(The shop during my visit there)My visit to the Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore was one of my very favorite parts of my first trip to Paris in 2005. That shop is filled to the brim with treasures and you can't help but feel a thrill when you think of the authors that have wandered through those shelves. Right now I'm actually reading my copy of A Room of One's Own that I bought there. So anyway, thank you Whitman, for creating such an amazing haven for book lovers.
“I wanted a bookstore because the book business is the business of life,” - George Whitman.
p.s. If you want to read more about the shop, I'd recommend a memoir written by Jeremy Mercer, a writer who lived there for awhile. It's called "Time Was Soft There" or "Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs" depending on where you get it.
Photo by moi.
3 comments:
I love read on my Ipad but I wonder if kindles, tablets, smart phones or Ipads will ever give us the feeling we get from looking at a great obviously read collection of books.
Thank you for your tribute to George Whitman. Shakespeare & Co. is an icon and so's Whitman himself, who was honored by the French Ministry of Culture with the Order of Arts and Letters, rare for a non-French person. I visited the bookstore last year. It's a fabulous place for both readers and writers. I didn't have the privilege to meet him there however, which is regrettable.
mel u - I'm still adjusting to reading on my kindle, but it will never be the same for me.
Arti - I wish I'd met him while I was there too, but I didn't. I love that he was honored though, that's wonderful.
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