Monday 22nd June :: 7pm

Robert Mighall will be reading from his new book Sunshine : Why we love the sun. Robert is a sunshine obsessive, but only an extreme version of a national type. Sunshine is his witty and romantic celebration of a love so many of us share. Combining popular science with cultural history it is the first book to explain how, why and when sunshine became so important to us. How Coco Chanel didn’t invent sunbathing, and the scandalous truth behind this urban myth - Why sunshine gives us so much pleasure and might even have some of us addicted - Why we believe summers were longer, hotter and brighter when we were young - And Why the weather provides the perfect metaphor for joyous love or a broken heart in poems and pop songs. Both a joyous celebration of the source of all life, and a heartfelt lament from the world’s cloudiest country, it reads like an open love letter to the most fickle mistress a man ever served.

’Compulsive, utterly idiosyncratic, unmistakeably British...’ – The Sunday Times

’An entertaining cultural history of a nation’s heliophilia’ – Times Literary Supplement

’Boisterous and sentimental’ – Financial Times

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 Thursday 25th June :: 6pm (exceptional time)

Steve Tomasula will be reading from a selection of his books. He is the author of the novels The Book of Portraiture (FC2) ; IN & OZ (Ministry of Whimsy Press) ; and VAS : An Opera in Flatland, an acclaimed novel of the biotech revolution. Incorporating narrative forms of all kinds—from comic books, travelogues, journalism or code to Hong Kong action movies or science reports—Tomasula’s writing has been called a ’reinvention of the novel,’ combining an ’attention to society in the tradition of Orwell, attention to language in the tradition of Beckett, and the humor of a Coover or Pynchon.’ His writing often crosses visual, as well as written genres, drawing on science and the arts to take up themes of how we represent what we think we know, and how these representations shape our lives. His short fiction has been published widely, and most recently in McSweeney’s, The Denver Quarterly, Fiction International, and The Iowa Review where he received the Iowa Prize for the most distinguished work published in any genre.

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 Saturday 27th June :: 3pm (exceptional time)

In celebration of Canada Day, July 1st 2009, this is the 5th annual Canada Day poetry reading by a visiting group of well-known and emerging Canadian poets and writers. They include :

Marty Gervais who is one of Canada’s most renowned and respected poets, novelists, journalists, photographers. He has published over 30 books, won many major literary awards in Canada, including the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award and his work has been anthologized internationally. He now heads the Publishing Program at the University of Windsor as well as Editor of the University of Windsor Literary Review.

John B. Lee has published over 40 books of poetry, is the Poet Laureate of Brantford, ON, winner of the CBC Canadian Literary Award, Writer-in-Residence at the University of Windsor, visiting Professor at University of Western Ontario.

The other writers will read from their new work and also from the anthology Bonjour Burgundy : Writings from www.larochedhys.com edited by John B. Lee, Mosaic Press, 2008.

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 Monday 29th June :: 7:30pm (exceptional time)

In collobaration with New York University of Paris, Shakespeare and Company presents Darin Strauss, the author of the international bestseller Chang and Eng, and The New York Times Notable Book The Real McCoy, one of the New York Public Library’s ’25 Books to Remember’. His latest novel, More Than It Hurts You, was published in June, 2008. His work has been translated into 14 languages, and he teaches writing at New York University, for which he won a 2005 ’Outstanding Dozen’ teaching award. Darin was awarded a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction writing.

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 Monday 6th July :: 7:30pm (exceptional time)

*Note* Bilingual event (in English, translated into French).

In collaboration with New York University of Paris, Shakespeare and Company presents Jonathan Safran Foer, the author of the bestselling novels Everything Is Illuminated, named Book of the Year by The Los Angeles Times and the winner of numerous awards, including The Guardian First Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Prize, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Foer was one of Rolling Stone’s ’People of the Year’ and Esquire’s ’Best and Brightest.’ His new book, Eating Animals, which looks at why we eat animals, will be published in November. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Praise for Everything is Illuminated :

’Not since... A Clockwork Orange has the English language been simultaneously mauled and energized with such brilliance and such brio’ – New York Times Book Review

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 Monday 13th July :: 7:30pm (exceptional time)

In collobaration with New York University of Paris, Shakespeare and Company presents Matthew Rohrer and Joshua Beckman reading a selection of their poetry.

Matthew Rohrer is the author of They All Seemed Asleep, Rise Up and A Green Light, which was shortlisted for the 2005 Griffin International Poetry Prize. He is also the author of Satellite, Nice Hat. Thanks. (with Joshua Beckman) and A Hummock in the Malookas, a winner of the National Poetry Series. He is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Hopwood Award for Poetry and an M.F.A from the University of Iowa.

Joshua Beckman was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He is the author of six books, including Take It (forthcoming in 2009), Shake and two collaborations with Matthew Rohrer : Nice Hat. Thanks. and Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. He is an editor at Wave Books and has translated numerous works of poetry and prose, including Poker by Tomaz Salamun, which was a finalist for the PEN America Poetry in Translation Award. He is also the recipient of numerous other awards, including a NYFA fellowship and a Pushcart Prize.

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 Monday 20th July :: 7pm

Ruth Waterman will be reading from When Swan Lake Comes to Sarajevo : Musical Journeys into the Aftermath of War. When Ruth Waterman first went to Bosnia in 2002 to conduct the Mostar Sinfonietta, she found herself encountering the peace that comes after a war. When Swan Lake Comes to Sarajevo is an account of her experiences, in turn frustrating, hilarious, disturbing and touching, as she returned year after year to perform and conduct and teach the little multi-ethnic orchestra. A humane and down-to-earth description of the nuts and bolts of daily life there, this is about the connections made through music, and the rebuilding of a town, a bridge, a community. Interspersed are stories of war and peace by the Bosnians themselves, acts of witness that reveal their courage, despair, resilience and humour. The intermingling of narrative and first-hand accounts builds a mosaic that offers a visceral introduction to an unfamiliar world where people simply want to ’live a normal life’. A celebrated concert violinist, Ruth may also play some music tonight.

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 Monday 27th July :: 5:30pm and then 7pm

At 5.30pm there will be readings from students at the Paris American Academy, presented by their teacher Rolf Potts. Rolf will then read at 7pm from his recent travel book Marco Polo Didn’t Go There.

The Paris American Academy, hosts a month-long creative writing workshop (www.pariswritingworkshop.com) each July and has done so for the last 25 years. This year’s participants will read short selections from such varied genres as travel writing, short fiction, poetry, memoir, playwriting, and literary journalism.

Rolf Potts has reported from more than 50 countries for the likes of National Geographic Traveler, the New York Times Magazine, Slate.com, Conde Nast Traveler, Outside, The Believer, The Guardian (U.K.), National Public Radio, and the Travel Channel. A veteran travel columnist for the likes of Salon.com and World Hum, his adventures have taken him across six continents, and include piloting a fishing boat 900 miles down the Laotian Mekong, hitchhiking across Eastern Europe, traversing Israel on foot, bicycling across Burma, and driving a Land Rover from Sunnyvale, California to Ushuaia, Argentina.

Potts is perhaps best known for promoting the ethic of independent travel, and his book on the subject, Vagabonding : An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel has been through ten printings and translated into several foreign languages. His latest book is Marco Polo Didn’t Go There : Stories and Revelations From One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer (Travelers’ Tales, 2008).

Rolf’s essays have appeared in over 20 literary anthologies, and 16 of his stories have been short-listed for The Best American Travel Writing.