Why Go To Paris to Buy Books?

It's a good question. But wherever we go, when we are on vacation, we treat ourselves to bookstores. It makes sense. We do more reading when we travel. Especially on long airplane trips. We enjoy browsing books, seeing what's available, picking them up and reading a paragraph or two. I remember when I tramped around Europe in 1972 that I was always on the lookout for books and magazines in English. I traded with other travelers, found little shelves in department stores with a few English titles on offer. On that trip I spent very little time in France and just a small amount of time in French-speaking Switzerland and even in French (ostensibly my best foreign language) reading a novel is too challenging.

We made three different English-language bookstores part of our Paris experience: Village Voice, Shakespeare and Company and The Red Wheelbarrow. We went back a second time to the first two. We bought several books. One was published in the UK and one in South Africa so those editions probably wouldn't be seen at our local store. We eschewed the big bookstores on the Rue de Rivoli. We enjoyed the love and care of books that these little independent stores reflect. We sat in the upstairs 'reference, sleeping and meeting' room of Shakespeare one day and read and wrote and reflected while shouts from soccer fans penetrated the cloudy day outside. We went back for a reading session in that space, too. We had a long talk with the proprietor of the Red Wheelbarrow about books, bookstores and jazz. (Her husband is a jazz pianist.) We collect independent bookstores wherever we go. They are getting more and more endangered. I'm glad Paris has these three. There are others, too. One, called Tea and Tattered Pages, is a combo tea room and book store. We didn't get to visit because they were closed for the month of May. But we did locate it and peek in the window.

This is how we travel. I no longer question it. Whether it's Crawford Doyle in New York or the Village Voice, you have to marvel at how they can present so many amazing titles in such cramped quarters.