Shakespeare and Company is an amazing bookstore in Paris.
I found the above video, via Bookshelf Porn, here.
While in Paris I bought a couple beautiful editions of books there.
I just love being in that bookstore, it feels like home.
Everything here encourages creativity. A tiny enclosed bureau, lined with rugs and a blue painted chair, bears the sign: “Feel free to use the typewriter for your lovely writing/creative ventures.” Notes from customers are scrawled in all languages. “A friend told me if I ever felt lonely to come to Shakespeare & Company,” one says. Visitors are so effusive that a few years ago George installed what he calls a “mirror of love”, where hundreds more scribblings are pinned, from the surreal to the touching: “Dear Granny, I would like you to come to Paris with me”, reads one. “Books insulate this nest of wandering dreams”, reads another, “there should always be a place where stories reign over commercial enterprise.”
Opened in 1951 by George Whitman, it was originally named “Le Mistral” but renamed to “Shakespeare and Company” in 1964 in tribute to Sylvia Beach’s bookstore [the original Shakespeare and Co.].[3] Today, it serves both as a regular bookstore and as a reading library, specializing in English-language literature. The shop was featured in the Richard Linklater filmBefore Sunset and in the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris.[4]
…
Its premises, the site of a 16th-century monastery,[10] are at 37 rue de la Bûcherie, near Place Saint-Michel, just steps from the Seine, Notre Dame and the Île de la Cité.[10]
– Wikipedia
If you’re ever in Paris and get the chance, swing by this Parisian institution. Shakespeare and Co. is home to beautiful books that cover it from floor to ceiling. A true gift to the ex-pat community in Paris.