A compendium of good reads about Paris and France in English.
Save Shakespeare & Co.
It’s the first stop in Paris for every new American tourist in Paris and, thanks to its lively program of readings, has become an even more vital part of the city’s literary scene in recent years as other English-language bookshops have disappeared. Forcibly closed during lockdown, Shakespeare & Co. is now struggling to survive. Find out how you can help in this Guardian article.
Other small businesses need support during the current lockdown as well. The Local offers advice.
Pantheon: poets in or out?
Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker examines the argument in France over whether or not bad-boy poets and lovers Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine should be interred in the Pantheon along with the country’s other great men and women.
Cuisine
During World War II, the French were forced to eat such vegetables as Jerusalem artichokes and rutabagas, once fed only to animals. After the war, they didn’t want anything to do with them, but today’s French chefs are devising appetizing new ways to serve the once-reviled root vegetables. Gastro Obscura reports.
Coronavirus news
France 24 reports on the frightening rise in Covid-19 deaths and hospitalizations in France.
French customs
Here’s something a little lighter: The Local explains why a strange French person might be giving you the beady eye.