RW Books: RWB and Paris en Toutes Lettres

Recently, Paris' popular mayor Bertrand Delanoe held a press conference to launch the first city wide literary festival. The festival titled Paris en Toutes Lettres will run from 4th of June till the 8th of June and it aims to showcase the city of Paris both as a vivid inspiration for a number of great literature written by both French and non-French speaking writers and as a literary city that welcomes and shelters writers. This is an important literary event that will entail the participation of the city libraries including the National Library, the bouquinistes, cafes, theatres and a good number of independent bookstores, including the Red Wheelbarrow. In connection with this festival, a number of events, readings and special film screenings are being planned. They are even planning to invite a writer to set up at a designated area where he will write until he completes a book during the duration of the festival. I'm sure that's going to be something to see!

We at RWB have planned an exciting array of events in connection with the Paris en Toutes Lettres that will take place within our wonderful store! And because we were so inspired with the planning of the festival events, we went ahead and planned several other events at the RWB for the month of June. We are seriously packed for the month of June. Everyone is welcome to join us and if you want to receive reminders by mail, don't hesitate to send us your email address at good.reading@wanadoo.fr! A full schedule of June's events, including those for the Paris en Toutes Lettres festival will be uploaded on the website (and this blog) within the next few days so stay tuned!

For the Paris en Toutes Lettres Festival, RWB's events are the following...don't forget to write them down in your agendas

4 June 2009 --Sally Gardner who will be reading from the Silver Blade at 6PM

7 June 2009-- Anne Marsella who will be reading from her new book Patsy Boone as well as giving a talk on the craft of writing in a foreign tongue. That's at 3PM

7 June 2009--T.E. Carhart who will be reading from his bestselling book Piano Shop on the Left Bank at 5PM.

8 June 2009--Marilyn Hacker and Marie Etienne doing a bilingual reading from the King of a Hundred Horsemen at 7PM. Marilyn Hacker has just won the prestigious Robert Fagles prize for translation for this wonderful book.

Before I close this post, I wanted to share some pictures I took of the Hotel De Ville. I couldn't resist playing the tourist while inside since these are parts that are normally off-limits to visitors unless you've got an official reason to be there!