It may only have been just over a week ago since Hamish Hamilton unleashed edition No.7 of their Five Dials magazine into the big wide world (web), but yesterday (Sunday 27th September) they launched Five Dials No.8, and this one has a distinctly Parisian flavour to it.
Launched at a special event in Paris, at the world famous Shakespeare and Company bookshop, the launch, which Hamish Hamilton revealed as being nothing more glamourous than ‘pressing ‘send’ on an email’, was ‘granded up’ with special readings to the assembled crowd by Joe Dunthorne and Steve Toltz.
How did the event go? Well I managed to catch a quick word earlier today with Simon Prosser, Managing Director of Hamish Hamilton (and guest editor for this special issue), who had this to say about yesterday’s launch party:
The Paris launch was pretty amazing, thanks to Shakespeare and Company, the Indian summer weather, French wine, the authors Joe Dunthorne and Steve Toltz who read, and the good will of so many Five Dials subscribers and contributors, many of whom carried on chatting and celebrating until dawn the next day.
It sounds like it was a great event, and well worth a trip over to ‘The City of Lights’. And Hamish Hamilton had promised a small prize to the person who’d traveled the furthest to attend the event. Who won? Well it was a good effort from Five Dials illustrator Joanna Walsh who had traveled over from Oxford, and Five Dials designer who had traveled a fair distance up to the French capital from his home in Avignon. But the overall winner (although perhaps not strictly in Paris solely for the Five Dials event), was Melbourne writer & actor Jayne Tuttle. Wahoo Congratulations Jayne. I hope Mr. Prosser rewarded you well 
.
A quick flick through of Five Dials: The Paris Issue and I’ve got to say I’m impressed. With an introduction by novelist Ali Smith, Parisian-flavoured articles from Steve Tolz, Geoff Dyer, Joe Dunthorne etc. are juxtaposed nicely with inclusions from classic writers such as Truman Capote, Albert Camus and John Updike. In fact the only thing that seems to have topped the excellent literary content, is the incredible Parisian illustrations from Joanna Walsh (her impression of the Notre Dame Cathedral is stunning).
So what are you waiting for my good bookish friends ? Get yourself along to the Five Dials website and download this special slice of Parisian literary life, courtesy of Hamish Hamilton.
**EDIT: Sorry folks I attributed the illustrations incorrectly. The Notre Dame sketch was actually the work of Tor Freeman. Joanna Walsh was responsible for the illustrations of the homeless people in this issue. And while we’re on the subject, the artwork in the London v Paris section is the creation of Paul Davis, while the watercolour illustrations of the Paris signage is the work of Leanne Shapton. So a multi-artist collaboration. How wonderful! Apologies for any mix-up.
About Rob