural and simple, sturdy and safe. The aesthetic result of wholeheartedly fulfilling utilitarian needs. They should, in short, be things of beauty.

In an age of feeble and ugly machine-made things, these essays call for us to deepen and transform our relationship with the objects that surround us. Inspired by the work of the simple, humble craftsmen Yanagi encountered during his lifelong travels through Japan and Korea. They are an earnest defence of modest, honest, handcrafted things — from traditional teacups to jars to cloth and paper. Objects like these exemplify the enduring appeal of simplicity and the beauty of everyday things.

Enter the world of Renaissance Venice, where the competition for fame and fortune can mean life or death…

Artists flock here, not just for wealth and fame, but for revolutionary colour. Yet artist Giorgione ‘Zorzo’ Barbarelli’s career hangs in the balance. Competition is fierce, and his debts are piling up. So when Zorzo hears a rumour of a mysterious new pigment, brought to Venice by the richest man in Europe, he sets out to acquire the colour and secure his name in history.

Winning a commission to paint a portrait of the man’s wife, Sybille, Zorzo thinks he has found a way into the merchant’s favour. Instead he finds himself caught up in a conspiracy that stretches across Europe and a marriage coming apart inside one of the city’s most illustrious palazzos.

As the water levels rise and the plague creeps ever closer, an increasingly desperate Zorzo isn’t sure whom he can trust.

Will Sybille prove to be the key to Zorzo’s success, or the reason for his downfall?

It was all sinking in. I’d never had a crush on anyone. No boys, no girls, not a single person I had ever met. What did that mean?

Georgia has never been in love, never kissed anyone, never even had a crush — but as a fanfic-obsessed romantic she’s sure she’ll find her person one day.

As she starts university with her best friends, Pip and Jason, in a whole new town far from home, Georgia’s ready to find romance. And with her outgoing roommate on her side and a place in the Shakespeare Society, her ‘teenage dream’ is in sight.

But when her romance plan wreaks havoc amongst her friends, Georgia ends up in her own comedy of errors. And she starts to question why love seems so easy for other people but not for her. With new terms thrown at her — asexual, aromantic — Georgia is more uncertain about her feelings than ever.

Is she destined to remain loveless? Or has she been looking for the wrong thing all along?

London, 1799. Dora Blake, an aspiring jewelry artist, lives with her odious uncle atop her late parents’ once-famed shop of antiquities. After a mysterious Greek vase is delivered, her uncle begins to act suspiciously, keeping the vase locked in the store’s basement, away from prying eyes. Including Dora’s.

Intrigued by her uncle’s peculiar behavior, Dora turns to young, ambitious antiquarian scholar Edward Lawrence who eagerly agrees to help. Edward believes the ancient vase is the key that will unlock his academic future; Dora sees it as a chance to establish her own name.

But what Edward discovers about the vase has Dora questioning everything she has believed. About her life, her family, and the world as she knows it. As Dora uncovers the truth, she comes to understand that some doors are locked and some mysteries are buried for a reason. While others are closer to the surface than they appear.

How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? Did women even work as artists before the twentieth century? And what is the Baroque anyway?

Discover the glittering Sofonisba Anguissola of the Renaissance, the radical work of Harriet Powers in the nineteenth-century USA, and the artist who really invented the Readymade. Explore the Dutch Golden Age, the astonishing work of post-War artists in Latin America, and the women artists defining art in the 2020s.

Have your sense of art history overturned, and your eyes opened to many art forms often overlooked or dismissed. From the Cornish coast to Manhattan. Nigeria to Japan this is the history of art as it’s never been told before.

Leading film historian Jeanine Basinger reveals, with her trademark wit and zest, the whole story of the Hollywood musical — in the most telling, most incisive, most detailed, most gorgeously illustrated book of her long and remarkable career.

From Fred Astaire, whom she adores, to La La Land, which she deplores. Basinger examines a dazzling array of stars, strategies, talents, and innovations in the history of musical cinema. Whether analyzing a classic Gene Kelly routine, relishing a Nelson-Jeanette operetta, or touting a dynamic hip hop number (in the underrated Idlewild). She is a canny and charismatic guide to the many ways that song and dance have been seen — and heard — on film.

With extensive portraits of everyone from Al Jolson, the Jazz Singer, to Doris Day, whose iconic sunniness has overshadowed her dramatic talents. From Deanna Durbin, that lovable teen-star of the ’30s and ’40s, to Shirley Temple and Judy Garland. From Bing to Frank to Elvis. And from Ann Miller to Ann-Margret. From Disney to Chicago. Focusing on many beloved, iconic films (Top Hat; Singin’ in the Rain; Meet Me in St. Louis; The Sound of Music). As well as unduly obscure gems (Eddie Cantor’s Whoopee!; Murder at the Vanities; Sun Valley Serenade; One from the Heart). This book is astute, informative, and pure pleasure to read.

This was Evelyn Waugh’s first book, published when he was 25. It is an essential part of the Waughn canon, full of that vernal charm which animated his early travel books but which faded from the famous novels of his more savage maturity.

Written when there was little general interest in the pre-Raphaelites, after an account of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s tragic and somewhat mysterious life, and provocative pictures of his contemporaries and friends, Waugh concludes dryly that, from many points of view, Rossetti was nothing but a melancholy old fraud. Waughn confesses that nothing in Rossetti’s life prepares us for the transcendent beauty of Beata Beatrix, The Beloved and a few other works.

