SELECTED COMMENTS
“The personal, conversational tone presents events with both immediacy and verve…….. the rollcall of authors who visited her shop, gave talks to French and expatriate Australian audiences and encouraged a greater awareness of Australian writing in France, is perhaps Lewis’ lasting legacy.” CHRISTOPHER BANTICK, The Sunday Age 16/04/06 (Melbourne, Australia)
“The little things …all convey the wonder of living in Paris and the labour of love that the shop becomes…. It’s impossible to overstate the value of such a place for Australians and gratifying to read that it becomes exactly the type of place that Lewis set out to create and that Australia needs.” MARK TEWFIK, London bookseller and reviewer for Spectrum, Sydney Morning Herald 14-16/04/06 (Sydney, Australia)
“An engaging book about an interesting but alas doomed enterprise.” ROZ EVERETT, Good Reading (Australia)
“…. Lewis has it just right, as on the occasion when she walks along her quai to find ‘the light is a gentle blue and gold and the major buildings along the seine are flood-lit so that you have the impression of walking in the midst of a gigantic film set’.” MARK THOMAS, Canberra Times (Australia)
“Many readers have already commented it’s one of those stories you can’t put down: you feel for her all the way. You are thrilled at the many people who supported her idea and incensed at all those short-sighted cultural officials who didn’t.”
JANE SULLIVAN, The Sunday Age 7/05/06 (Melbourne, Australia)
“…Inspiring and very readable, this will particularly appeal to anyone who’s ever dreamt of living in Paris. Très bien!” Sunday Herald-Sun, Sunday Magazine 7/05/06 (Melbourne, Australia) and Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Magazine 7/05/06 (Sydney, Australia)
“I visited it once, and remember it jam-packed for readings; I accompanied the feisty Lewis and a bunch of authors to a bistro afterwards, thrilled that this Australian oasis existed.”
ANNE SUSSKIND Bulletin with Newsweek 23/05/06 (Australia)
“Lewis has made the story of a failed business venture in a foreign country into a real page-turner, gripping to the last.”
MARTIN STEVENSON, Launceston Examiner 6/05/06 (Tasmania, Australia)
“…..I feel sure that bibliophiles everywhere are going to enjoy this book.”
CANDICE CAPPE, Australian Bookseller & Publisher, March 2006 (Australia)
….Elaine and her many supporters were faced with a battle against the establishment that quickly became stranger than fiction.”
Cowra Guardian 22/05/06 (Cowra, NSW, Australia)
“Paris has always attracted writers of every nationality but not every nation boasts a bookshop in the intellectual chic of the Left Bank. …..her influence in spreading word of Australian literary talent is undiminished.”
JAN HALLAM, Sunday Times 21/05/06 (Perth, Australia)
“…..Lewis’ book is a demonstration of how far we have moved from the cultural cringe of my generation and the neurotic desire some of us had to live in faraway places where no hint of the familiar would impinge….. this book becomes curiously involving.”
JOHN CLAIRE Sydney Sun Herald 14/05/06 (Sydney, Australia)
“ a very readable story about establishing her shop, her life in Paris and the events leading up to the shop’s closure.”
GAIL KNOX Hawkesbury Gazette 12/07/06 (Hawkesbury, NSW, Australia)