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Tag Archives: Sylvia Beach
“I couldn’t keep a dog and a James Joyce and a bookshop.” — Sylvia Beach
It’s her birthday today. Sylvia Beach is one of my heroes due to her influential bookshop in Paris (Shakespeare & Co.), and her nurturing of the writers of that time. You know, minor writers like James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, and … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce, On This Day
Tagged France, Memoirs, Sylvia Beach, Ulysses, WWI
17 Comments
Rejoyce. It’s Bloomsday.
Some men send flowers to commemorate an anniversary. James Joyce wrote Ulysses. Overachiever. On June 15, 1904, young James Joyce sent a note to Nora Barnacle, who was a waitress at Finn’s Hotel. Barnacle (what an apt name) was a … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce, On This Day, writers
Tagged Bloomsday, E.M. Forster, Edna O'Brien, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Ford Madox Ford, Frank McCourt, George Bernard Shaw, Gertrude Stein, Ireland, John Banville, Katherine Mansfield, Stefan Zweig, Sylvia Beach, T.S. Eliot, Ulysses, Vladimir Nabokov, W.B. Yeats, William Carlos Williams
54 Comments
The Books: The Letters of Sylvia Beach
Daily Book Excerpt: Memoirs: Before I get started on the book, my OCD-nature requires of me that I explain this Book Excerpt thing for those of you who may be new to me. I don’t know how many books I … Continue reading
2010 Books Read
Round-up of the books I read this year, in the order in which I read them. I am nearly finished with one last book (a collection of stories by Miranda July, given to me by my sister Siobhan for my … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Andrei Tarkovsky, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Annie Proulx, books read, Dava Sobel, David O. Selznick, David Thomson, E.M. Forster, Elia Kazan, Ellen Terry, Emily Dickinson, Ernest Hemingway, Evelyn Waugh, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fred Astaire, Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Bernard Shaw, George Orwell, George Washington, Gouverneur Morris, Ireland, Jane Langton, Jaws, Joan Blondell, John Banville, John McGahern, Mark Helprin, Orson Welles, Oscar Wilde, Peter Bogdanovich, Rebecca West, Roman Polanski, Ron Chernow, Russia, Serbia, Shirley Jackson, Stefan Zweig, Sylvia Beach, Tana French, Tennessee Williams, Warren Beatty, William Shakespeare
37 Comments
“Ulysses is going to make my place famous.” – Sylvia Beach, 1921
And indeed it did. I’m in heaven these days due to the recent publication of The Letters of Sylvia Beach, which I have not read yet, but it means that Sylvia Beach is all over the place right now. It’s … Continue reading
“Already the publicity is beginning, and swarms of people visit the shop on hearing the news.” – Letter from Sylvia Beach to her sister
(“the news” being the publication of Ulysses.) Recently it was Sylvia Beach’s birthday, and this coming month will see the publication of The Letters of Sylvia Beach, which should be a bit of a treasure-trove, considering the people she interacted … Continue reading
Today in history: March 14, 1887
Sylvia Beach, who is responsible for publishing James Joyce’s Ulysses when no one else would touch it, was born on this day, in 1887. Here is a photo of Sylvia and Jimmy: Sylvia said of Joyce: “As for Joyce, he … Continue reading
Today in history: February 2 (1882, and 1922)
Two things happened on today in history: February 2, 1882: James Joyce was born in Rathgar. February 2, 1922: Joyce’s Ulysses was published by Shakespeare & Co. James Joyce had already written a collection of short stories (Dubliners – excerpt … Continue reading
Posted in James Joyce, On This Day
Tagged Dubliners, Finnegans Wake, Ireland, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Sylvia Beach, Ulysses
9 Comments
Reunion
Speaking of Joyce and February 2nd and Sylvia Beach and Shakespeare and Company: Here is a great photo of a Shakespeare & Co. reunion. What a cast of characters. Posted on that wonderful website on February 2nd. Coincidence? I think … Continue reading
Today in history: February 2nd
Two things happened on today in history: February 2, 1882: James Joyce was born in Rathgar. February 2, 1922: Joyce’s Ulysses was published by Shakespeare & Co. James Joyce had already written a collection of short stories (Dubliners – excerpt … Continue reading

