THE PARIS LETTER: London

Hello from sunny Paris, where we are lying in bed and eating baguettes -

Yes, it is a LAZY sunday today, while we wait for our friend Dave to arrive on his stopover from Portland to Malawi. Some people have really exotic lives, you know?

I spent most of the week in London shopping attending the London Book Fair, an annual glitzy and glamorous international publishing conference. No, really its like a trade show for books, held in a big conference center, where agents and publishers from all over the world come to make rights deals - and a bunch of other stuff happens, like I think book buyers from libraries and bookstores might also be there? And then all the residual publishing businesses like printers, e-book retailers, merchandisers, etc. But I really spend most of my time on the international rights deals side of things, which means in the IRC, or international rights center. This is a huge open floor that looks either like an open plan office or a series of poker tables in a giant casino, where agents and publishers have half hour meetings all day to sell and promote their titles.



The largest (and oldest) book fair is in Frankfurt, Germany every October, and has been in place since just a few years after the printing press was invented - However, London is for me a more fun fair because 1) It's in London 2) More film people come 3) It's in London. I could also just say, it's not in Frankfurt, but that would just be mean.

But come on, London is a way better city than Frankfurt! Way way better. It may be a better city than Paris, the jury is out on that. I may be a little biased because after six months of full time living here, I was getting a little exhausted but all things French ,and was really happy to be in London for a week. I was actually surprised how happy I was - and not just because everyone spoke English! I can't really explain it - It just felt sort of like New York to me, but prettier, but generally less difficult to maneuver in than France - I've been trying to figure out why I loved it so much this trip and can't put my finger on it, but suffice it to say I had a great time.

I stayed in Marylebone, which I am now calling "The Tribeca of London" - I'd never really stayed in that neighborhood before and I loved it. It's very close to the West End/Soho area where I usually stay, but feels enough removed that you don't feel like you're immediately in downtown all thethe time. However, you can easily walk to Oxford Circus and

Go shopping see the sights. I also found a restaurant on Marylebone High Street called Natural Kitchen which was so LA - they had a juice bar and organic egg sandwiches and a "detox" salad bar. Also a lot of posh/hippie young moms feeding their toddlers organic fruit and such. It was great. Maybe that's what I want - to live in London but to eat like I'm in LA. I went to that place basically every day I was there.

Not that it saved me from eating a lot of unhealthy British food. Or at least, a lot of French fries (or "chips" as I hear they're called in Blighty). I tried again to like fish n chips, and I just don't like it! I don't know why. It seems like I should like it, but the fish always seems so bland and greasy. I even had mine at a chic gastropub where the fish was "line-caught" and still just ended up eating the chips and the breading. But I did go to a terrific and unpretentious gastropub, GREAT QUEEN STREET on the street of the same name in Covent Garden - you have to reserve ahead, but it's a casual place with really good food, including insane homemade sour cherry ice cream that I had for dessert - I recommend it. London dining can be really hit and miss, I find, so this time I stuck to gastropubs and Indian food, and it seemed to be the way to go.

By far the best part of being in London was seeing a bunch of my old New York and London friends - These are all people I'd worked with when I was scouting in New York, and it just felt so good to be back with people who know me well. I didn't realize how much I was missing that - even though I have a bunch of friends in Paris, there's nothing that compares to people who've known you for years and still somehow like you. It's cool, you know. It made me feel much less out of the loop, and also made me really miss New York. Sigh. Oh well. I'm eating a baguette now though, to remind myself that Paris has some cool stuff too.

And yes, I love to shop in London. I don't know how this came about, but a few years ago this London Book Fair trip also became a "Claire buys her spring/summer wardrobe" trip, and thus it has been ever since. I don't ever go too crazy - one year I went to Selfridges and Liberties and realized that these were basically London's equivalent of Bergdorf Goodman, and that I would not be buying anything there. But I did manage to pick up some awesome stuff - I don't know why, I think the sizing is better for me in London - certainly better than Paris, and somewhat better even than New York. So I came back with the feeling of hard won success that a woman can only get when she's managed to outfit herself well and within her budget - though now that the dollar is like 1.7 to the pound, I tried not to think about it too hard - I don't even know what conversion I'm on anymore, anyway, since I'm doing Euros, Dollars, and Pounds - all I can do is try to not go too crazy in any denomination.

Uh oh. Matt just announced that he's listening to "Mexican Goth Reggae from the 80s", so I better go -- that's a cry for help if I've ever heard one.

Hope everyone has a great week - we'll be in Helsinki next weekend, so there will probably be no letter, but count on lots of interesting stories from Finland to come soon -

xo CTL