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On Friday, May 20, author Eric Lee presented his two most recent books at Prospero's.  The Experiment: Georgia's Forgotten Revolution 1918-1921, available in English and Georgian, tells the story of the first Georgian republic.  His second book on Georgian history, Night of the Bayonets: The Texel Uprising and Hitler's Revenge - April-May 1945, also available in the two languages, is set in what he described as 'a darker time' when young Georgian men had to choose between the two nightmares of Nazism and Stalinism.  After a short presentation about the two books, Lee did a reading from Night of the Bayonets which was followed by a lively Q&A session with the audience. Lee is currently a Writer in Residence at the Writers' House in Tbilisi where he is working on his next book on a Georgian theme - telling the story of the August 1924 uprising in Georgia against Bolshevik rule.  The Experiment has been a Prospero's best-seller since it was first published in 2018 and has gone through several re-printings in its Georgian edition.  The English edition has also now sold off, but Prospero's was fortunately able to order the last remaining copies from the U.K. publisher.  The Georgian editions of both books were published by Ziari Press and translated by Keti Kantaria. Next

The beginnings of Prospero’s Books is described in the article published in the then popular English language magazine – Tbilisi Pastimes. The year was 1998; our manager was pregnant with her first child – Saba. The big question was who would arrive first into the world, Prospero’s or Saba? In the end Prospero’s won by a few days. Today both are thriving and the manager is still our Executive Director. Being the first English language bookshop/café, not only in Georgia but the whole Caucasus region, made year one a full-on enterprise. We cut the ribbon at our launch, then looking over our shoulder at our first proud delivery of books - piled up on the floor, still with no shelves to put them on. Then, miraculously the shelves were finished and Prospero’s slowly evolved through its complex childhood of power-cuts, wild-west capitalism and Kafkaesque government bureaucracy. Until 2003 different taxation levels applied to different literary subjects. Fiction and science were exempt, but tax had to be paid on children’s and non-fiction books. All of our shipments had to be vetted by the Ministry of Culture book by book, just to certify which belonged to which subject and also trying to convince Customs that Shakespeare was fiction. Fortunately, those days are well gone. We celebrated our 20th birthday last year, during which years our main shop has doubled in size, and we opened two new branches in Tbilisi. Below are some key moments in what seems like our epic history – in various forms. Next

by Anthony Gardner  For the window of his bookshop, Irvine Welsh has chosen Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and William Burroughs’ The Place of Dead Roads. Terry Pratchett’s shop, Narrativia, is displaying Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots and Leaves. A few doors along, Tony Parsons has shelves stacked with John le Carré and Mario Puzo. Welcome to the newest address in bookselling, Author Street.      None of these shops have a physical existence: they are part of  a recently launched website, myindependentbookshop.co.uk, on which anyone can post a selection of books they love. If another reader buys a book you recommend, a percentage of the price goes to your favourite real bookshop. Penguin Random House, who created the website, deny that it is trying to compete with Amazon – but to those who hate Amazon’s Godzilla-like dominance of the market, myindependentbookshop is a heartening salvo in the fight-back by traditional booksellers.      ‘I love the idea of this website,’ says Felicity Rubinstein, co-owner of the Notting Hill bookshop and literary agency Lutyens & Rubinstein, ‘because what they’ve identified is that Amazon and its algorithms aren’t personal – and the beauty of an independent bookstore is that it provides you with recommendations from people you trust.’      With fewer than 1,000 independent bookshops left in the UK, the success of Lutyens & Rubinst Next

Prospero’s Bookshop and café opened its doors on the world, 17th October 1999. We were then the first English language bookshop café not only in Georgia, but the entire Caucasus region. Our purpose was to serve the local community with a full range of international literature, language teaching, and informational books in a central location. Luckily, we found a quiet courtyard at No 34 Rustaveli Avenue – which was about as good as we could get.    Our other intention was to become the first port of call for tourists, foreigners and visitors of all kinds to the Georgian capital. We would stock up-to-date guide books, maps, local newspapers, novels, have a notice board and internet café where people could meet,exchange stories and prepare for their next Caucasian adventure.    But for a good café we needed good coffee. At the time there was a shortage in Tbilisi. So not only did we begin importing our own beans, we then roasted and ground them too, actually on the premises. Prospero’s blend of coffee is still famous in Tbilisi today. Since that day we have expanded, doubling in size. We have also opened two new branches, one at Betsy’s Hotel and the other At the Exhibition Center of the National Archives on Vasha Pshavela street.   Prospero’s continues to thrive to this day – and on 17thOctober 2019 we celebrate our 20th birthday to become the longest surviving business on R Next

Nineteen years ago The Bookseller asked for an account of our opening the first English language bookshop in the heart of the then, woolly Caucasus. Prospero's Books at 34 Rustaveli Av, Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, was born into a time of power cuts, local corruption, war across the border and very few tourists. Then our primary asset, after the books, was our generator. Reading it back now, a nervous phrase in the article stands out, 'would there be enough English speakers to keep the business going?'   When I penned those words we'd been open for 11 months. Today we are about to become 20 years old - and one of the longest running businesses on Rustaveli (the city's Oxford St).   So what allowed us to survive?   Apart from the obvious - our backbone Tamara Megrelishvili, whose managerial determination, belief and skill has been there from day one, several unforeseen factors certainly helped. First that the Georgian speakers/customers not foreigners, would form the bedrock of our business at over 50% (especially during the leaner winter months). Second that initially we became a major information source in the city, as modern Russian language publications were dwindling fast along with Russian speakers. If locals wanted to, say... start a business; travel; learn a language or computer program, or were pregnant, or just generally curious, we could help. But even when reliable internet services arrived across the country, including the remote mountain areas, still this factor never completely disappeared.   Next