Shakespeare and Company

01/10/2026

22/09/2026

V.S. Naipaul described his breakthrough novel A House for Mr. Biswas as his ""most personal"" book, ""created out of what I felt and saw as a child"". It took him three years to write and by the end of it he knew much of it by heart. His father was the inspiration for the permanently embattled Mohun Biswas, and the author served as the model for Mr Biswas's son Anand. Naipaul's comic masterpiece is frequently numbered among the greatest novels of the 20th Century.

We have a copy of the first edition in stock in our rare book room. Click on the link in our bio for a closer look.

19/09/2026

🎨📚 We kicked off our new season at Shakespeare and Company with a
n old friend, the brilliant Dave Eggers, back with us to talk about his wonderful new novel, Contrapposto.

Dave's events are always wide-ranging, generous, inclusive conversations. That night the talk wandered from activism to education to AI and even touched on his book along the way!

Fittingly, given the novel is so preoccupied with art and artists, we were joined by the brilliant , who sketched the evening as it unfolded.

Don’t worry if you couldn’t make it. The full conversation is now live on the Shakespeare and Company podcast (link in our bio)

18/09/2026

75 Years of Shakespeare and Company

Part III: The Cats and Dogs

Not every bookseller at Shakespeare and Company over the years has been human.
From the early days, cats and dogs have curled up on piles of books, or prowled between the shelves here, greeting readers at opening, keeping the stock (and laps) warm throughout the day and long into the evening. George had a simple system for naming the cats: every one was called Kitty, after Anne Frank’s pet. Less time spent remembering names meant more time for reading! This tradition ended until Aggie, pictured in 2020 in her favourite seat, watching over the shop with quiet, grumpy authority. She took her name from Agatha Christie, after wandering off the street one night and curling up in our Crime section.

The dogs, on the other hand, tended to have names. In the 1980s there was the magnificent Baskerville, a big dog with an even bigger personality. More recently, there was the dearly missed Colette, seen here celebrating Christmas in 2013. She was a smaller dog but she left a big space behind her when she moved to that great kennel in the sky. Then, two years ago, we welcomed Djuna. She has settled in perfectly, as if she has always lived here. Come and say hello next time you visit, she's always happy for a fuss.

And let’s not forget the hundreds of animals that you have brought in over the years. We love meeting them all, though the pig who lived on a nearby houseboat for a few years will always hold a special place in our hearts.

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11/09/2026

As we celebrate our 75th anniversary, it’s the perfect time to dive back into our history and discover the behind-the-scenes stories, untold secrets, and archive photographs you’ll want to see from our family bookstore.

Get your copy and take a piece of our history home with you.

08/09/2026

Beckett is one of just a handful of authors to have written important works in two languages. His first stories and novels, written in English, show the influence of Joyce, for whom he worked in Paris. But then, on a trip to his mother’s house, he had an epiphany: « I realised that Joyce had gone as far as one could in the direction of knowing more ... I realised that my own way was in impoverishment, in lack of knowledge and in taking away, in subtracting rather than in adding. » Writing in French was one way he found to help him work towards this new pared down style.

We have a large collection of his books in stock at the moment, including many first editions in French. Only a handful are online so do send us an email if you’d like to find out more.

Click on the link in our bio to see a selection.📚

08/09/2026

Beckett is one of just a handful of authors to have written important works in two languages. His first stories and novels, written in English, show the influence of Joyce, for whom he worked in Paris. But then, on a trip to his mother's house, he had an epiphany: "I realised that Joyce had gone as far as one could in the direction of knowing more ... I realised that my own way was in impoverishment, in lack of knowledge and in taking away, in subtracting rather than in adding." Writing in French was one way he found to help him work towards this new pared down style.

We have a large collection of his books in stock at the moment, including many first editions in French. Only a handful are online so do send us an email if you'd like to find out more.

Click on the link in our bio to see a selection

07/09/2026

🎙️ Episode 2 of Editions, our podcast with , is live!

Adam Biles and Ella Griffiths are joined by novelist Megan Nolan (Acts of Desperation, Ordinary Human Failings) to talk about ILLUSIONS by Ruth Rehmann, newly translated by Rob Madole and out now from Faber Editions.

First published in Germany in 1959 and lost to English-language readers for decades, this cinematic, fragmented, modernist novel follows four employees of a vast West German corporation across a single weekend. It's an intimate portrait of four inner lives, and a sharp state-of-the-nation novel about West Germany's postwar "economic miracle," and the illusions that sustain it.

In this conversation: Rehmann's place in Gruppe 47, the novel's ties to Mrs Dalloway, a generation trying to forget the war, a mischievous omniscient window cleaner watching it all unfold, and what it meant for a woman writer to be criticised, as contemporary reviewers said of Rehmann, for "an excess of contemporaneity."

🎧 Listen now — link in bio

04/09/2026

Our Shakespeare and Company baseball cap is back! Made from 100% organic brushed cotton, it comes in classic navy blue with crisp white embroidered lettering. The Velcro strap at the back is adjustable for an easy, comfortable fit.

The perfect accessory to keep your style on point as you come back from the summer holidays.

29/08/2026

Next time you visit the bookshop, take a chance on a Lucky Dip, curated by our booksellers!

Each surprise second-hand pick comes tucked inside a special pochette, complete with the bookshop stamp and a bookmark. Pick one and let fate chose your next read 📖✨