The Old Man and the Sea

Arrow; Paperback; 2004; ISBN: 9780099908401
Stamped by Shakespeare and Co. ♥ | ★★★★

“He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish […] Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same colour as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.”

The Old Man and the Sea is a novella by Ernest Hemingway, written in Cuba in 1951 and published in 1952 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. I’ve read it numerous times and I still find it to be an absolutely captivating novel.

I’m a big fan of Hemingway since I was a kid and read his Nick Adams stories—well who isn’t? I bought this Arrow paperback from the famous Shakespeare and Co., (you have to ask them personally if you want to have your books stamped) in Paris back in 2005. I spoke so much about visiting Shakespeare and Co., to buy originally A Moveable Feast on the plane, that my friend I was traveling with, grabbed it before I did—he’s not even a Hemingway fan! Oh, Dieu! I’ve been to Paris two consecutive times since without luck of acquiring the book. It turns out that every tourist asks about it—well after reading A Moveable Feast I presume—what a cliché. So next time I’ll keep my mouth shut.