If it weren't for Sylvia Beach, we wouldn't have James Joyce's Ulysses. Beach, an American expatriate who ran the bookshop Shakespeare and Company in Paris between the wars, published him when no one else would.

In this book, Ms. Beach describes that exploit, and reminisces about many literary luminaries of the period, including Hemingway, Gide, Robert McAlmon, Ezra Pound, et al.

One of the things that's really interesting is to read how Beach had originally intended to open an American branch of Adrienne Monnier's La Maison des Amis des Livres in New York, but then decided instead to open an American bookstore in Paris. Monnier, who was also Beach's lover, helped and encouraged her throughout.