Paris is full of a million beautiful things. Creperies line the cobbled stone winding streets that intertwine to meet in perfectly chaotic squares of rushing businessmen in silk suits, freshly baked baguettes in hand. The Eiffel Tower peeks out over rooftops, sparkling in the sun; its architectural art on display. Coffeehouses overfill into the streets, the music of the French language spilling past doorways to fill the air, mixing with the sound of honking horns as cars navigate streets that have no laws or lines to begin with. Paris is a city of beauty along every corner, curve, and angle of its old bits and pieces, but the one gem I will forever tell anyone who will listen about, is Shakespeare and Company Bookstore.
This bookstore, tucked along a street across the Seine from Notre Dame, is quite famous. Shakespeare and Company is actually the name of two separate bookstores. Sylvia Beach opened the first shop with this name in 1919. Ernest Hemingway, Ford Madox Ford, and Ezra Pound frequented this original store in the 1920’s. It is a central place in the history of The Lost Generation. Unfortunately, it closed during the German occupation of Paris in 1940 and was never re-opened. However, in 1951 another bookstore was opened, this time by a man named George Whitman. Although this store is in a different location than Beach’s original shop, Whitman renamed his bookstore Shakespeare and Company in tribute to the shop that had been such an important aspect of the arts all those years before.
I fell in love with Paris and all it has to offer, but I am leaving with a piece of my heart hidden in a corner of this bookstore. I come from a long-line of book lovers. My grandfather on my mother’s side was a butcher living in eastern Washington. My mom has told me that he could always be found with a book in his hand, on any subject under the sun. My father is the same way and books have been such an amazing part of our relationship since the day I learned to read. Before I could do that however, my mom read to me almost every night. She taught me the power of a good story and what it is like to get lost in between lines of text. As I have gotten older, that connection to books hasn’t changed. Seeing Shakespeare and Company was important to me, and the bookstore did not disappoint.
Walking up to the shop, it is split into almost three separate spaces, each with its own entrance. There is a little coffeehouse on the far left; a one-room store lined with books in the middle, and the third door opens up into the main bookstore. I quickly skipped over the first two entrances to walk through the final door. The place was a bit crowded, which usually will turn me off, but nothing could have made me dislike this special space. The store is small and cramped, filled from floor to ceiling with new and old books alike. It has that distinct smell of a good bookstore: fresh pages, old-stories, and a dose of peacefulness. I explored a bit, winding my way around, fingers tracing title after title along book’s spins. I found a stairway in the back of the story and climbed the steep steps.
The second floor was my favorite spot in all of Paris. The air was full of rich history and memories. Books filled every corner of the floor. An old piano sat, squeezed in between hundreds of pages of words in black lettering. An alcove was situated underneath a shelf of books. The alcove was full of pillows and blankets and on the walls surrounding it were messages from people from all over the world. The notes were written on old-receipts and napkins, on Polaroid pictures and ripped paper. They were taped, glued, and gummed to the wall. They were stories in themselves, telling one-word memories and one-sentence memoirs. Another little space created by a house of books held an old-typewriter, and lined along its borders were further bits and pieces of words. The floor opened up to a main room that led to a window overlooking the Seine. An old man and woman, dressed in a fancy suit and dress, sat at a tiny table beside the window, sipping champagne and toasting to what I can only guess is one incredible love story.
If there is one place to visit in Paris, this bookstore is it. I won’t soon forget it, but even if I do, I left a reminder for myself. In between the bits of written memory in an alcove on a second floor of a famous bookstore along the Seine is a new note, written with scrawled blue letters on an old-train ticket.
