Bookish Spots of Paris: The Village Voice

Photo Source

My last Bookish Spots of Paris will feature The Village Voice, a lovely little bookshop located on La Rue Princesse near St. Germain des Pres. This bookshop did not have the fascination and touristy charm of Shakespeare and Co or the attractive proprietor of I Love My Blender, but what it lacks in side benefits, it more than makes up for in sheer excellence as a bookshop. This stop was actually featured in one of my required walks through Paris for my study abroad, and I was so glad to have been directed here. I actually purchased more books here than in any other shop in Paris, for two main reasons: first of all, the prices were better, and second, the books were arranged in a manner that made them completely accessible and tantalizing. The shop was an absolute haven of contemporary literature. I distinctly remember a large, square table in the back of the shop, piled high with books in stacks on top of the table. I remember writing titles frantically in my notebook as I perused and tried to make a few selections. The shop abounded with handwritten suggestions and recommendations. I finally walked away with The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamed, a book I didn't enjoy but can't part with because I bought it in Paris, and Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, something all my friends were also reading at the time. (I know it isn't very popular in the book blogosphere, but I still have a special fuzzy spot in my heart for that book).

If I were to live in Paris, rather than visit it as a giddy twenty-something desperate to take in every moment, I think the Village Voice would be "my" bookstore - the place I went when I had a serious intention to read. Shakespeare and Co and I Love My Blender are amazing places to visit for their respective reasons. They each also offer a fantastic selection of books, and I had wonderful experiences in both of them - certainly more memories than in the Village Voice. However, the organization and quiet coziness of the Village Voice would make it the place I returned to again and again for book recommendations and delicious new stories.

Bookish Spots of Paris: Shakespeare and Company

Shakespeare & Co. was one of the first bookish places I stumbled across in Paris. Here is Hemingway's description of the wonderful place:

On a cold windswept street, this was a warm, cheerful place with a big stove in winter, tables and shelves of books, new books in the window, and photographs on the wall of famous writers both dead and living. The photographs all looked like snapshots and even the dead writers looked as though they had really been alive.

One of my classes required us to take daily "walks," tours outlined in a guidebook written by the professors of my college's French department. However, the first few days of the study abroad were free, and my roommate Lisa and I found ourselves tagging along with a girl who had a thick guidebook and a good sense of direction. We found ourselves in front of Shakespeare and Co. as the guidebook girl read that Ernest Hemingway had slept here (which, I am pretty sure, isn't actually true. But more about that later). After perusing the book cart of free books in front of the store (mostly gardening books, romance mass market paperbacks, and books about dealing with the stresses of PMS) we slipped inside.

The first floor was essentially a quirky English bookstore, with bookshelves towering with books on all sides. A dilapidated piano rested near a staircase. At the top of the staircase were several rooms filled with beds, desks, decrepit typewriters, walls with post-it notes and Polaroids, benches, and used books. A paper sign requested that we not remove books from the floor or try to purchase them - they were for research purposes only.

In love? Yes sir. The picture below shows me on my first visit to Shakespeare and Co. Behind are some of the reference books, and in front of me an impromptu game of checkers (played with chess pieces) with my roommate Lisa. This room was my favorite room to study in.

I don't honestly remember how many visits I made to Shakespeare & Co. - more than two but fewer than five - but the last visit I made stands out in my mind in particular. It was a rainy day and the end of the semester. As part of our "walking tour" class, we were required to keep a journal of our reflections about the different places we had visited and had a few other little assignments to finish, so we decided to spend the afternoon at Shakespeare & Co. After taking several pictures (such as the Hemingway-bed one below) we all settled down, some of my friends taking naps, some reading, some doing homework. I settled down to write (and noticed the girl next to me was reading an ancient-looking copy of The History of the Bohemian Movement or something along those lines) when I noticed a boy with burgundy Chuck Taylors messing with something. At first I thought it was some kind of vegetable, but then I realized it was a joint. I should mention that I live a pretty sheltered life - I had never seen marijuana before and haven't seen it since. I was kind of blown away by this discovery and started surreptitiously "people-watching" the boy. He looked straight out of a Salinger book - disaffected but intellectual. He left for a moment and returned with a black lab, and took his joint and the dog out for a walk. For some reason that little incident is poignant in my mind, I think just because it seemed like something that would happen in a book.

