Romances, poetry, parodies and children's books: a number of Parisian booksellers have chosen their favorites to bring you a varied selection of summer literature. Whether you're sitting in the shade of a park, with your feet in the sand or in the cool of a fan, this selection is sure to thrill you, make you think, make you laugh or send shivers down your spine. There's nothing like a good book to take your mind off things and change the atmosphere, even if you're stuck in the capital!
Thanks to this small selection of around ten books, both avid readers and the curious in search of an outstanding novel for the summer will be able to make their choice and discover a universe, a unique and singular story. So, are you ready to slip a bit of paper into your suitcase? Follow the booksellers' guide and let yourself be tempted!
Summary: Rozenn arrives at a seaside campsite where she'll be working as a seasonal employee for the summer, at the café La Voile. It's a chance for her to take a break before starting her new job as an engineer in September - and to ask herself the questions that have been nagging at her about her future. While there, she meets Camille, a young teacher who has been spending his summers here for years. They immediately hit it off - until the arrival of a young woman, Marjorie, a client who is as charismatic as she is aloof. While Rozenn and Camille's relationship blossoms, they are both troubled by Marjorie and the place she takes in their duo. Between the three of them, so different from each other, complicity grows and doubt begins to creep in: what if there was another way to love each other?
Margot's verdict: This feel-good summer romance explores a subject that is still quite rare on our shelves: polyamory. With her adorable little troupe and a good dose of goodwill, Ludmilla Taillanter challenges the codes of romance and the heteronormative couple.
Where to find it :
Majo, the feminist bookshop with a small vegan café near the Pantheon
Between Jussieu and the Panthéon, you'll find a pretty, cosy bookshop in violet tones, where you'll find feminist, children's and contemporary books, and a vegan café to relax in. [Read more]
La Régulière's recommendations
Summary: In this inverted version of the famous wargame "Dungeons & Dragons", the humans are game characters, and it's the dragons who play at being perfect office workers.
Alice's verdict: A small-format comic to take with you on the adventures of "Bureaux & Humains", where dragons play at surviving office life. Their objective? Win points for charm, innovation or business strategy and hope to get a raise or at least... not get fired! The perfect way to unwind on vacation!
Summary: From her encounter with a woman, the author has drawn a few poems and a questionnaire revisiting the different stages of the state of love, parodying the traditional tests in women's magazines.
Alice's verdict: This little book brings together a series of personality tests and poems, to accompany us in our everyday, most personal questions. Lots of poetry, sweetness and humor in these tests to share with friends!
Where to find them :
In the Goutte d'Or district of Paris, you'll discover a true hybrid of independent bookshop specializing in graphic arts, coffee shop and small art gallery, where you can find little nuggets like nowhere else! [Read more]
Summary: An offbeat cosmic investigation featuring flying saucers, shadowing and galaxies to explore! Detective Rose Well is on a new case: the zinzin has been stolen. She'll have to scour every nook and cranny of the Universe to find it and return it to its owner. This science-fiction adventure, with its deliciously absurd humor, is a jubilant reading experience, in which the book itself becomes part of the story, thanks to ingenious holographic markings.
Pauline's verdict: The author offers us a completely zany investigation led by detective Rose Well in search of a missing ZINZIN with a magnificent holographic coating! The mission proves difficult, with no fewer than 7 planets to explore.
Summary Enter the workshop of the taille-doucière and discover how to print images by engraving metal plates. An ancient skill, born (according to legend) from the hands of goldsmiths, which revolutionized image reproduction. Copper or zinc, various tools, acid, pen, ink, paper, tarlatan and, above all, the craftswoman's hand, follow the different stages of this engraving technique.
Pauline's verdict: To learn more about a traditional craft, artist Gaby Bazin takes us on a journey to meet an intaglio engraver. Guided by intricate, precise, almost educational illustrations, this album combines the history of this very special engraving technique, detailed practical explanations and colorful plastic experiments. Following in the footsteps of her previous works, the artist composes her illustrations using superimposed layers of primary colors to create a dialogue between screens, solids and textures. This computer-assisted coloring of drawings on tracing paper subtly echoes her use of more traditional printing techniques.
