Friday, May 6, 2011

Shakespeare and Co.




After one of my final exams today, I decided to reward myself with some tourist excursions, including visiting Shakespeare and Company. Shakespeare and Co. is an independent English-language bookstore located in the 5th arrondissement of Paris on the Left Bank. Originally established in 1919 by Sylvia Beach, in the 1920s the store was a gathering place for writers such as Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, William S. Burroughs, James Joyce and Ford Madox Ford. The current store is named after and in honor of the earlier store which closed during World War II. 

While I had seen pictures of the famous exterior facade, I had no idea what the inside would look like, so I was surprised when I walked inside, I felt I just just entered a new world, similar to the Middle Ages or Harry Potter. There were bookshelves from floor to ceiling and the walls were irregularly shaped and protruded at different angles. I found myself wandering around trying to figure out the organization of the store to no avail. I did notice that there were sections for fiction, mystery, spirituality, etc. like any bookstore, but then there were also sections for the Lost Generation, which I never did find (I just know it exists somewhere because of a sticker placed on the Fiction shelf near the H's to direct people on where to find Hemingway). There were also antique books in the shop next door. After just a few minutes of wandering it was clear that I would not find the books I was looking for and decided I would be better off using Amazon instead. Despite not finding the books on my personal summer reading list, I found the shop itself very impressive and am glad I visited.

In case you are interested, here are some titles of the books I plan to read this summer.

Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald 

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