My fingers cramped up and I was getting bored, so I went downstairs and asked the cashier if I could play the dilapidated piano. She said, "That's what it's there for," so I went for it. I played a little Chopin and Debussy, thus crossing off my bucket list dream of playing Debussy in a crowded cafe in Paris (I consider a bookstore even better than a cafe). I then played the one solitary piece I've ever composed, a little rambling rhapsody that I don't play very often because being praised for it by my family made me more sensitive about playing it in public for some reason. A few tourists stopped and took pictures of me playing, despite the complete lack of a damper pedal and dissonant off-tune chords. When I go back there, I definitely have a date with that piano.

Shakespeare & Co. stands out in my mind as one of my most-loved places in Paris, despite the fact that I never purchased a book there. However, I only recently learned more about its history. My grandma gave me a copy of A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway because there was a chapter entitled "Shakespeare & Co." I read the chapter yesterday, only a few pages. Hemingway mentioned that he loved the bookstore because he was short on money and the proprietor, Sylvia Beach, had a lending program that he could pay for. He soon became a frequenter of the place. I found no mention of him sleeping there, although there are definitely beds to sleep on. The location I visited is actually a different store than that visited by Hemingway and his contemporaries. It is a store owned currently by Sylvia Beach Whitman, the daughter of George Whitman, the second owner of Shakespeare & Co. So it has passed through the same lineage as the original, but is in a different location. (Rumor has it the first location closed because Sylvia Beach wouldn't give a German officer occupying Paris a copy of Finnegan's Wake. And why would he want to read Finnegan's Wake??) It is actually in an old monastery - cool fact that I just discovered a moment ago. That location, the current location, was commonly frequented by the Beat generation, writers such as Allen Ginsberg. Regardless of whether the Lost Generation of authors frequented the actual spot where I studied and read, the location holds all the charm of 1930's Paris. It is a must-visit destination for the bookish traveler.

Note: Historical information paraphrased from Wikipedia.

Bookish spots of Paris: Victor Hugo

Guess what? There are tons of bookish places in Paris related to Victor Hugo. In fact, I am sure there are many more than I had the opportunity to visit. After this last weekend in California with my husband's family (in which we watched the 25th anniversary Les Mis DVD 1.8 times, listened to the new CD recording 2.6 times, and quoted the songs 2,394 times) I have an even deeper love for Victor Hugo. The Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame enchanted me in elementary school, I struggled through Les Miserables for the first time my sophomore year of high school, and I read The Hunchback of Notre Dame my first few weeks in Paris. I love this author. Here are just a few of the places paying homage to him.

This is a statue of Victor Hugo by Rodin. I loved Rodin's home and work and was very excited to see his tribute to Hugo.

I went to Victor Hugo's house while I was in Paris. None of these photographs are phenomenal because we weren't allowed to use flash, but I had to capture his writing desk. I also bought a book by Hugo in the museum shop - the only one I could afford (or hope to decipher in French) - a book of his poems, Les Contemplations. I planned to read one poem a day to keep up my French. This did not happen, but now that I'm thinking of it I want to try again at some point.

When I was in Paris I developed an obsession with chandeliers. So I took this picture of Victor Hugo's chandelier. Behold.

Hugo's house was full of art - pieces from his own collection (many of which were disturbing and featured Hell or Sodom and Gomorrah) and renditions of characters from his books. I took quite a few pictures but most of them didn't turn out very well. This is Esmerelda.

We of course also paid (many) visits to Notre Dame. Rather than favoring you with an awkwardly taken, squinty picture of a tiny me in front of Notre Dame, I thought I would just give you a few aspects of the cathedral other than the familiar structure. This is the big bell that Quasimodo loved and could feel even though he was deaf. Being so close to this huge bell was pretty awe-inspiring.

There were beautiful plaques as a tribute to Hugo throughout the cathedral. Once the city of Paris planned to tear down Notre Dame - it was decrepit and mostly abandoned. Hugo wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame to save the cathedral. I can't decipher the whole plaque (should have transcribed it when the memory was fresh, not two years later) but the gist of what it says is this: he defended very expressively describing (something illegible) the walls, the sound of the bells, something about the towers, etc.

This is the most photographed gargoyle of the cathedral. Here is my picture of it. Hooray!

