This morning it was raining hard. I was tempted to cuddle up with my Kindle and stay in all day, but I have this rule for myself: go out every day. So I put on my rainboots, grabbed my umbrella, and faced the elements.
Shakespeare & Company is a pretty easy walk from my apartment. It's across from Notre Dame and around the corner from Place St-Michel on Rue de la Bucherie.
The original Shakespeare & Company was opened on November 17, 1919 by Sylvia Beach on rue de L'Odeon in the 6th arrondissement. It was a hangout for the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James Joyce. The store was a lending library as well as a bookstore. Besides loaning Hemingway money on an occasion, Sylvia Beach published Ulysees for James Joyce in 1922.
The store closed in 1941 during the German occupation of World War II.
In 1951, George Whitman opened a bookstore on rue de la Bucherie called Le Mistral. In 1964 after Beach's death, he changed the name of his bookstore to Shakespeare & Company. The store is jam-packed with English language books of all types and in order to find anything it's necessary to side-step tourists and book buyers through little twisted aisles with overflowing bookshelves reaching to the ceiling.
On the second floor there is a library where visitors are welcome to read and enjoy any of the books in that area. The second floor is also where aspiring writers live. Yes, the tradition remains today. Lucky (well maybe!) aspiring writers can stay in one of the beds on the second floor free.
Not that I'm thinking of moving. There is no privacy, no showers, and I've heard there are bedbugs. And since that dog in the photo lives there too, there are probably fleas.
George Whitman's daughter, Sylvia Beach Whitman, now runs the bookstore and when you buy a book there they stamp the inside.
On a rainy day in Paris it's a fun place to pass some time. The people watching is as interesting as the book browsing.
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