Shakespeare and Company, Paris: A Must for Booklovers

Shakespeare and Company, Paris: A Must For Book Lovers

“In the footsteps of literary giants I crossed the threshold of Shakespeare & Company and entered the world of famous writers and their books. A dream of mine come true in Paris…” – Annette Charlton

Shakespeare and Company

Today I’m going to share with you one of the loveliest English bookstores in Paris, Shakespeare and Company. I’ll share where it is, little tips on how to take home a souvenir from the bookstore and why I think you’ll love this Parisian bookstore.

Childhood memories and books blend together in my mind.  As a child some of my best memories revolve around books. My sister and I were avid readers, it could have been because as children we never had a television set until I was 13 years old, or maybe it was because books were our silent companions during the many happy church lectures and functions we attended as a family.

Or, it may have been that our mother and father read aloud to us each, and every night, until we could fluently read ourselves. What a precious gift our parents gave to us; the love of books and the joy of reading!

Secondhand Book Stores

I have wonderful memories of searching the shelves and piles of books with my mother and sister in our local second hand book shop in Blackwood, South Australia. We always went home with books from this store, the local library, the newsagent (who stocked Trixie Belden, Famous Five, Noddy, Secret Seven, The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew) and the bookstore near the roundabout!

I can still picture our bedrooms and my dad’s study overflowing with bookcases and books.

A Book Lover and Francophile

Not much has really changed from when I was a young girl. I still love books and still have more books than fit in my house. We have extra boxes of books in our boat shed and storage unit and still continue to buy more. What can I say!

I gravitate to bookstores wherever I am in the world and usually bring home more books than I can comfortably manage in my suitcase.

Some of my favourite stores are Waterstones in Piccadilly Circus, London and in Oxford (opposite the Bodleian Library); Kinokuniya Bookshop and Abbey Bookstore, both in Sydney; Archives Fine Books in Brisbane and now Shakespeare & Company in Paris.

History of Shakespeare and Company, Paris

Shakespeare and Company is an English-language bookshop in the heart of Paris, on the banks of the Seine, opposite Notre-Dame.

Since opening in 1951, it’s been a meeting place for anglophone writers and readers, becoming a Left Bank literary institution. ‘The original Shakespeare and Company, located at 12 rue de l’Odéon, which doubled as a library, publisher and boarding house for aspiring writers, was opened by American Sylvia Beach in 1919 and was featured in Ernest Hemingway’s memoir, A Moveable Feast.

The store closed during World War II, and was reopened in its current form in 1951 by George Whitman, whose daughter, Sylvia (named after Beach), runs the store now.

When the current store first opened, it was called Le Mistral but George Whitman changed it to its present name in April 1964 (on the four hundredth anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth), in honour of Beach.

Even though the current store is not the original gathering place for the great expat writers of the early century —Joyce, Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgerald, Eliot and Pound, it still has its own history and mystic.

Out the front, bookstands surround an ornate Wallace drinking fountain, erected in the 19th century to service Paris’ poorest who did not have access to fresh water. I love that these fountains still offer free fresh drinking water. The story of Paris’ Wallace Fountains is a great read.

Shakespeare and Company Café, Paris

The store is divided between two buildings, one with new publications, a library and tiny museum; and the other (The Antiquarian) with secondhand and antique books. If you can’t wait to read your new purchase then head next door to the Shakespeare and Company cafe, grab a coffee and start reading straight away!

The quaint main store pays homage to writers and literature with cosy reading nooks, an intimate atmosphere and a wonderful writer’s study recreated on the upper floor.

You can feel the love that the store owners and staff have for books, writers and literature in general. The store runs poetry readings; book launches; author signings; children’s storytelling and musical events.

Check out the current events held at Shakespeare and Company. I really recommend going up the tight staircase to the upper floor to see the study re-creation, mini museum and to check out the unique view of the Ile de Cite through the upper window.

Buying A Book From Shakespeare and Company, Paris

Another delight is when you purchase a book from this store they stamp the inside cover with the genuine bookstore stamp, pop a bookmark in your book and place the book in a paper bag with a famous quote.  At the moment this is ‘Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read’. Groucho Marx.  I love this quirky saying.

‘Perhaps more unusual, however, are the makeshift beds tucked between some of the shelves. For Whitman, an eccentric ex-serviceman who travelled around the world before deciding to settle in Paris, didn’t simply own a bookstore. What he created was, in own words, a “socialist utopia masquerading as a bookshop”: a bohemian refuge where down and out, mostly expatriate writers could mingle, write, and even bed down for the night – all in exchange for a few hours’ work in the shop, and on the strict understanding that they read a book every single day.’   From the article Turning the Page at Shakespeare and Company by Leah Hyslop

Sylvia Beach continues to offer writers a bed to sleep for the night, but has set a limit of six writers sleeping at any one time.

Books As Souvenirs

I suggest completing this wonderful experience by purchasing a book and getting it stamped. What a fabulous souvenir!

The only difficulty you’ll have is making sure you don’t purchase too many and be unable to carry your suitcase! I always find books everywhere I go that I “simply cannot live without” and so by the end of any trip, I end up carrying all the extra books as carry on luggage and saving myself a trip or two to the gym.

If you like to theme your travel trips on famous books, people or movies, then Shakespeare and Company is a must for you. The current store has been featured in many movies including my all time favourite Parisian movie, Midnight in Paris by director Woody Allen.

Shakespeare and Company Bookstore Address

Have you visited Shakespeare & Company? I must admit the first time I visited the store, I wandered around in circles trying to find it, only just missing it by metres. I kept walking down the wrong street, so here is the address:

37 rue de la Bûcherie
75005 Paris, France
Main Shop: Everyday, 10am – 11pm | Antiquarian:  Tuesday to Saturday, 11am – 7pm

If there is no space to eat at the Shakespeare and Company cafe, Odette is literally just around the corner. Odette is well known for making the best creme puffs in Paris so you can read your book while sampling the sweetest creme puffs ever.