Book of the Week
Je t'aime by Veronique Mortaigne
Timed to coincide with both Valentine's Day and the 50-year anniversary of the legendary banned song Je t'aime... moi non plus, Veronique Mortaigne's brilliantly-written book skilfully identifies the pairing of Gainsbourg and Birkin as an expression of the spirit of the age. Synonymous with love, eroticism, glamour, music, provocation, their affair would set France aflame as the sixties ebbed, and set in motion many of the ideas we have by now come to think of as specifically `French'. Skipping back and forth in time, Je t'aime takes the reader from the foggy Normandy landscapes where Serge and Jane retreated, to their carefree summers on the coast. En route to their superstardom in films and music, we experience their intrigues, triangular relationships, and jealous rages, the genius and the self-torture. Tenderly told, via new interviews with key players in their story, Je t'aime details the coming together of two massive personalities, who together created a model of the rebel couple for the ages
Book at Bedtime
Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne
You've heard the old proverb about ambition, that it's like setting a ladder to the sky. It can lead to a long and painful fall. If you look hard enough, you will find stories pretty much anywhere. They don't even have to be your own. Or so would-be-novelist Maurice Swift decides early on in his career. A chance encounter in a Berlin hotel with celebrated author Erich Ackerman gives Maurice an opportunity. For Erich is lonely, and he has a story to tell; whether or not he should is another matter. Once Maurice has made his name, he finds himself in need of a fresh idea. He doesn't care where he finds it, as long as it helps him rise to the top. Stories will make him famous, but they will also make him beg, borrow and steal. They may even make him do worse. This is a novel about ambition.
Costa Book Award 2019
The Costa Book Awards is one of the UK's most prestigious and popular literary prizes and recognises some of the most enjoyable books of the year, written by authors based in the UK and Ireland.
This year's award, announced on January 29th, has been awarded to Bart van Es for his biography, The Cut Out Girl.
Little Lien wasn't taken from her Jewish parents - she was given away in the hope that she might be saved. Hidden and raised by a foster family in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation, she survived the war only to find that her real parents had not. Much later, she fell out with her foster family, and Bart van Es - the grandson of Lien's foster parents - knew he needed to find out why. His account of tracing Lien and telling her story is a searing exploration of two lives and two families. It is a story about love and misunderstanding and about the ways that our most painful experiences - so crucial in defining us - can also be redefined. 'Luminous, elegant, haunting - I read it straight through' Philippe Sands, author of East West Street'Deeply moving. Writes with an almost Sebaldian simplicity and understatement' Guardian
These are the books that were most popular with our customers last week......
1. The Only Story by Julian Barnes
2. Old Baggage by Lissa Evans
3. Milkman by Anna Burns
4. The Cut Out Girl by Bart Van Es
5. Watching You by Lisa Jewell
6. Still Me by Jojo Moyes
7. The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
8. The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar
9. Educated by Tara Westover
10. The Skylark's War by Hilary McKay
If you would like to read any of these books, please send us a message from our contacts page, and we will reserve a copy for you.
The Favourite
This film starring Olivia Coleman is about Queen Anne and her close relationship with Sarah Churchill, all of which is covered in this excellent book by Joanne Limburg.
Every time I see the King and the Queen, I am reminded of what it is I have done, and then I am afraid, I am beyond all expression afraid. The wicked, bawdy Restoration court is no place for a child princess. Ten-year-old Anne cuts an odd figure: a sickly child, she is drawn towards improper pursuits. Cards, sweetmeats, scandal and gossip with her Ladies of the Bedchamber figure large in her life. But as King Charles's niece, Anne is also a political pawn, who will be forced to play her part in the troubled Stuart dynasty. As Anne grows to maturity, she is transformed from overlooked Princess to the heiress of England. Forced to overcome grief for her lost children, the political manoeuvrings of her sister and her closest friends and her own betrayal of her father, she becomes one of the most complex and fascinating figures of English history.
Pitshanger Bookshop has been a feature on Pitshanger Lane for nearly 20 years. My name is Fiona Kennedy and I've owned the shop since August 2011.
