Visit a bookshop that influenced Hemingway and Anais Nin

A trip to Shakespeare and Company is the perfect place to gain inspiration for writers and classic book lovers.

When I travel, I always try to visit bookstores and libraries and my trip to Paris this summer was no different.

As my regular subscribers know, I was in Italy this summer during its record-breaking heatwave. After a week of unbearable temperatures, we fled the country and went in search of cooler climates in France. I hadn’t done any pre-planning for Paris, but, of course, a stop at the famous Shakespeare and Company immediately went on the list of things to do as I had wanted to visit for some time.

On our first full day in Paris, we rose late and headed out. We took an Uber to the bookstore in the Latin Quarter, but stopped for much needed crepes and café au laits before we went book shopping. The air was cool and we lingered on the café’s flower laden patio, drinking coffee and wine, gazing at Notre Dame, and people watching.

The café was next to the bookstore and, as we rounded the corner, we saw a rather long line to enter the store. We were full of crepes and wine, and the weather was refreshingly cool (at least compared to Italy) so we happily took our place. The line moved quickly and we were all thankful for it in the end as the bookstore staff kept the number of people in the store to a number that allowed for comfortable browsing. (Travel hint: In her wonderful travel book, Don’t Be a Tourist in Paris, Vanessa Grall recommends going to the store in the evening to avoid crowds.)

While in the bookstore, I came across a woman, sitting cross-legged in one of the old, wing-backed chairs that were tucked into a corner of the stacks. Her eyes were closed and she had a serene look on her face despite the fact that tourists were swirling around her. I imagined that she was a writer, meditating on (maybe conjuring?) the ghosts of all the writers who found inspiration for their masterpieces in that shop. If my family hadn’t been in tow, I might have pulled up a chair beside her.

The Original Shakespeare and Company

The original Shakespeare and Company doesn’t exist anymore. Founded in 1919 by American Sylvia Beach, it was located at 12 rue de l’Odean. Its regular clientele included James Joyce, Ernst Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was shut down by the Nazi’s in 1941 during their occupation and never reopened.

Although none of us can travel to Sylvia’s shop, we can visit it through books including:

A Moveable Feast by Ernst Hemingway

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

The Paris Bookshop by Kerri Maher

Shakespeare and Company Today

The shop I visited this summer was opened in 1951 by another American, George Whitman. It was originally named Le Mistral, This shop also hosted a long list of iconic writers including Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Anais Nin, and Henry Miller.

Whitman was a friend of Sylvia Beach and she bequeathed the name of her store to hin, He renamed his shop, Shakespeare and Company in 1964. His daughter, Sylvia Whitman (named after Sylvia Beach), runs the shop to this day.

This shop offered a Tumbleweed program which allowed writers to sleep for free in the shop in exchange for working for a few hours, reading a book in a day, and writing a short autobiography for the bookstore’s archives. It seems the program is on hiatus right now, but I, for one, am desperately hoping it will be brought back and I will happily put my name on the list.

My only regret about my visit to the shop this summer was that I didn’t know about the past Tumbleweeds’ archives upstairs. A good excuse to return. (As if I needed one!)

A bit of Shakespeare and Company in the U.S.

While I was reading The Paris Bookshop, I did some research about Sylvia Beach online and stumbled onto a hotel named after her in Newport, Oregon. Sylvia Beach Inn sounds like a reader’s dream vacation spot and I’ve already forwarded the information to my husband-just in case he wanted to take me there for my birthday or something. (I’m helpful that way.)

Each room is themed after a different author and the entire place is set up for reading with cozy rooms, fireplaces, a library, and views of the ocean (for when you need to rest your eyes from reading. I’ll be sure to write about it here once I visit, but in the meantime, please tell me if you have been there and make us all jealous.

If you know anyone who is traveling to Paris, be sure to share this post with them!