Globe Corner Blogs

New York is a city of extremes. As soon as I arrived I remembered how it was possible to love and hate the city at once. “You either sink or swim here,” Pat Carrier of the former Globe Corner bookstore told me as he guided me through the labyrinth of  publisher booths crammed inside the illogically (it seemed to me) laid out Javits Convention Center. I had come to NYC for two days of Book Expo America, beginning with an author breakfast with Stephen Colbert, Barbara Kingsolver, Junot Diaz, and Jo Nesbo, the last of whom, I thought, proved funnier than our host, who kept his punch lines to Fifty Shades of Grey jokes.

After coffee with Colbert (okay, it wasn’t quite as intimate as it sounds, and listening to Colbert crack Fifty Shades jokes over blueberry muffins wasn’t exactly an appetizing way to start the day), I stepped onto the exhibition floor full of publishers, authors, booksellers, librarians, and readers all conducting the business of books, which included much elbowing for the latest free advanced reader copy. I wandered disoriented among the chaos for quite some time, unsure of how exactly I fit between the world of swanky New York publishers and the woman in front of me who just jammed a display copy I am not certain was free into an already burgeoning shoulder bag of ARCs.

I felt exactly as I had when I first stumbled off my train from Boston the night before, weaving through Penn Station crowds and onto the metro–instantly overwhelmed, intimidated, and drained by the city. But when, 15 minutes later, I had emerged from the underground up onto a quiet, tree lined street in Greenwich Village, where I was lucky enough to find a room, I discovered that I could breathe again, and deeply. Perhaps it was the refreshing contrast from home, the thrill of new streets and shops to explore, perhaps it was the contrast with the crowds of the metro that made the sudden space and sunshine more charming than was their due, but I was enamored.

These extreme reactions continued at BEA, leaving me baffled at first, overwhelmed, then charmed and grateful at once. By the second day on the exhibition floor, I began to take a few faltering strokes. I found space to think and even to be inspired in a few of the educational sessions, and I began meeting people within the book industry, talking, exchanging cards. Once conversations began to open up, I began to see inside the work that was going on before my eyes. Though I had much to learn, I was no longer an outsider. Continue Reading »

Read more: Barbara Kingsolver, BEA 2012, Book Expo America, Booksmith, Fernando Pessoa, Fifty Shades of Grey, General, Globe Corner, Jo Nesbo, Junot Diaz, News, serendipity, Stephen Colbert, the halapalooza of reading quietly in your room by yourself, Travel

 I’d already heard the  story of how Charles de Gaulle left France during an uprising and told his country to shape up (and they did) a few times from my boyfriend’s father, who lived in France at the time. But I’d never heard the slogan of that student revolution “La Beaute est dans la Rue,” or understood just what the riots of 1968 were about until I read John Baxter’s contribution to the Museyon Guide series, Chronicles of Old Paris , a guidebook that allows the reader to travel not only through the streets of Paris, but through time. Each of the twenty-nine chapters focuses on a specific person, invention, trend, or revolution (militaristic or artistic) that contributed to the development of the city of light we know and love and long to travel to today. And if you do travel there, a map to each significant site is included at the end of each segment.

Baxter admits the reader into the cellars of Garnier’s majestic opera house and behind the cork-lined wall’s of Proust‘s bedroom. Fifty Shades fans can learn about the appetites of the Marquis de Sade, and those with an appetite for the surreal can explore the movement’s beginnings with founder Andre Breton. I learned more about the guillotine than I wanted to know (such as why the block is called the mouton, French for “sheep”), and learned enough about French cinema to want to see more.

Museyon Guides are available for more than just Paris. We currently stock Chronicles of Old Boston, and Chronicles of Old London is due out in time for the Olympics in that city this summer. I chose to read Museyon’s Paris first, not only because I love the city, but because the author is a trusted guide through its streets. John Baxter has written several books on France, including the beloved The Most Beautiful Walk in the World, a memoir of his experience as a literary tour guide in Paris. In fact, Baxter includes several “walking tours” at the end of the Museyon Guide. And if his work experience and writings on Paris aren’t enough, Baxter also lives in the former residence of my hero: American expat and bookseller and publisher of James Joyce, Sylvia Beach. Reading his guide to the city he so obviously loves, one is forced to admit that once again, the French have it right: the beauty is in the streets.

Read more: Andre Breton, Book Reviews, Charles de Gaulle, Chronicles of Old Paris, Fifty Shades of Grey, General, James Joyce, John Baxter, La Beaute est dans la Rue, Marquis de Sade, Museyon Guides, Paris, Proust's bedroom, Surrealism, Sylvia Beach, Travel