Stéphanie des Horts signed two hundred books in two hours!

Stéphanie des Horts has accustomed us every year  to the publication of fun biographies about scandalous women. Her new book, “Carolyn et John” is the story of the glamorous Kennedy couple who died on their way to Martha’s Vineyard on July 16, 1999. We know everything about the dramatic event but Stéphanie has a unique way of telling their story with just enough scandalous details and true empathy to keep our interest going all the way. At the signature of the book, the crowd of friends and faithful fans invaded the tiny librairie Kogan on 17 rue du Bac and all the 200 copies were gone by 8 pm. She tells the story of wonderful New York before Nine Eleven, in her usual sexy way…

Daniel Cordier joined de Gaulle in London in 1940 and became Jean Moulin’s secretary during the war. He told his amazing story in “Alias Caracalla“, a riveting history of the Resistance which was made into a miniseries for television. He died on November 20, 2020 in Cannes but his editorial assistant, the historian Bénédicte Vergez-Chaignon, worked on his notes and unpublished manuscript, to produce “Amateur d’Art“, presented as a sequel, between 1946 and 1977.  It is the story of his two art galleries located near the Elysée Palace, rue de Duras and rue La Boétie, which were financed by Guy de Broglie (decorated by his wife Jeanne Marie)  and other collectors. His adventures in New York and post war Paris are very well detailed and his relationship with painter Jean Dubuffet is a moment in art history. Every young galerist should read this book. One of the artists he put forward is Bernard Requichot, who had a very short career of 10 years and is right now exhibited at Centre Pompidou until September 3. He is represented by Galerie Alain Margaron who was close professionally  to Daniel Cordier at the end of his life. Daniel Cordier gave a large part of his collection to Centre Pompidou where it was exhibited in 1989-1990.

Bernard Réquichot, “Episode of the battle of nerves”, 1957, at Centre Pompidou until September 2

Colin Thibert‘s novel “Une saison à Montparnasse“, based on a woman painter in the 1920’s is a page turner. Born in an affluent family from the silk industry in Lyon, Gabrielle Bertholon refuses to get married and after she inherits a little money when her father dies she moves to Paris. There, she mingles with the artists of the time, often pays for their dinner, and becomes Marcelle’s lover. The book is very lively (the writer is also a screen writer) and her adventures in Paris and later in a sanatorium in Switzerland give the author all the space for a thriller inspired by the Roaring Twenties.

Spring reads with Daniel Cordier, Georgia de Chamberet and Colin Thibert

Lesley Blanch was Romain Gary‘s first wife. Well known for winning twice the Goncourt Prize, as Gary and as Emile Ajar, a pseudonym, the Russian born writer is a French literary phenomenon. Lesley Blanch was often forgotten because of Jean Seberg’s (his second wife) fame.  Ten years older than him, she had met him while working at British Vogue in London during the war and introduced him to society while leading her own career as an adventurous traveller and writer. Her ” The Wilder Shores of Love” published in 1954 made her instantaneously famous and “The Sabres of Paradise” on Caucasus confirmed her as a serious adventurer. While her books are being republished in French,  Georgia de Chamberet, her goddaughter and literary executor, publishes at Editions Herodios, a charming essay on this woman who inspired one of the greatest French novelists of the XX th century.