Shakespeare & Co.

NB: I stole this from the internet.

Thank goodness for rainy afternoons; without them, I might have never stopped in Shakespeare and Company, the famous bookstore in the Latin Quarter.  I was on my way to the Musée Cluny and took a respite from the weather for an hour there.

I generally try to avoid English-speaking places, since I am here to learn French, but now that I've visited Shakes & Co I won't be able to stop going back.

It. Is. Magic.

Downstairs there is a hodgepodge of small winding rooms, with contemporary books on shelves from floor to ceiling, a nook for all things Shakespeare, a table display of only books with red covers, and a doorway covered in notes offering and requesting English speaking fill in the blanks.

On the wall next to the stairway there are cartoon portraits in olive and cream of some of the many writers who have frequented the store.

Upstairs, there is a room with low mattresses covered in Indian blankets and a piano for anyone to play.  In the hallway there is a cubbyhole with one chair, one typewriter, fairy lights and the notes of dreamers past.  If you sit in the stall and read the notes, one will say, "I wrote a piece of music this year and I played it for the first time on your piano."  Another will say, "Thank you."  Yet another will say, "I fell in love in this room."  There is a reading room with mismatched chairs and benches, fresh flowers and a window that looks over the Seine.  The books upstairs are not for sale.  You may read one, like Lady Chatterly's Lover, while you sit in the Reading Room.

A bibliophile,
Maria