My favorite part of Notre Dame wasn't lighting a candle or attending mass (an interesting experience for me because I am not Catholic!). It was climbing the towers and looking down on all of Paris. My friends and I didn't want to come down and did all kinds of crazy things like ballroom dancing with brooms on the roof. Of course, now I am much too mature to behave in that manner (right...).

This is Victor Hugo's place in the Pantheon. (And Alexandre Dumas' as well, incidentally). It was awe-inspiring to know that I was in the same place as Hugo's body - I haven't spent much time in cemeteries and to think that on the other side of the stone was what remained of this heroic author is still unbelievable to me. Although his body lies in the Pantheon, his soul is immortal in his writing.

Bookish Spots of Paris: I Love My Blender

Ever since my study abroad in May of 2008, I can't help but feel nostalgic during the month of May. Going to Paris was a childhood dream, and I worked and saved money for the trip for over a year. Spending seven weeks in France whetted instead of satiated my appetite for all things French, and even now I get a little misty when I look back at my pictures. One thing that surprised me was the abundance of fantastic bookshops. For the next four weeks, I want to highlight a bookish spot that I fell in love with when I went to Paris.

This week's spot is I Love My Blender, a fantastic little spot on 36 Rue de Temple that I stumbled across completely by accident. One afternoon after classes, my roommate Lisa and I decided to wander the streets surrounding the our building. There were a few cafes, several expensive boutiques, the panini stands where we bought lunch each day, and a quaint little window, filled with brightly colored objects and books with a sign saying I Love My Blender. We had been told that day in class that we needed to buy a map, so we figured it was as good a place as any. We wandered into the shop, requested a map in awkward French, and were directed to a small display near the cash register by a young, smiling Parisian. As we looked for an appropriate map, I was distracted by the books on the shelves next to the register - I saw French versions of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares, The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, and the Harry Potter books. I thought for a few seconds about buying myself a French translation of one of these books that I loved and knew so well, but decided against it - I wanted to save my money for other things, and I had already brought four books with me.

However, I didn't realize that the forty minute train ride each way from Le Pecq (where I was staying) to Paris would quickly eat up my books, as well as the hour or two we spent in the parks reading and relaxing during the hottest parts of the afternoon (more on that in a future post). Soon I had devoured all my books except A Tale of Two Cities (which I am reading now... I have a complicated relationship with the book). In my French literature class we had just finished reading the madeleine story by Proust (which is stunning in French, I might add) and I decided the perfect souvenir/way to stretch my book-loving mind was to buy a copy of Remembrance of Things Past by Proust. (I had no idea how huge or difficult it was). So I made my way to the only bookstore I knew, I Love My Blender.

After a few minutes of poking through the shelves, the store-owner asked me if I needed help. I explained what I was looking for and he told me that all of his books were either written in English or translated from English into French. Oh. I felt a little embarrassed, especially because this was a young, handsome French man, speaking entirely in

French to me, unlike most of the people I interacted with, who would switch to English as soon as they realized I was American. However, even after I realized the story didn't have what I was looking for, I couldn't drag myself away. Further exploration showed that a little fewer than half the books were in English, with their translated counterparts on the other side. Little signs saying "Read This Book!" in English directed me to some of the owner's favorites.

After that, I stopped into the shop at least once a week, bringing more friends each time. The shop-owner was always friendly and helpful, giving recommendations of different books and having conversations with me about books we had both read. It was nerve-wracking to have these conversations in French, but my enthusiasm for the subject (and slight crush on the shop-owner) kept me persevering. He asked us where we were from and told us we spoke very good French - to this day I don't know if he was sincere or flirting with les filles americaines a little bit, but I do know I turned several shades of red. We talked about Elizabeth Gilbert's writing style and he recommended the brilliant but acid-trippy Cloud Atlas to me.

I don't know if the shop is still there, but I earnestly hope that it is. (I know I have one or two French readers - have you ever been here?) When I return to Paris, 36 Rue de Temple is one of the first stops I want to make. The bookshop led me to some of my favorite books and also some of the best conversations I've ever had in a foreign language.

Oh, and I should mention - I asked him where the name of his shop came from. He shrugged his shoulders. I then asked if he loved his blender and he got this look of utter love on his face and emphatically nodded his head. So there you go.