A trained journalist with a past at Vanity Fair, Alexane Pelissou now heads the editorial creative agency PLUME® Rédaction. She spends her days finding the perfect words for others. In May 2024, she chose to curate beautiful book pairings. Thus, Circa was born—a literary curation service for individuals, hotels, offices, and architects.
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
Alexane Pelissou is a journalist by training. After starting her career at the likes of Vanity Fair, she joined PLUME® Rédaction over six years ago as a writer. From creative strategy and project management to client supervision, she gradually became the right hand of founder Laurianne Melierre, whose role she has just stepped into as director. Founded in 2018, the agency is made up of journalists who help brands find their voice.
Alongside her day job, Alexane cultivates a passion all her own: books. In May 2024, she launched Circa. The spark came after she noticed, in certain hotels and restaurants, those shelves stocked by the pound, where books serve as mere wallpaper. She imagined the exact opposite. Libraries curated book by book, tailored to the space but, above all, to the guests passing through.
Circa means “about” in Latin. Because a library is a living thing, books pause there before resuming their journey. For each project, she begins with a questionnaire, diving into tastes, desires, space, and budget. She then mixes new and secondhand finds, right down to the final installation.
I regularly browse her literary curations on Instagram, filling my own shelves with her discoveries. I particularly fell for the book table she set during a @plandetable dinner, orchestrated by Laurianne Melierre around the theme of legacy and crowned by Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea.
FOOTNOTES
Books By the Sea - Abdulrazak Gurnah
