My First Book Salon

For as long as I have imagined sharing Shaken Awake with readers, I have dreamed of hosting a literary salon: not a formal presentation, and not a room arranged in rows. I imagined people gathered closely together, with a book serving as the beginning rather than the conclusion of the evening. At the Salon at Holly’s, that dream took its first form.

Reading is often solitary: one person, one book, one private encounter between the reader’s life and the words on the page. I love reading and always have: from diving into Les Comtesses de Ségur and Agatha Christie as a child to relishing historical fiction, insightful best sellers and even thoughtful business books.

But books also have a social life. They give us language for things we have struggled to name. They help us recognize ourselves in another person’s story. And when readers come together, a book can open conversations, like a door. 

The literary salon has a long history, particularly in Paris and London.

In seventeenth-century Paris, the Marquise de Rambouillet, gathered writers, poets and thinkers in her home. A century later, Madame Geoffrin became one of the best-known salonnières of the Enlightenment, bringing together leading figures from literature, science and philosophy. In London, Elizabeth Montagu was at the centre of the Bluestocking circle, where women and men met to discuss books, ideas, education and public life.

These women were more than hostesses. They created the conditions for conversation. They brought people together, introduced ideas and made room for exchange.

My own gathering at Holly’s was much more modest. It was closer to a conversation with the author than to a traditional literary salon. The questions focused mainly on Shaken Awake, the writing process and the events behind the book. Still, there was something meaningful about discussing the book in an intimate setting. The formality fell away.

Readers could ask what they genuinely wanted to know, and I could respond with more time and openness than is often possible at a larger event.

For one evening, the book moved from the page into the room and did what I had dreamed of once upon a time. 

I call these gatherings “Around the Table”.

In Shaken Awake, I write about my mother Jacqui’s final wishes. The one thing she insisted I keep was her peach marble dining room table. Everything else could be given away. I cursed that table many times because it did not match my décor. But I never forgot her words: tables are where conversations happen. That’s what ours was for:  where families gather, stories are shared, and love is lived.

That is the spirit behind Around the Table: bringing people together, in person or virtually, with a book as the starting point for deeper questions. What has shaped us?

Has a truth ever changed the story we told about our lives? Which stories are we ready to see differently?

A book may not answer these questions, but it can open the door to asking them. For me, that is one of the great pleasures of writing: seeing a book bring people together and start a conversation of its own.

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