Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties

Rating:
Summary: The definitive history of expatriate Paris
Review: This book has been in print for many years because it is the definitive history of literary Paris for the expatriates of the 1920s and 1930s. It is now happily used as a text book in universities, but is intented as a good read for any general reader interested in Hemingway, Stein, Joyce, Pound, and company.

Rating:
Summary: keen and insightful....
Review: This is one of the best books that I've ever read about the 'lost generation' of Americans literary refugees in Paris. The writing is excellent, the research exhaustive and thorough with unparalleled access to Ms. Beach's 'surpressed' portions of her autobiography "Shakespeare and Company". It is readily apparent from this book that without Ms. Beach and her unflinching support, there would have been no "Ulysses" (and maybe no James Joyce). But there was so many other authors she supported and nurtured as well, as the quote from Ernest Hemingway cited above illustrates as well. This book is almost a 'must read' for those persons interested in American literature of the mid 20th century.

Rating:
Summary: History-Biography-Delectation
Review: This is one of those books where you care about the characters. Their past and future becomes important and that the characters are real people make this book all the more fasinating. A book one does want to end. But end it does with style.