At the Musée de Poche, children can enjoy workshops and activities in this small space between gallery and bookshop, where creativity is the order of the day, in the heart of Paris's 11th arrondissement. [Read more]
Summary: A moving reflection on motherhood and its representations. At the center of the book is the author's only portrait of her mother, taken when she was a young child, and only a few months before her mother died. This portrait is not shown, but is the absent center around which the whole revolves. A blend of analytical prose, diary extracts and poems, this is a book of rare intelligence and lucidity, two qualities that explain its success on release.
Jean-Paul's verdict: Listening to the silences of memory, exploring its labyrinths, this book takes a critical look at the violence and guilt that run through the maternal body. In this way, Iman Mersal elaborates a kind of poetic art: the reparation referred to in the title comes through writing, and is creative in nature. In this sense, the book is a gesture of emancipation.
Summary When Jack Kerouac's novel "On the Road" was published, Neal Cassady became a hero, almost a myth. Insatiable, eager to experiment and meet new people, always at the wheel with his foot to the floor, he took part in the birth of the hippie movement and what became known as the American counterculture. Rock'n'roll had replaced jazz, and Neal Cassady was still swinging through life. To the point of exhaustion. Unpublished in French, these letters (1951-1968) reveal a man living up to his legend.
Jean-Paul's verdict: Amazing writing, breathtaking freedom, a journey through the U.S.A., Neal Cassady considered "the soul of the Beat Generation", here are his letters, long unpublished in France, with his peers Kerouac, Ginsberg Burroughs and his wife Carolyn Cassady, imbued with a madness that enthrals!
Where to find them:
In the Latin Quarter, the history of the capital meets literature in the bookshop de l'Ours et la Vieille Grille. Formerly a theater in the 1960s, the place is now a haunt for poets and book lovers, as well as for fine dining, as it boasts a soulful café! [Read more]
Summary: Despite a host of new products from nurseries and garden centers, most gardens feature the same plants. No judgement here: these are beautiful plants, sure values. Only... it's all lacking a breath of fresh air! So, to wake up your garden and get off the beaten track, that's the challenge that the author, a passionate gardener, invites you to take up with his original selection of over 400 plants. Without snobbery and with a great deal of humor, he will arouse your curiosity and open up the range of possibilities in the garden. The choice is yours - there's something for every taste and every situation, or almost!
Summary: A book of games to discover the animals, plants and geology of the coast! How is a dune formed? What is the "laisse de mer"? How does erosion work? Join Lou on an adventure to the heart of the coastline, where you'll discover the many interactions between animals, plants, the environment and human beings. Rebus, labyrinths, intrusions, magic coloring, tangled wires, arrow words, code words, connect the dots... some thirty games and as many pages of information await you to help you better understand the natural world around you.
Cyrille's verdict: In these two books (with Destination Montagne), Nathalie Blain helps children discover nature during their vacations. Games, drawings, investigations, coloring: it's fun and very well done!
Where to find them :
On the banks of the Canal de l'Ourcq, you'll find an unusual barge that holds treasures of lush greenery and literature. A small café-restaurant hides away in this unique botanical bookshop with its feet in the water, the ideal place for good ideas to germinate! [Read more]
Summary: Aurélien has never forgotten Maxence. Their friendship was obvious, fusional. The magical summer of his eleventh birthday. And then his sudden departure, without him even being able to say goodbye. Seven years have passed since then. Back in the village, Aurélien runs his parents' café on his own; he's put all his dreams on hold. Until that morning in July, when he discovered a boy with familiar features sitting on the terrace. Maxence has never forgotten Aurélien. Love at first sight. A tidal wave in his well-ordered life. That summer, Maxence realized that he preferred boys and that his parents would never accept him. Since then, he's kept his feelings, his fears, his hopes, everything he suffered at school... Until that night and the last-minute phone call to his father offering him a second chance, in the south... where Aurélien still lives. But so many years later, will reality live up to their memories?
Our verdict: A moving and luminous choral novel, in which two teenagers battered by life relearn to love each other and to live, surrounded by fair and caring characters. Carried by great tenderness and sincere writing, this tale of a summer between nostalgia, the present moment and resilience left a deep impression on us, imbued with hope and, above all, love, whatever it may be.
Majo, the feminist bookshop with a small vegan café near the Pantheon
La Régulière: independent bookshop, coffee shop and art gallery in the 18th arrondissement
Musée de Poche: a small art gallery and bookshop with creative workshops for children
L'Ours et la Vieille Grille: poetry-filled café-library and wine cellar in a former theater
Water and dreams, the botanical barge-library on the Canal de l'Ourcq
