Status Updates From The Shakespeare and Company...

Percival Everett: „I love abstract paintings and I used to avoid the term abstract. I used to say non-representational because I thought abstract sounded like there was no substance. Now I believe in the word abstract. What I want to make is an abstract novel. The problem with this is the medium that I use is representative by nature. It's very difficult to make an abstract thing out of representative elements.“

Percival Everett: „Yeah. I mean, you know, when we look in the mirror, we're not seeing an identical representation of ourselves. We're seeing a mirror image. I suppose photographs are the closest thing, but even then we're seeing a photograph. I don't know what's in a photo-graph. It used to be silver and metal and stuff. Now we're seeing pixels.“

“On such evenings, an irresistible energy can be felt rising in the room until — if we get very lucky — it reaches what I call 'escape velocity'; that heady moment when the formal interview breaks its bounds, and becomes something more: a conversation that matters. A conversation which will, perhaps, resonate in the lives of everyone involved long after they've left the bookshop.”

“This is a beautiful space. There's a sound in the room when I'm not speaking. There's a vibration that happens when people are in the same space together. We feel that when we enter a space that's to some degree collective and free and open. That's why we are drawn here. That's why people are here instead of at a co-working space looking at something online. We need that togetherness.”

Super interesting to read a book about the power of events in one of the most emblematic bookshops. It’s also super good to learn about new authors and books from their own descriptions of their work and worries.