This is a biography as outstanding as the art it portrays.

NOTE: Earlier in the episode, the spine for this book is much clearer. Unfortunately by the time all the other books are stacked on top, only the top left hand corner is peaking out. But it’s there, I promise!

Sir Charles Baskerville is dead. His body was discovered on the grounds of his Devonshire estate, face frozen in fright, not far from the footprints of a large beast. The cause of death has been determined to be a heart attack, but family legend tells another tale, and Detective Sherlock Holmes is determined to uncover the truth.

So whodunit on the foggy moors of Baskerville Hall? In one of literature’s greatest original page-turners, the answer is a classic.

In this, his first book, celebrated New York Times critic A.O. Scott shows that we are, in fact, all critics. Indeed, that critical thinking informs almost every aspect of artistic creation, of civil action and interpersonal life.

Using his own film criticism as a starting point, everything from an infamous dismissal of the international blockbuster The Avengers to his intense affection for Pixar’s animated Ratatouille,  Scott expands outwards. Easily guiding readers through the complexities of Rilke and Shelley, the origins of Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones, the power of Marina Abramovic and ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’. Drawing on the full tradition of criticism, from Aristotle to Susan Sontag, he shows that individual critics, himself included, can make mistakes and find flaws where they shouldn’t. However, criticism as a discipline is one of the noblest, most creative and urgent activities in a modern world where algorithms threaten to supplant judgement.

With piercing intelligence, wit and warmth, Better Living Through Criticism shows that real criticism was and always will be the breath of fresh air that allows true creativity to thrive. As Scott puts it, ‘The time for criticism is always now, because the imperative to think clearly, never goes away.’

No one knows us quite the same way as the men and women who sit beside us in department meetings and crowd the office refrigerator with their labeled yogurts.

Every office is a family of sorts, and the ad agency Joshua Ferris brilliantly depicts in his debut novel is family at its strangest and best. Coping with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks.

With a demon’s eye for the details that make life worth noticing, Joshua Ferris tells a true and funny story about survival in life’s strangest environment — the one we pretend is normal five days a week.

Meet the unexpected, overlooked and forgotten models of art history.

Who was Picasso’s ‘Weeping Woman’?

Why was Grace Jones covered in graffiti?

How did Francis Bacon meet the burglar who became his muse?

The perception of the muse is that of a passive, powerless model, at the mercy of an influential and older artist. But is this trope a romanticised myth? Far from posing silently, muses have brought emotional support, intellectual energy, career-changing creativity and practical help to artists.

Muse tells the true stories of the incredible muses who have inspired art history’s masterpieces. From Leonardo da Vinci’s studio to the covers of Vogue. Art historian, critic and writer, Ruth Millington uncovers the remarkable role of muses in some of art history’s most well-known and significant works. Delving into the real-life relationships that models have held with the artists who immortalised them. Muse will expose the influential and active part they have played and deconstruct reductive stereotypes, reframing the muse as a momentous and empowered agent of art history.

We are living in a world divided. Race and ethnicity, caste and color, gender and sexuality, class and education, religion and political party, These have all become demographic labels that reduce our differences to simplistic categories in which “we” are vehemently against “them.” But Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis’s own experience — of being the first female and first Black minister in her church’s history, of being in an interracial marriage, and of making peace with childhood abuse — illustrates that our human capacity for empathy and forgiveness is the key to reversing these ugly trends.

Inspired by the tenets of ubuntu — the Zulu philosophy that we are each impacted by the circumstances that impact those around us, and that the world won’t get better until we all get better. Fierce Love lays out the nine daily practices for breaking through tribalism and engineering the change we seek. From downsizing our emotional baggage to speaking truth to power to fueling our activism with joy. It demonstrates the power of small, morally courageous steps to heal our own lives, our posse, and our larger communities. Sharing stories that trace her personal reckoning with racism as well as the arc of her journey to an inclusive and service-driven faith. Dr. Lewis shows that kindness, compassion, and inclusive thinking are muscles that can be exercised and strengthened. With the goal of mending our inextricable human connection, Fierce Love is a manifesto for all generations: a bighearted, healing antidote to our rancorous culture.

In thirteen chapters, Belgian poet Charlotte Van den Broeck goes in search of buildings that were fatal for their architects. Architects who either killed themselves or are rumoured to have done so.

They range across time and space from a church with a twisted spire built in seventeenth-century France to a theatre that collapsed mid-performance in 1920s Washington, DC., and an eerily sinking swimming pool in her hometown of Turnhout.

Drawing on a vast range of material, from Hegel and Charles Darwin to art history. Stories from her own life and popular culture, patterns gradually come into focus. As Van den Broeck what is that strange life-or-death connection between a creation and its creator?

Threaded through each story, and in prose of great essayistic subtlety, Van den Broeck meditates on the question of suicide. What Albert Camus called the ‘one truly serious philosophical problem’ — in relation to creativity and public disgrace. The result is a profoundly idiosyncratic book, breaking new ground in literary non-fiction. As well as providing solace and consolation — and a note of caution — to anyone who has ever risked their hand at a creative act.’